Well, there's the simple matter that they have been on the ground in the Ukraine for a few months now; seemingly without actually achieving any goals worth reporting. They attacked Kiev, tried to surround it and take it, and then Jill Biden went sightseeing there last week. I think it's safe to say that whatever the Russians wanted there failed. Completely and utterly. If you cut through the propaganda, it was Jill Biden touring Kiev and not Putin having a WW II parade there on the 9th of May (which is when they remember the end of WW II). They had one in Moscow instead. Apparently the "special operation" is still going great for them. All according to plan. Or so the propaganda says. But Jill Biden went to Kiev and Putin didn't. Simple realities.
It wouldn't be the first war that Russia got involved in that went badly for them. They only won WW II because of massive amounts of supplies from the US. Very much like the Ukraine is currently being supplied. And of course Afghanistan comes to mind. Russia was there in the 1980s.The US was supplying all sorts of goodies to the Taliban. I saw Rambo III (speaking of propaganda that did not age well).
Of course there's a bit of more recent history in that particular country where the US also got some egg on their face. As a matter of fact, that ended last year after two decades of boots on the ground. The US finally walked away after two decades of throwing their weight around without achieving a victory.
Anyway, you could ask the same questions you are asking about Russia in that context. And of course people have. But it still happened. Yes there is propaganda; but there are also facts on the ground, and lots of bad decision making, bad intel, bureaucratic inertia etc.
I know people from the Ukraine. I run into refugees here in Berlin on a daily basis. I'm sure it's all a bit abstract and distant for you. But it sure feels awfully close and real to me. Nothing that drives the point home of a war than seeing actual people just trying to find a safe place to stay for their families. All I have to do to see that is take a ten minute walk to the main train station here in Berlin.
It wouldn't be the first war that Russia got involved in that went badly for them. They only won WW II because of massive amounts of supplies from the US. Very much like the Ukraine is currently being supplied. And of course Afghanistan comes to mind. Russia was there in the 1980s.The US was supplying all sorts of goodies to the Taliban. I saw Rambo III (speaking of propaganda that did not age well).
Of course there's a bit of more recent history in that particular country where the US also got some egg on their face. As a matter of fact, that ended last year after two decades of boots on the ground. The US finally walked away after two decades of throwing their weight around without achieving a victory.
Anyway, you could ask the same questions you are asking about Russia in that context. And of course people have. But it still happened. Yes there is propaganda; but there are also facts on the ground, and lots of bad decision making, bad intel, bureaucratic inertia etc.
I know people from the Ukraine. I run into refugees here in Berlin on a daily basis. I'm sure it's all a bit abstract and distant for you. But it sure feels awfully close and real to me. Nothing that drives the point home of a war than seeing actual people just trying to find a safe place to stay for their families. All I have to do to see that is take a ten minute walk to the main train station here in Berlin.