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Zelensky says Russia has widened attacks to hit Ukraine's data centres

102 points · 147 comments · dabinat

  1. CamperBob2 · · focus · HN ↗
    Even Russia would be better off today if we'd given Ukraine the tools to beat them back a couple of years ago.
    1. petcat · · focus · HN ↗
      Europe has hard decisions to make about what an end to the war in Ukraine will look like, and whether that means ceding territory. Ukraine is never going to recapture the territory that it has lost without European troops on the ground. Macron famously said that he would "have to send guys to Odesa" and yet 3 years later there are still no French troops in Ukraine and Russia has since captured even more territory and is actively bombarding Kyiv. Europe simply cannot keep carving out $100 billion military aid packages every year indefinitely.

      Tough decisions have to be made and, despite public criticism and posture, every EU leader is secretly hoping USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kind of goes away.

      1. xdennis · · focus · HN ↗
        > Ukraine is never going to recapture the territory that it has lost without European troops on the ground.

        This is such a defeatist attitude. By that logic North Vietnam would never have recovered South Vietnam.

        A lot of things can happen if you just refuse to be defeated. Hannibal killed almost the entire Roman army at Cannae, but the war ended 15 years later with full victory by the Romans.

        In 1940, Britain was the only country in Europe fighting Germany. Many had fallen, were neutral or were fighting with the Nazis (Russia, Italy, etc). But in the end Britain won.

        1. joinHNtheysaid · · focus · HN ↗
          The britain coming out of world war 2 was very different from the britain entering WW1, in a way the late-comer nations refusing to be starved by the empires by going hyper-imperialist destroyed the age of empires.
          1. tim333 · · focus · HN ↗
            May happen to Russia too. The empire thing is so last century.
            1. joinHNtheysaid · · focus · HN ↗
              ?? The chinese are openly calling what they do inspired by the british empire. The turks want to restore their empire. The iranians are in it for the very same reason. This seems very wishful thinking. Not that empires are not zero sum and perfectly dreadfull, but i would call believers in the western alternative limited to europe, japan, sk and canada right now.
              1. tim333 · · focus · HN ↗
                Humans have always been up for seizing neighbouring humans stuff and trying to rule over them and human nature hasn't really changed but the economics have. In the days of the British Empire it was far ahead industrially so could go stick railways in Africa and India and trade and it was kind of win win, sorta. Now everyone is more similarly developed and if you try it on in places like Ukraine they fight back at a similar tech level to Russia which ends up with ownership of some bombed out rubble in Ukraine and their own stuff burning.

                For clarity I'm talking proper empire where you send in troops and install a viceroy, not just trading with places which is mostly what China does. The Taiwan thing is a special case of the communist party trying to take the remaining bit of China which has held out for a century.

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