r/worldnews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 21h ago

Russia/Ukraine ‘We Were Mistaken’: Putin Admits Russia Was Unprepared for Ukrainian Strikes on Oil Refineries

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/83674
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u/Tricky-Sentence 20h ago

Hmm I have heard this before...

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them."

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u/Waveofspring 16h ago edited 16h ago

It’s even worse than that. Russia expected Ukraine to surrender on month 1 of the war. I remember many estimates assumed that Kyiv would fall within 2 weeks. Now it’s been 4 years.

Good fucking job Ukraine. I hope they get to keep as much territory as possible after the war ends. Especially Crimea and Donbas

Russia has shown the world that their only true military asset is nukes. They are no longer a superpower.

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u/nickiter 16h ago

I mean, they've also killed several hundred thousand people and done $600B in damage. And it only cost them 1.4M of their own people!

God, those numbers. It's incredible that the world tolerates this. Fucking nukes. They may not be a superpower, but they do have millions of men ready to be sacrificed at the altar of Putin's greater-Russia fantasy.

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u/bstiglets 13h ago

The average life span of a Russian soldier deployed to Ukraine is 35 minutes. I gotta tell you, I’ve watched drone footage of soldiers being singled out and eliminated. Whenever the final image is of a Russian looking directly into the drone’s camera, it’s absolutely chilling.

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u/nickiter 13h ago

That's during an active frontline assault.

But yeah, the fighting in Ukraine has been incredibly bloody. Urban environments along with the advent of drones ... Slaughterhouses.

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u/bstiglets 12h ago

You think Russia would have an understanding of the difficulties of asymmetrical warfare

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u/Ultrasonic-Sawyer 10h ago

Thats 35 minutes active front line, as somebody else indicated. 

That number is scarily very likely surpassed by time from "conscription" to first case of physical and / or sexual abuse by a superior, which is a disgustingly common practice in the Russian military.  

For some of them, that drone strikes may be preferable. 

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u/CicadaFit9756 9h ago

Didn't I once hear that Russians protesting this war had a terrible punishment meant to silence dissent? They were conscripted into the military!

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u/abombSFCA 13h ago

1.4M??? Enlisted or casualties?

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u/Mushie101 13h ago edited 9h ago

That number is Russians (and mercenaries from Africa, India and nth Korea ) that are either dead or severely wounded (like missing limbs and can no longer fight). If I recall correctly the estimate is 2/3 dead 1/3 wounded.

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u/GrimpenMar 12h ago

Russia dead:injured is worse than WW1 I understand. Drones and the grey zones make medical extraction more difficult. Ukraine puts the effort in, Russia does not.

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u/abombSFCA 11h ago

Wow. I imagine this is not well advertised in Russian homeland.

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u/GrimpenMar 10h ago

Certainly not, and I would assume modern Russia maintains the Soviet tradition of reporting only good news up the chain.

Putin isn't dumb, but he has managed to curate his own information bubble, and it's focused more on his personal survival. Plus, you can't collect the wages for your soldiers after they die.

I have no idea what Putin thinks it's going on, or how out of touch most average Russians are. Judging from all the crying when Moscow got hit, the civilians in the core are competent out of the loop.

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u/Mushie101 9h ago

The average lifespan of a Russian soldier on the front is estimated to be 40 minutes. No this is not advertised.
What is advertised is the families are "offered" USD150k if their husbands die. Of course the chance of actually getting that money is 0.0001%. There have been stories of women chatting up young men, marrying them and then convincing them to goto the front so they can get the payout.

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u/SnooDoggos7915 11h ago

I imagine a lot of the Russians didn’t want to be in the war, because what is the point? …compared to Ukraine fighting for their homes, their people & their land! Long live Ukraine!!!

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u/Funny-Carob-4572 4h ago

Russia send men out with missing limbs for assaults

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u/MakeThySelf 10h ago

That's... roughly 1 dead soldier on Russian side every 2 minutes, for over four years. Every nights sleep is an average of another 200 dead, 100 wounded. Fuck.

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u/nickiter 13h ago

Russian war dead.

Ukraine's lost something like 600,000 people.

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u/distributingthefutur 13h ago

Casualties and dead. They see the soldiers get blown up, but can't be sure they don't survive. That said, there aren't that many wounded returning home. There's no evacuation for the wounded and the salaries and bonuses would have to be paid if they were anything other than 'missing.'

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u/abombSFCA 12h ago

Wow that’s way way way more than I thought.

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u/holyluigi 12h ago

war goes both ways just like propaganda. We don't hear much from Ukraine's losses to not diminish morale or hope.
They are doing good having advantage as defenders but its far from curb stomping russia otherwise the war would have been over. Not to mention how drones might keep this war going for far longer than usual wars.

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u/Mushie101 9h ago

Dont forget Ukraine was not allowed to fire missiles into Russia for a looonng time. There is only so much you can do when you have your hands tied behind your back. Now that they have developed their own long range missiles it is helping, but Russia still have alot of them + they are getting alot of drones from Iran and Nth Korea.

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u/Sasquatch1729 11h ago

First one, then the other

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u/Daoin_Vil 11h ago

The Ukrainians have pivoted strategies, they went from trying to take territory back to conceding territory to slaughter Russians. Their goal now is to kill as many soldiers as possible and to bring the war to the average Russian (by bombing major city’s and taking out the oil refineries). They brought the defender attacker ratio up to 1in5 so for every Ukrainian lost five Russian also gone. They now hold out until Russia is about to take a town or city then they retreat and when the Russians come into the town/city they shell the shit out of them then they send in the air drones to bomb the hide outs and the fpv drones pick off the people not hunkered down. Then they send in the ground drones to clear as many buildings or basements as possible followed by live Ukrainian forces to take prisoners and kill the last of the hold outs.

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u/zetimenvec 10h ago

Casualties on the russian side have been extremely lethal. I forget the numbers thrown around in interviews, but something like 70-90% of injured russian casualties turn into fatalities.

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u/amicaze 13h ago

Ready to be sacrificed for like, wayy less than 10k €.

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u/distributingthefutur 13h ago

They all just get counted as missing so nothing gets paid to the families.

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u/QuarterFantastic6134 12h ago

Well fortunately Russia’s current birthrates are markedly below replacement. Meaning their “human wave” strategy will be harder and harder to use when they don’t have those waves of combat-age not severely disabled males to feed the grinder.

Let’s also be honest most of Russia isn’t that developed it’s a shithole. Meaning it isn’t a particularly huge magnet either for physically talented immigrants so this is also not something they can easily solve by just tweaking immigration policies alone either.

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u/Timely_Truth6267 13h ago

1.4 million. Jesus christ

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u/productzilch 12h ago

Jesus, I had no idea how big the disparity was.

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u/Waveofspring 13h ago

The good news about the invasion of Ukraine is that a lot of oligarchs and other Russian higher-ups are starting to doubt Putin’s leadership since the war has been such a slop.

Even though russia hasn’t truly lost at all, they’ve taken way less territory than predicted and Ukraine has been attacking/damaging Russian territory. And of course troop morale is low. It’s not like they’re fighting nazi invaders this time around.

I doubt Putin’s successor will be any less corrupt but hopefully they will at least back down when it comes to the world stage.

Either way, Russia is a weak shell of its former Soviet past. They are not the main rival anymore, and frankly they haven’t been in a while. But the world is just now realizing this.

Whether or not they get the upper hand in Ukraine, they will never capture the entire country, and I seriously doubt they’ll ever take Kyiv.

Regardless of the outcome, Putin’s war in Ukraine is a complete failure.

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u/WideCranberry4912 13h ago

How do the officers control the troops? Why aren’t the troops just straight gutting the officers and taking the equipment and marching on Moscow?

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u/Life-Significance-33 12h ago

Don't assume they have equipment. There were news reports that new conscription troops are told to find a gun on the dead soldiers in the field.

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u/distributingthefutur 13h ago

It's even worse. The only way they can continue is through Chinese manufacturing. From military hardware to all the domestic consumption through Wild berries, etc., it's all Chinese. China is boiling the frog. They supply them enough to keep going, but not enough to win. Eventually, Russia will be so weak, Chinese business people will just buy everything.

There's already a lot of projects around Lake Baikal in Siberia. The locals can't even get enough men together to do construction so the Chinese bring their own people and equipment in. It's an invasion without a shot being fired.

Russia wanted to build a second pipeline to China. It fell through when the Chinese required Russia to pay for it and to guarantee oil at a ridiculously low price. They smell the desperation.

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u/ABadHistorian 12h ago

China really is just going to sweep in and take the upper north eastern part of Russia when Russia experiences civil unrest within the next ten years. Like clockwork, this sort of stuff happens throughout history.

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u/Jolly_Plantain4429 12h ago

Putin might actually get deposed off of this loss, his strong man persona has crumbled and he lost a war that usually leads regime change.

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u/Xigua2001 12h ago

I mean. That’s why they said the nukes were ok back then. Both the United States and Japan agreed more would have died on both sides with the war dragging on if the nukes weren’t used.

Using nukes is a last resort to save more lives… which is weird to say but has held true in their use so far, as they haven’t yet been abused… and hopefully won’t be.

The death tool this war has had and is continuing to have is horrendous. :(

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u/Neomataza 11h ago

Fucking nukes

Proof of having nukes in 1990, but only have been saber rattling since then. With how everything else in their possession deteriorated and malfunctioned, they may or may not be a nuclear threat anymore, but nobody wants to call the bluff.

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u/StormFast524 12h ago

Shows how
Stupid they really are

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u/xShoresy 4h ago

Vast majority of those are prison clean outs and conscripts going in with not even second rate hand me downs from the Russian Salvation Army. They definitely didn't expect the fight that would be put up, but the result is nowhere near a direct reflection of Russian military power. Not to mention this is kind of the only look we've had since WW2 of two actual first world powers going at it large scale. Besides, if we hadn't shovelled a trillion dollars in American assets to em in the first week alone, Putin would be bulldozing Kyiv to build a new super mall.

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u/CarlRJ 14h ago

Famously, other countries offered Zelenskyy evacuation from Ukraine (which they expected to fall in a few days), and he answered (paraphrasing) "I don't need a ride - I could use some ammo, though."

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u/toldyouIaintshit 8h ago

What a badass quote. Thay dude is a G.

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u/old_man_mcgillicuddy 3h ago

The dude was a light comedic TV actor, and assuming he survives and keeps his country mostly intact, probably goes down as one of the history's great wartime leaders.

The quote is badass, actually staying in country is more badass. Fighting off Russia when literally the most optimistic people in the West thought the best Ukraine would do is bloody Russia's nose until a settlement was negotiated. When Russia spent time trying to directly kill/capture you, personally. When you realize that the US wasn't a reliable ally, and keep fighting on. When you build a home grown, grass roots drone industry, that will probably dramatically alter warfare for the next 50 years. When you defeat the Russian Navy without a navy.

Bro's definitely getting a biopic someday.

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u/manubibi 5h ago

Damn he’s such a badass.

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u/AMDKilla 13h ago

Ukraine only want their own territory back. They could push back into Russia and claim some extra. That may even need to happen before Putin will end the war

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u/tweakingforjesus 11h ago

Ukraine is going to need a DMZ when this is over.

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u/ClosedContent 10h ago

They’ve taken Russian territory at various points hoping to barter between the different territories. It’s just hard to maintain when you operate off a limited military personal.

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u/SeeShark 16h ago edited 13h ago

In fairness, Ukraine is not some tiny country; it's 1/4 the size of Russia's population (or was, before the war and resulting refugee crisis), has the home field advantage, more motivated soldiers, and massive amounts of supplies compared to the size of its military. At worst, Russia is doing about as well as expected from a country its size.

You're right that it doesn't look like a superpower, though. It's just a normal huge country, with nukes.

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u/Waveofspring 14h ago

You give a good point. After all the US military (the most powerful contender) failed to secure Afghanistan after 20 years.

At the end of the day, war is complicated. The more powerful side doesn’t always win.

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u/SamsaraSlider 13h ago

eg Vietnam War.

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u/tweakingforjesus 11h ago

Or today’s war in Iran. Dictators will never learn.

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u/SeeShark 10h ago

The war with Iran is completely different, since the US isn't even sending in forces. It thinks it can win a territorial war without securing territory. i.e. it's actually much dumber.

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u/Ovaltine1 13h ago

Or doesn’t want to win. We have a few companies that war is their only product. Very rich companies. Read a book about 20 years ago…searching for enemies if memory serves. It will change your whole perspective. War is a product that we produce. I mean, Raytheon et al are the biggest companies in the world. Totally funded with tax dollars. We can’t not have wars because of these monsters we’ve created. It’s like private prisons, we got to keep em full to honor our contracts.

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u/Significant-Trash632 12h ago

Which is why I hate these companies most of all.

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u/Kevadu 13h ago

The US did steamroll the Afghan military, though. They were just then dealing with an insurgency for years afterwards, which is very different.

Russia hasn't even gotten to that point. They haven't managed to conquer Ukraine to begin with. Do you think if they did there wouldn't still be some resistance?

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u/kirior7 13h ago

Ukraine and Afghanistan are two very different enemies and one had a lot of military support. So I think the earlier comment stands.

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u/Neophyte06 13h ago

Modern warfare with rules makes it way more difficult to pacify countries (good thing)

Can't just go ham on all the regional villages because someone stole your favorite horse 🤣

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u/nachobueno 12h ago

Isn’t that kind of the stabbed in the back myth they cried after Vietnam and really every other conflict America has been in? That they weren’t allowed to fight the way they wanted? If you look closely though you’ll see that what the us military does is exactly go ham on everyone. Reports of massacres and war crimes and “collateral damage” flood out of every combat zone America steps foot in. That’s the problem. You don’t take a country by massacring people, unless you intend to wipe out every last person you get an insurgency. Countries aren’t taken by blood, they’re taken by strategic targets. America doesn’t fight for targets though, America fights for votes. It’s politics, and politics don’t win wars. America, for all of its might, can’t win a war because of this

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u/nderthesycamoretrees 12h ago

USSR tried that for years as well. To no avail.

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u/vanillaleone 4h ago

What is winning anyway? I think there is either deterrence until the aggressor retreats, or the one side drops a nuclear bomb and obliterates a country entirely.

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u/Ok-Relief-462 3h ago

At least we were fighting ours halfway across the globe and actually won most direct engagements; Putin is losing to a neighbor next door (Ukraine BEFORE the war was literally the poorest country in Europe) engaging in WW1 style “throw soldiers at the enemy til they run out of bullets” strategy

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u/maya-ongezellig 13h ago

it is true, but minor counterpoint the terrain russia is getting bogged down in is basically steppe not some mountains or anything which makes it a bit more embarrassing for them

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u/DarthMiwka 11h ago

That's not true in regards of supplies. In 2024 we had 14 newly created brigades, out of which only 3 got the promised equipment. Those brigades were created specifically based on the promised military equipment from the allies that were not provided in time.

Similar thing happened in 2023 during Zaporizhzhya counteroffensive when none of the brigades were provided with crucial equipment and basic equipment was provided with half a year delay, which lead to considerable shifts in counteroffensive timing, givind russia time to prepare.

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u/mcvos 5h ago

And merely being larger has never guaranteed victory. See also the US in Vietnam or Iran.

Most of the territory Russia conquered, it got through surprise in the early days of the war, before Ukraine was ready.

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u/Optimal_Juggernaut37 4h ago

It's just a normal huge country, with nukes.

If they didn't have nukes, this would've been over and done with by now.

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u/CliftonForce 13h ago

America expected Iran to surrender after the first day of bombing.

Similar outlook.

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u/Emotional_Remove_755 12h ago

No, that was just Trump’s expectation. The majority of the neocons knew better, which was why they were all so excited for it.

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u/Phantereal 11h ago

They expected Iran to be like Venezuela.

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u/SilencedFarter 11h ago

Had hoped for another mass uprising of the people but with 40-50k of them killed months earlier fewer were available.

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u/Efficient_Loquat232 11h ago

Funny thing is Americans making fun of Russia killing school children when the US also were doing the same in Iran.

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u/Enough_Way_6719 11h ago

Nobody else chimed in on your comment so figured I would because honestly you’re right. Look at the Russia Ukraine war in the beginning and the tactics used by Putin to hide the true losses he was and has been taking seems oddly familiar… no help from our Ally’s because the one who started the war we are wrapped up in.. Bibi.. cough.. cough is an international war criminal. We no longer have enough munitions to launch a successful shoring or put foot’s on the ground without dwarfing the losses sustained in Vietnam. We’ve burned through our tomahawks like we’re burning through the national debt and we’ve won this war 200 times over but the straight is still Iranian controlled 🤦‍♂️

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u/Tinosdoggydaddy 13h ago

4 years, 6 months, 11 days

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u/Gargleblaster25 14h ago

I hope the Ukrainians get Belgorod and Kursk back as well.

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u/Aes_Should_Die 13h ago

They actually thought it would take less than a week. They thought the people would cheer their arrival.

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u/Huitzil37 13h ago

Putin's invasion of Ukraine is one of the greatest military blunders in modern history. He's utterly mulching manpower and materiel in exchange for nothing. He's so desperate he accepted malnourished incompetent North Korean troops who didn't speak or read Russian, can't use his weapons systems, and can't communicate with his command.

Putin has shown once again the fall of all authoritarian militaries: they fucking suck. When Dear Leader gets mad when you tell him what he doesn't want to hear and can't delegate military power for fear of a coup, then Dear Leader doesn't know how much military power he has or how he can employ it. Putin declared war so quickly that his own army was surprised, and only after the invasion started did he realize about 30% of his military didn't exist, and a bunch more of it was incompetent.

I've heard people say that "oh, this is all Bush's fault, the Iraq war taught him this was okay" amd no, no it didn't, this guy paid no attention whatsoever to Iraq. If he had, he'd have seen what a bad idea that was. He also annexed Crimea, which lit a fire under Ukraine's ass to modernize their military and get their shit together instead of being a corrupt post-Soviet disaster like Russia. Then, after giving Ukraine a bunch of time to get its shit together, he invaded again. It turned the annexation of Crimea from "a shameless act of imperialism that he completely got away with" to "shooting himself in the dick." Every decision Putin made was incorrect.

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u/FatuousDoorstop 13h ago edited 13h ago

I remember when George W. Bush and his advisors thought the Iraq war would be over in a few months. Nobody ever learns.

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u/cptnrandy 13h ago

Frankly, other than nukes, the Soviets, and then the Russians have NEVER been a superpower.

During the Cold War the Pentagon and the CIA/NSA knew that most of there naval fleet couldn’t leave the docks, and there other armaments were badly designed, built, and maintained. But the US government use them as the boogeyman so that they could spend outrageous sums and line the pockets of their buddies and themselves.*

*See Dwight Eisenhower.

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u/QuarterFantastic6134 13h ago edited 12h ago

Even for their nuclear arsenal an updated, realistic assessment of their abilities (AKA downwards) is in order.

Their wonder weapons like the Terminator and Kinzhal have proven to be quite mortal flops. Their powerful Moskva is now an underwater heritage site.

Would giggle to see the professional assessments being like 1/4 of the Russian military hardware is not up to the specs they advertise (because of contract kickbacks), 1/4 of hardware is not adequately maintained (because of stolen fuel/ammo/wiring sold off) and 1/4 of the hardware is staffed as far as NATO standards are concerned by too insufficiently trained personnel and/or too sufficiently drunk personnel preventing proper use. 😂

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u/PleasantCandidate785 11h ago

If Russia tried to use their nukes, I'd put money on about 50% or more failing to actually detonate. They'll just explode the conventional explosive parts of the warheads and crap nuclear material all over the place.

From a long term damage and cleanup perspective, that's probably worse than if they actually worked.

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u/Mazer1415 12h ago

Sounds like the same thing the US is learning with Iran. One day they’re gonna figure out how to strike us. Neutral flag vessel parked in the Caribbean or Mexico with a shit ton of drones and there goes the world economy.

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u/OldPro1001 12h ago

Ukraine would have to regain Zaporizhia and the rest of Kherson to mostly get back to where they were before the invasion. I'd like to see them regain Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea as well, but I'm not optimistic. At a minimum it would be nice to see them drop the Kerch Strait bridge.

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u/Waveofspring 11h ago

For sure. I personally dont expect much of a victory from Ukraine, but they’ve definitely done better than expected and I don’t see a Russian victory in the future either.

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u/jws1102 12h ago

If they’d been able to capture the Kiev airport the first night it may have only taken 2 weeks. But about 300 brave Ukrainian soldiers saved their whole country that night.

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u/TinkTink3 11h ago

I’d be ok if Ukraine turned Russia into Ukraine

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u/Professional_Army205 11h ago

This reminds me of another war where the aggressor thought it would be over in 1 month. 🫪

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u/rsten10 11h ago

Seems to be a lot of that going on with dictators attacking other countries!

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u/HoopyFroodJera 4h ago

It's kind of insane how humbled both Russia and the US have been recently.

They were considered untouchable and now both have been humiliated by countries far smaller than them.

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u/Single-Kangaroo1180 14h ago

With trumpstein at the helm…the US is no longer a superpower either 🤔

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u/RobJK80 14h ago

Trumps super power is syphoning money, so much so it generally breaks the donor entity beyond repair

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u/Waveofspring 13h ago

Trump can do all the corrupt BS he wants but it’ll never save russia from their degradation. That’s my opinion at least, maybe I’m wrong. But I doubt it.

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u/StormFast524 13h ago

Ukraine should be given all of Russia after this.

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u/productzilch 12h ago

Hard to argue that it could be managed much worse than it already is.

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u/sofixa11 13h ago

It’s even worse than that. Russia expected Ukraine to surrender on month 1 of the war. I remember many estimates assumed that Kyiv would fall within 2 weeks

Nah, half the column advancing on Kyiv was composed of Roosgvardia (riot police basically). And they were carrying parade uniforms and musical instruments with them. They couldn't have expected even a few days of fighting, or they wouldn't have carried that shit with them.

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u/Waveofspring 13h ago

That’s what I meant though. Russia was unprepared because they didn’t expect Ukraine to put up such a fight

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u/AI_Machine1 12h ago

Kind of like the US if seems.

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u/Waveofspring 11h ago

Yeah it’s starting to seem that invading foreign lands is no longer a smart war strategy for any country

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u/jupitaur9 12h ago

They are a superpower of misinformation. They never bring themselves higher, they just do everything they can to bring everyone else lower.

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u/Sloogs 12h ago

America looking awfully the same way these days too.

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u/Flat_Tire_Again 12h ago

And the Nukes might not even work as they don’t maintain anything! They are so vulnerable to takeover and losing all their resources!

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u/tweakingforjesus 11h ago

Putin’s mistake was invading a country that already knew what life under Soviet rule was like.

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u/we_cant_stop_here 11h ago

Russia has shown the world that their only true military asset is nukes.

I would somewhat disagree with that. Russia breaking the Budapest Memorandum made it a pariah. But Trump's USA breaking of the Budapest Memorandum, specifically articles 1 and 3, is making it where USA is now on board with Russia. Trump's USA grabbing of Venezuela, and threats of annexation of Canada, Greenland, Cuba, et al are further enabling a world where those with nukes can do whatever they want without any checks. China is apparently okay with all of this because they want to grab Taiwan. India, Pakistan, North Korea have territorial aspirations too.

TL;DR: Police has joined hands with the mafia.

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u/ALTH0X 11h ago

I thought it was 3 days instead of 2 weeks

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u/The_True_Gaffe 11h ago

Not one month, they expected to take Kiev in a day and the country to fold into them within two more. They fully believed it was going to be a three day operation, 5 years later has shown the entire world just how weak and useless the once actually scary Russia is

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u/Lostmyother_username 10h ago

Just like trump thought Iran would lol

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u/psychonik 8h ago

They never intended it for it be over that quickly. They just say that so they’ll be more support to initiate it. War means money. Trump is doing the same with Iran. Every time gas prices start to fall Trump announces a new military strike.

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u/Realistic-Stop8518 8h ago

I hope Ukraine ends up with whatever additional territory from Russia that it wants

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u/StreetofChimes 7h ago

I want to know what additional land Ukraine is going to get. Like yes, of course their own borders, but what concession land is Russia coughing up? 

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u/Dense_Amphibian_9595 5h ago

Month 1? Their battle plans called for a 3 day taking of Kiev. They didn’t have supplies (food/fuel) beyond three days which caused their entire war plan to collapse by day 4.

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u/chrismceachern 4h ago

In the future when they write about WW3, which has basically already started, they will quote the beginning of the war in Ukraine as one of the catalysts. By the time its all over, the casualties will be incomprehensible.

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u/Electrohead777 4h ago

Can we be honest and admit that Ukraine WOULD have fallen if it weren't for everyone else supporting/supplying them? And (honestly) worse yet, them (or someone else) figuring out drone warfare, which I'm confident will be more bad than good for the rest of the world in the long run.

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u/No_Art2020 4h ago

Crimea and Donbass are russian... And will remain russian as the natives there literally vuted to be a part of Russia IIRC, "Russia has shown us that their only true military asset are nukes" The American cannot be saying this 😭😭, Also are we looking at the same war map?

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u/Ok-Relief-462 3h ago

Putin: “We just need to invade and the whole rotten nation will collapse”

Everyone who’s ever seen a WW2 documentary: “Hey, hey I’ve seen this one before, this is a classic!”

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u/wolfonweed 16h ago

This is a quote from Sir Arther Travers Harris, Commander of the RAF Bomber Command.

Here's a bit more, for those with historic curiosity:

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

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u/fiction8 15h ago

And that whirlwind was manifested in Operation Gomorrah, the bombing of Hamburg:

the attack during the last week of July 1943 created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, killing an estimated 34,000 people in Hamburg, wounding 180,000 more, and destroying 60% of the city's houses.

Later Dresden in 1945 too.

Harris willingly gave this quote about his goals:

The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

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u/AverellCZ 14h ago

My father was 6, he almost died that night. Other family members were not so lucky. But the only people I blame are those who elected Hitler.

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u/Obi-wan_Rebel 14h ago

I blame those who elected all Republicans (not just Trump) for all the crap the US is doing now. Some of those imbeciles are waking up. I hope enough of them are. Our November 2026 midterms are everything.

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u/ruth862 12h ago

After all of Trump’s open incompetence, arrogance, corruption…everything over the last decade now, his approval rating is still—STILL!—33%. There is no hope.

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u/SuluSpeaks 13h ago

I was just told by another redditor that they didn't understand why I said "nobody hats like christians hate." The right needs to open their eyes.

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u/AverellCZ 14h ago edited 13h ago

Agreed. Let's hope they don't manage to rig the elections, I have a bad feeling about it. And they will for sure try.

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u/Omateido 14h ago

The question is not whether they will, because they will. The question is what will Americans do about it?

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u/stormagnet 12h ago

WA governor already low-key announced that he would mobilize the National Guard, as did most other blue states. The question is really: what will happen in red states that have the votes to flip but are blocked or otherwise tampered with?

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u/elmwoodblues 13h ago

Schumer is even now leaving K Street with a strongly worded note drafted by Amazon!

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u/CarlRJ 14h ago

Other news showing up in the last hour has Trump trying again to get the Supreme Court to allow him to mess with mail-in voting (literally having the USPS not deliver ballots if/where he doesn't want them to). 🤬

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u/elmwoodblues 14h ago

They're hoping to sow doubt into vote by mail now, both in the casting and the counting. High turnouts work against them

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u/mrpersson 13h ago

I'm not sure they're trying to sow doubt as much as literally stop mail in voting from happening. The bought and paid for Supreme Court will probably allow him to stop it, too

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u/Zal3x 14h ago

Yeah I mean their approval is abysmal but somehow they’ll win in November

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u/Emotional_Remove_755 12h ago

I blame those who elected any congress members accepting money from the Israeli lobby. Every modern war we’ve been in, in the Middle East-has been a war on their behalf. If you’re voting for people who support the apartheid state, you’re voting for people who support and want these wars just as much as the Republican Party does-they’re just wearing hats that say “nice guy” on them and hiding it better.

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u/mike_speaks 14h ago

I'm going to go high minded here and say: War is a failure of humanity

Governments and their actions are not always supported by their citizens.

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u/AverellCZ 13h ago

No. But without any support of at least a significant part of their citizens, no government would survive against the collective will of the people.

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u/productzilch 13h ago

Pretty loose definition of ‘support’ needed there when you account for fascism and autocracy.

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u/AverellCZ 10h ago

Once a majority decides they don't want to live under these kind of regimes anymore, revolutions happen. If not, then you have to assume that the pressure is not high enough and a majority can still arrange themselves with their government. See russia right now.

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u/Angelworks42 10h ago

My granddad fought for the British during ww2 and listening to all the close calls he had it's a miracle I'm here right now typing this out.

I too blame hitler and those who enabled him, supported him and elected him.

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u/AverellCZ 10h ago

I wish Reform voters would understand that.

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u/FullMetalCOS 14h ago

And the worst part of the whole thing is that it has been well known through the (admittedly short at the time) history of air warfare that bombing and killing civilians galvanises the morale of citizens, it doesn’t break them. Shit, the UK weathered the blitz and fought back harder because of it.

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u/fiction8 13h ago

Yep, and the Americans called the British out on that exact point when Bomber Harris proposed these mass bombings. But they were xenophobic and claimed that the reason the Blitz didn't hurt British moral was only because the British public was "built different."

Literal Arrested Development reasoning. "Area bombing didn't work for anyone else... but it might work for us."

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u/Dangerous-Sport-2347 8h ago

It should be stated for the record almost all historians now agree that the carpet bombing of civilian populations was both wasteful and ineffective, resources would have been much better spent hitting military targets and industrial targets.

That is entirely separate from the morality of it, which is obviously lacking.

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u/asj3004 14h ago

Go Bomber Harris!

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u/Structureel 14h ago

If America had had a nuclear bomb at the time, they would have used that instead.

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u/TheAsphyxiated 14h ago

Thanks for the info!

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u/SillyMattFace 13h ago

Horrible stuff, but the Nazis wanted a total war situation, so that’s how it goes.

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u/productzilch 13h ago

I hate targeting of civilians so much but it’s harder to argue against with an existential threat of an evil genocidal nation.

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u/onarainyafternoon 12m ago

The problem (which they didn’t understand back then and we only understand now thanks to WWII) is that bombing civilians in order to win a war has never once worked. It only serves to either strengthen resolve, or strengthen apathy. Most modern, western militaries understand by now that terrorizing civilians with bombs doesn’t actually win wars or really help in any way. It’s why Ukraine is causing such insane turmoil for Russia by sticking to military/industry targets, instead of children’s hospitals like Russia.

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u/Abject-Permission416 14h ago

The British bombed Berlin as early as August 1940, in retaliation for German bombing of London.

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u/mountain_mongo 6h ago

An act that inadvertently led to them winning the Battle of Britain.

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u/Ok_Highway6034 14h ago

Reap the whirlwind is one of the most badass lines I’ve heard in years…… it’s right up there with “then we will fight in the shade”

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u/Decuriarch 13h ago

He was just quoting the bible, unfortunately, no laconic wit here.

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u/productzilch 12h ago

It’s an interesting source. Badass statements about whirlwinds, adorable apocalyptic threats about the rise of the hedgehogs.

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u/DreaminDemon177 14h ago

I mean, Dresden got obliterated just as an F you to Germany essentially.

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u/MaryBerrysDanglyBean 14h ago

To be fair if you could see how Coventry is now compared to before the war it's entirely justified

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u/DynamicFactotum 14h ago

“Bomber” Harris was the architect of the Dresden bombing. His government and country distanced themselves from him after that.

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u/dr_warp 13h ago

Today I learned.... But that quote SOUNDS like something from a Mel Brooks movie.

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u/DuceSayori 12h ago

Butcher Harris

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u/alexanderfsu 10h ago

English shit talking is powerful, but also very poignant.

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u/KillBatman1921 20h ago

I have some Hor-newz fo you

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u/KawaiiMaxine 18h ago

Hormuz nooz you can yooz

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u/gulliver_travel 18h ago

I miss Colbert so much.

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u/1stGuyGamez 18h ago

Hes been gone for more than 300 years

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u/Simsalabimsen 18h ago

Give or take four score

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u/towerfella 18h ago

I remember his first sketch on The Daily Show, back when Comedy Central was a thing.

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u/BlackJackAce-777 18h ago

I miss when he and Jon Stewart criticized politics in general. A time long gone.

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u/Yo-Yo-Ha 17h ago

Same here. I can't believe we live in three country we use to not live in.

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u/MrPete_Channel_Utoob 9h ago

He was funnier when he played a fake conservative

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u/squirrelems 17h ago

Hormel's Chili with Beans.

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u/shockvandeChocodijze 17h ago

A glass of juice..

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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 17h ago

green moose, guava juice?

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u/curiouscomp30 17h ago

Straight up

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u/cav_scout_tj 17h ago

History rhyming

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u/riceklown 18h ago

Seems like every major power thinks this about "inferior" adversaries.

I think most Americans still don't understand why 9/11 happened, as evidenced by their complete incredulousness at Hasan Piker's "worst" comment that "America deserved 9/11" which wasn't an endorsement but an admittance of blowback.

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u/csharpdressedman 16h ago

Afghanistan and the Middle East deserved the blowback from 9/11 then, 9/11 didn’t happen to America, it intentionally was performed on random citizens. I don’t think you’re arguing in bad faith though, I just think you’re a reddit pseudointellectual that spends too much time online and wants to feel smart

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u/riceklown 15h ago

I was a father in my 20s on 9/11... my thoughts on 9/11 werent formed on this website.

And its not blowback when it's just going to war after an attack. That's not what blowback means. The blowback of 9/11 traces all the way back to the anti-Soviet cold war of the 70s and 80s. It wasnt a response to some recent wrong doing.

I think maybe you're the reddit brained pseudointellectual here, friend.

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u/WorkerPrestigious960 16h ago

Well he also thinks Ukraine deserves to be invaded and raped by Russia so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did endorse other such murderous actions such as 9/11

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u/riceklown 15h ago

Analysis is not endorsement.

He doesnt endorse either, but can rationally explain why these things happen.

That rational analysis does seem to be the big divide between leftists and everyone else though

Did you think Bush Jr was right when he claimed they hated us for our freedoms? Agreeing with that is the level of thinking you've got going on here.

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u/shzam5890 18h ago

No, given he has platformed terrorists and seemingly endorsed them I think he definitely meant it the way it came across, and its an absolutely horrid and disgusting thing to say. Those were regular civilians going to work. Don't excuse him.

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u/SeeShark 18h ago

Respectfully, Hasan has platforms a Houthi militant, in a rather friendly interview. I would not blindly assume that he did not mean it as an endorsement.

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u/iasa94 18h ago

Whoever said this sounds like he was the bomb. So to speak.

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u/Pat-Funny-2817 14h ago

it's a bit the result of building unshakable confidence and obidience you need to push to get a homogenous controllable following. 

double edged sword but too gratifying for autocrats. 

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u/Fluffer_Wuffer 14h ago

The man, the myth, the bomber!

I'd love to understand what his response would be in today's world... We could do with 1 or 2 millitary mavericks now..

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u/Much_One_6949 13h ago

Putting political views aside, that's not what happened. The British constantly appeasing them prior to the invasion of Poland might have inflated their ego more than a little though. Just being able to just take over 2 entire countries without fighting was kind of a major mistake of the entire international community at the time, especially with Czechoslovakia being a "far off land we know little of" according to Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time.

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u/briarmolly 13h ago

And the north thought they would beat the south in an afternoon. Yikes!

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u/MountainAdvanced4093 13h ago

Hubris is a real B.

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u/StopatStopSign 12h ago

History might be relived twice in our lifetime. Look at that.

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u/DuceSayori 12h ago

i don’t know if “Butcher” Harris is a good person to be quoting… there’s a reason he didn’t get much recognition after the war

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