Ukraine getting creamed

Russian soldier distributing food.

Ukraine is in terrible shape. Their heavy weapons have largely been destroyed, they're "drafting" men into the Army by dragging them in off the street and they're sending them into combat lightly armed, ordered to engage tanks in hand-to-hand combat and being charged with "desertion" if they survive. (This is how Ukrainian paratroopers described it.)

The Ukrainian parliament introduced a bill to allow officers to summarily execute "deserters".

Poroshenko told the German press that Ukraine never intended to adhere to the Minsk accords. They only negotiated the agreements to "buy time". Russia won't trust them in negotiations.

"We had achieved everything we wanted," he said. "Our goal was to first stop the threat or at least to delay the war; to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces." 

Of course, Russia was preparing, too. As a result, U.S. and EU sanctions have hurt the West far more than they have Russia.

If Ukraine were a member of NATO, they would have the third largest army in the alliance after the U.S. and Turkey. The U.S. has been arming them for years. The U.S. started training the Ukrainian army, including the Nazi Azov battalion, under the Obama regime. Ukraine is armed mostly with Soviet weapons but they've been upgraded and perform as well as NATO weapons.

Ukraine is not a weak country. They've been fighting for eight years in Donbass. They're probably better suited to fight the war than any NATO country. But Russia attacked with a smaller force than anyone thought they would need and the Russians are creaming them.

I could be wrong, obviously, but we'll see. Hope it ends soon in any case.