Time for a (drone) Kyiv Airlift? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade#Start_of_the_B...

Not easy to do an airlift when your opponent has air superiority. The United States had guaranteed air corridors to Berlin.

Although not suited to an airlift of heavy items, a swarm of drones would be super difficult to defend against in an urban environment. Have them drop thermite or pipebombs or just draw fire to find enemy positions, or distract them during an assault.

Putin doesn't have the time for a siege.

The propaganda machine still speaks of a special operation to liberate Ukraine.

You can't keep up this picture for long. There are too many communication channels between Ukranians and Russians that will chip away at this warped image of reality.

Cutting aqueducts in most cases means people running out of water in short time, considering the actual whether. While it's perfectly possible to store non marginal quantity of water most people do not do that in cities, exactly where water is less available. Contaminating water with mild bacteria not enough to kill 99% of the people, but enough to reduce their capacity is another quick and easy task, water tend to be much controlled nearby sources, not as much below, sure boiling it suffice, but boil demand energy and in most cases having energy in a city it's not that easy, not much wood, almost nothing to produce it in place. Food might last longer but not that longer: most people are not really combatant and do not want to fight till victory or death.

Consider a thing: modern society is hyper fragile respect of the past, especially cities where very few people can block many others, almost the opposite of a very large slice of human history. Also modern society are not much ideologically propelled and widespread corruption of most actual government do make most people thinking that one or another does not change almost anything. There is a minority of fanatic, that's what they are, nor really Patriots, who accept a fight at any price, but those tend to be unpopular in their own people even more than in the enemies.

Also smart people know that there is no point in fighting a lost war, it's better to inject themselves in the winning order to undermine it slowly from the inside.

Except that Ukrainians know, that they will not have independence as a country, if they lose this. They don't want to be governed from Moscow by the Kremlin. It is not over until it is over. As long as they resist, they inflict a cost on Putin and they know that. They might suffer lots of losses, but they are aware of that and still fighting. Every Russian tank, helicopter, other vehicle they destroy costs a lot of money to replace. For Ukrainians it is a cost of lives, for Russia it is a severe financial loss. If they manage to make it a disaster for Putin, then we might see Putin being replaced and this whole offensive collapse.

And they will have their population enlisted to fight Putins next war for him, like what happens to Belarus and Chechnya right now.

Amazing statement by a Belarusian lieutenant colonel:

https://twitter.com/franakviacorka/status/149791120069228954...

English translation here:

https://pastebin.com/48aVmMqA

They have already lost even before the war begun simply because they do not have enough firepower and autonomy to win. So their best choice is not try fighting to the death resulting in a totally devastated country that need to be rebuilt, under the winners rules and condition, with their best citizen already dead, but welcome the winner (not joking) to force him to avoid much damage to the invaded country, because their own military and population will not accept a war any longer, and being able to offer a working country that need people who know how things work there to remain afloat, so the enemy can only accept to a certain extent local rulers.

Doing so they:

- preserve their country in the short term

- keep a very little bit of sovereignty they will not get from a full defeat in the short-medium term

- have room to sabotage internally the enemy in the mean-long run

The sole that benefit form a strenuous resistance in Ukraine is actually the west who get a weakened Russia at the expense of Ukrainian life and richness. The very same that happen with Arab springs, Colorful revolution etc: previous dictatorship get weakened or destroyed to be substituted by others, always at people expense, against people interest.

Did you try to imaging who benefit from Ukrainian war? Try to depict the global picture:

- the USA and UK that have very deep social unrest due to the economic crisis, the covid governance etc inducted by the push to the neoliberal Green New Deal/Great Reset have them silenced because now there is a war;

- the EU that have started to consider established mutually benefit partnership with the Russian Fed. now fall back under the NATO umbrella, against EU interests since the partnership with the USA is well established but it's not fair for EU, while a new one with Russia since they desperately need a partner and China is really not a friend would be far more balanced;

- EU gov, facing similar unrest than UK/USA ones now have something else to divert public opinion angry;

- Russian gov can justify growing domestic poverty and oppression "due to the war";

- China have the occasion to deeply tie Russia as the sole reliable and strong partner, forcing Russian to cooperate on hi tech military gear and more natural resources, probably enough to overpower USA;

So the real winner here are the Chinese, without even a fight. The second winner are the western neoliberals, especially those from WEF/IMF etc since the Green New Deal became an even more important priority WHILE the classic energy sources remain in a very strong position. The third only partial winner is the Putin entourage that winning a war means securing more years in power and more domestic power while actually securing their indefensible western side. The looser? Surely Ukrainian people, BUT ALSO EU people, and ultimately USA/UK people who have their unrest set aside unresolved because "of external priorities".

Remember to win a war the very first basic need is knowing who is your enemy...

People don't want to give up their whole nation and independence, just for some slim chance of getting back at the invading force, by sabotaging their actions in a conquered country. Once they allow the Kremlin to take over, they will have a hard time to get rid of them. There will be armed troops in the streets for years. Who doesn't do what they are ordered from Kremlin side will be replaced. "Just another Ukrainian."-style. Meanwhile Russia will have plenty of time to reinforce areas of control inside the conquered country, making it very hard or impossible to retake what was stolen. Ukraine's best chance for any independent future is to deal as much damage to the aggressor as possible.

Putin is a complete hypocrite, of course, because if he manages to take the Ukraine, then there will truly be no buffer country between him and NATO. Is he going to go insane again then, claiming, that for example Romania needs to be demilitarized? Then he takes that and claims the same for the next country? When does it stop?

If the result is a weakened Russia, then that's good. Empires governed by madmen and dictators should be weakened. We have no use for them in a modern world. In the end Putin will probably manage to reach the exact opposite of what he wants. He wants less threat of NATO, according to his own words, but with this unjustified attack, he has caused NATO partners to move closer together and he has inflicted a cost on his country, which will hopefully be significant enough to stand as a warning for other countries invading their neighbors.

China is probably as you say benefitting from all of this. The Chinese government probably is happy right now, that things escalated and that Russia is sanctioned. They can just watch it all play out and act as the "great peaceful bystander" calling for peace, giving themselves a "peace image", all the while they are still putting Uigures into "re-education" camps. It means, that they can dictate trade with Russia more, as Russia has less options. No one wants to buy your gas? Oh how sad! You can sell to us at reduced price! Only on the very surface Russia and China are friendly towards each other. China will take advantage of any economic situation it can take advantage of. There is however not much anyone can do about more trade between those two anyway. In my opinion it is better to do something now than allowing Putin to chip away at Europe.

Edit: And yes, I agree, Putin is the kind of dictator, who looks for outside trouble, when things inside are not going well. Typical dictator stuff. Nothing else is to be expected from him.

Is actual Ukraine in independent nation? Did you try to see actual gov history? Hint: they are actors, their last work was a series about a new Ukrainian government (start from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_of_the_People the actual real President as the main actor of the fictional president).

If they decide to impromptu join Russian Federation say "thanks, you free us from a western-made puppet government" Russians can't remain in arm there, just like they aren't for similar reasons remained in Kz even with the mocked-up CSTO umbrella. Of course their will remain now if a Resistance start to operate, in that very case they have a perfectly licit and justifiable reason to be there: "Russian people, we the government, goes to Ukraine to free the country from the western nazi-armed oppressors (witch is actually a real fact, since both USA and UK do not denied that they have armed and trained Azov battalion and co) and we have to stay because such bad crooks still plague the country bombing, raping and killing people". They can't tell the same if mass of locals citizens welcome them and formally demand to be part of the Federation. In that case the Russian surely keep a bit of grip, but can't really establish a puppet regime with strong military presence. They need to be soft, and being soft the locals do have power to organize slowly and slowly form their own government, a really democratic one, powerless at first but a small growth at a time more influential, enough to rule in a decades.

Also think twice and twice again about China profit: so far despite it's enormous growth China can't really overpower USA, yes they can build many more low tech ships, but they can't military confront the USA not on the sea not on abroad lands. With Russian natural resources AND Russian tech they can in few years, and they already need to counter the USA because just to eat they need to be in South America, APAC and Africa, witch means they need to control seas, a thing that USA and UK can't tolerate because it's the sole remaining imperial power they have, a power so far no other nation can menace.

For USA keep Europe means remain the tech leader since they can drain EU resources and control it's development, but keeping EU at the price of giving China the Russian Federation means that all needed basis for a III world war are finally made and sealed. Avoid escalation in that case is next to impossible, remember that in both WWI and WWII all nations involved do not, do never wanted a real world war, things just escalate to it. Do you think it's worth risking the end of humanity just for the profit of some cancer of humanity actually ruling on their own people back in all world power, both formal dictatorship like China or formal but not substantial Democracies like Russian and USA, and France and Italy and Germany etc?

> Is actual Ukraine in independent nation? Did you try to see actual gov history? Hint: they are actors, their last work was a series about a new Ukrainian government (start from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_of_the_People the actual real President as the main actor of the fictional president).

OK, we can stop repeating Kremlin propaganda now. No one cares about the previous job of the democratically elected president and it is no new information anyway. Apparently in this dark hour, he is doing a fine job. If you want another example for an actor getting to a high position in politics, take Schwarzenegger. Actors probably do have some skills and qualifications, which are of good use in politics. For example they are used to being in front of the camera. With sufficient popularity, they are also used to talking to many people. Being an actor furthermore does not mean, that for your whole life you must remain an actor.

You appeal to stereotypes, trying to downtalk the elected Ukrainian president. As if actors in general were incapable of ever entering politics or government. This is clearly wrong as shown by other examples.

No, I appeal to observation, take another one, for instance: https://www.energyintel.com/download?issueId=0000017e-2c65-d... about Kazakhstan, is this Russian propaganda? Does it tell the same story of our "pravda"? To me it clearly state that Kz energy system is in western hand thanks to a local dictator, himself also voted, formally, like another dictator name Adolf, like another one name Erdogan or another more named Orban, or another one named Kaczyński just to name few of them.

Some are just puppet, some gain power and became dictator but no dictatorship born strong and powerful and very rarely born alone, without external help of some interested actor.

Long story short if you consider actual Ukrainian government a Democratic one, and even one that act well... That's not Russian but USA propaganda and that's hold the same level of truth, around 0... I told you another story: while living in France I'm Italian, actual Italian government formally is a Democratic one, and following the press it acting well. Following many Citizens believes, mine included, as a nephew of two Italian Partisans from WWII is that's actual head of state is a dictator that must be arrested for high treason, embezzlement, participation in crimes against humanity, along his public-private entourage. ANY civil servant that do not act accordingly must be considered partner and so at minimum banned from any public office for life. Did you have any suspicions about that? Or, following the press you read you imagining a Democratically elected (he was not, but that's by law, to avoid directly voting head of states in a way a power of the State can remove the other and they surveil each others avoiding the need of a civil war in case one try to grab power) and well acting leader?

We ALL live in some propaganda and the sole way to know what's "true enough" and "false enough" is summing different propaganda eliciting what can be true and what can't. Just to talk again about Italy: there is now a right polemic about a cut scene from the game War Thunder published on the main national headline (TG1 and TG2, like BBC in UK, formally) as a filmed scene of Kiev bombing. Some photos of crying mothers in tear is published saying they are Ukrainian mothers now while the source of the image came from 2014/Euromaidan massacre, so from the opposite side of the front.

Since I'm not there, nor I know people there I can't say what's really going on, but I read enough to know what's our propaganda and the other side one, also I see the effect. So I form my opinion and suggest anyone trying to do the same before fighting for their own enemy, against their own interest. I know many will never been able to do so, but on HN I hope there is a cohort of people who might be if at least pushed a bit to look for some information instead of blindly drinking the headlines of one or another side...

> You can't keep up this picture for long. There are too many communication channels between Ukranians and Russians that will chip away at this warped image of reality.

Especially that on Putin's side, they are only "defending separatist regions", just about any picture of the conflict contradicts the official narrative, there's no way to spin it, they can't even talk about any victories.

Doesn't apply to Gaza apparently

The problem with Gaza is as one of my friends from the Middle East summarized it: no government* really cares about the Palestinians.

Sure, they'll use them for propaganda purposes, and to rail against Israel, but when it comes to taking actions with limited resources? Well, they don't care that much.

* Except maybe Iran. But there are a lot of mixed motivations (and religious baggage) between Hamas and Iran.