Ukraine’s leader says the chancellor wants the missiles to defend Germany — which is not the version of events given to the German public.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sharply criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for refusing to provide Kyiv with German-made Taurus cruise missiles and suggested the reluctance is based on his desire to keep the weapons for Berlin’s own defense against a threat from Russia.
“As far as I understand, the chancellor believes that, as he is a representative of a non-nuclear state, this is is the only weapon that Germany has, is the most powerful one,” Zelenskyy said of the Taurus missiles in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “He shared messages with me saying that he cannot leave his country without such a powerful weapon,” Zelenskyy added of Scholz.
Germany’s government, however, presents its public with quite different logic for not sending the weapons. Scholz has steadfastly refused to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, saying in public statements that such a move could lead to an escalation of the war and could even draw Germany into direct conflict with Russia.
What defines winning? Stopping the Russian plan to conquer all of Ukraine in 3 days? They won that. Getting EU/NATO candidacy? They won that as well. Ensuring the long-time existence of Ukraine? That’s up in the air still.
That said, if this is Russia winning, they must really look bad when losing.
Yes, the only thing that actually matters out of the 3 you mentioned.
Irrelevant and hyperbole.
It’s not hyperbole. Russia’s stated political goal was to reclaim Ukraine into their sphere of influence, strengthen a new eastern bloc and discourage its neighbours from joining NATO.
Ukraine is at best pending, and there was an attempted coup, a metric fuckton of military equipment losses, and it’s still very much up in the air.
They lost CSTO with not being able to back their allies up in the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
They also got Finland and Sweden to join NATO, so they have more NATO borders than ever, and on top of that, Europe is waking the fuck up and remilitarizing, whereas NATO was treated as a relic before.
Russia lost a ton, and it is a good question whether it will gain anything out of this whole thing.
Weird. Even if they win, they lose in your mind.
I guess there’s no arguing with people like you.
What would they win? It’s not “the West” moving goalposts again and again. For them, it was always “keep Ukraine democratic and free from Russian influence”. That’s a question whether that will happen.
How does Russia win? What is a winning scenario for them?
Yup. This sums up the Russian situation pretty good. They lost a lot, gained nothing so far except a new and stronger NATO and are facing new sanctions every day.
that’s the definition of FUBAR 😊