The realisation that Ukraine is losing badly is starting to percolate through in The West.
For those of us that ignored MSM propaganda, sought out reliable independent sources of information and exercised our own independent rational analysis, this conclusion has been obvious for a long time.
You ask good questions but there are two questions you forget to ask which impacts the others.
Q1: Is NATO currently capable of defeating Russia in a conventional war in or near the territory of Ukraine?
A1: NO! NATO is completely outmatched by Russia in quality and quantity of arms, experience and quality of troops and military industrial capacity.
The Ukraine war has shown that Ukrainian troops fighting with old Soviet equipment do BETTER than NATO trained Ukrainian troops with NATO equipment.
Q2: What are the consequences of NATO directly fighting Russia and losing?
A2: Collapse of NATO and Russian troops in Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and Amsterdam.
Consider this before answering the above questions.
One of my greatest fears as a man who detests communism, is the Canada and the US depleting our reserves in a place like Taiwan, or the Ukraine. If Russia is the dominant military faction on earth, you won't be complaining about Biden or Trudeau for long up here... we will probably loose the entire Arctic aspect of our nation's.
One thing that has to be said to everyone who grew up in the US: Fear of Russia, communism and socialicm has been deeply embedded in your culture over the last 50 years or so.
If you do not overcome this indoctrination, discussion of the events in UA will always be too biased.
Communism, as well as socialism is just like democracy: Great ideas that usually get corrupted. For all three there have been times when they worked ok, and more times when they were not working at all.
Same goes for Russia being the evil nation. The biggest provocatuer over the last decades has been the US... it also did the most damage, globally. Russia has been behaving quite cooperative, and non-agressiv (or can you tell me about one thing Russia did that wouldn't pale compared to the agression of the US?).
There are no doubt forces in Russia that radicalised and have imperialistic ideas. If e.g. Putin would be overthrown, there is a high chance those forces would come to power.
So everybody should try to look at the bigger picture, or their personal REAL LIVE EXPERIENCE. How do you know Russia? How do you know Ukraine? Have you studied the history of Russian warfare? Have you ever been there? Do you know anybody who has been there?
If all those questions are answered 'no', what are you talking about? What media tells you?
Personally, I know Ukraine quite well, I've been in a war run by Russia, I know slawic culture intimately. That is my picture.
Scott Ritter has seen much more, and if anyone wants to trust a source one can see on some internet channel, I would point his direction.
Compared to my limited personal experience, his views are realistic.
Get out of your fears!
I get no where talking about socialism to my peers in Canada but I do try.
I guess it is like they were allergic to it... deeply embedded rejection.
It's some kind of cognitive dissonance, they are very into socialist policy when debating new government funding for various things, but when you say "I would like to achieve the same goals, but in a non-socialist way", they start to get insecure and create excuses as to why your outside of their box thinking has no plausible way to become reality.
The most dangerous and terrible aspect of the Ukraine war is that it has caused Russia to massively increase the size and capability of its military and 10x increase its military industrial production to produce very effective high tech (eg Lancet drones) and low tech (eg artillery) weapons in immense amounts that The West cannot match.
See details of Lancet production in the video 2/3rd the way down this post: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/kerch-bridge-deja-vu-breakdown
Before the war Russia's military was actually quite small (which was why they couldn't hold all the land they originally took).
But now a monster has been unleashed and every month that goes past with The West deluding itself that Russia is losing increases Russia's quantitive, qualitative and experience advantage over The West in high intensity modern warfare.
Regarding your fear of communism (which I share) by far the greatest danger of communism comes from the woke left in the US itself. Russia has completely abandoned it and runs a more capitalist economy than the US.
What is your source for world reserve numbers? I have seen numbers claiming Ukraine has the largest reserve of military force on earth, is that only because of NATO supporting Ukraine?
Many data points indicate Ukraine is running out of men, including very old and very young on front line. Harsh forced conscription of men off the streets (like old style British Navy press gangs), very large population loss since start of war, very low fertility and bad demographics long before the war etc.
This is an interesting analysis
Anyone claiming Ukraine has the world's largest reserves is utterly deluded and mathematically challenged. How can a country of 30 million have more reserves than India or China with well over 1 Billion.