David Sacks: The Truth Has Broken Out That Ukraine Is Not Winning This War

This is the way my thinking has been trending since I saw a map of the territorial gains and losses since the initial Russian invasion--though I still can't find a copy of that map. The amount of territory that Ukraine has recaptured is trivial, and much of that has been lost again.

   I was on the side of aiding Ukraine so long as the war seemed to be going somewhere--so long as there seemed to be a chance to regain significant territory...and hand Russia a significant loss. I only keep one eye on the progressive media noise machine these days, but they have seemed to be holding out false hope for some time now. Left-dominated places like the tattered remnants of Reddit have been gung-ho pro-Ukraine, endlessly posting videos of alleged Russian soldiers, tanks and AFVs being blown up in gruesome fashion. The tone there has been one of Ukrainian triumphalism. If that's where you got your news, you'd think that the heroic Ukes were pushing--endlessly pushing--toward Russia. 

   Which, of course, is what we all hoped for.

   I've been repulsed by the bloodthirstiness, actually. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the devil, but even I have been revolted by all the reveling in the death and destruction inflicted upon hapless Russian conscripts.

   Reddit is going to have to go on suicide watch when--if--the terrible truth finally seeps in through the walls of the echo chamber.

   The right has hardly covered itself in glory, though. It seemed to take up an anti-war--even anti-Ukraine--position early on. And seemingly just because the left went so whole-hog pro-Ukraine. (Which it seemed to do largely because of its pathological Russophobia.) Anti-Ukraine-war conservatives have struggled to explain why they were so unwilling to help out. Cost, of course, is one reason--and a reason they have clearly emphasized. But the rest of their account has been rather a mess. They've flirted with painting the Ukes as a bunch of Nazis (there are some there, of course), characterizing Zelenskyy as a crook, etc. But they never seem to have settled on anything. Thus reinforcing the suspicion that they really don't have a good reason, but are just reacting against the left's pro-Ukrainianism.

   Not that I know what I'm talking about here, because I don't. I'm just going on the third-hand information swirling around these days. 

   But, for the record, my overall orientation for a couple of months now has been: it's long past time to end this, and, if the media were doing its job, that would have been clear long before now.

   Again: there's an enormous element of guesswork in there.

Update: not the map I was looking for, and shows more Ukrainian gains than I thought there had been. But here's an animated map of the war:

Forgot to mention: Ukraine also seems to be running largely on conscripts at this point. So it's not really the heroic Ukrainian patriots against the evil Rooskies. Sounds more and more like unwilling conscripts on both sides being thrown into a meat grinder. 

   Also: Russia has paid a high price for this invasion. That's really all we can hope for in a case like this. But we have other irons in the fire, too, don't forget.