WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that while Ukraine has reconquered half the territory that Russia initially seized in its invasion, Kyiv faced a “a very hard fight” to win back more.
“It’s already taken back about 50% of what was initially seized,” Blinken said in an interview to CNN on Sunday.
“These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough,” he said, adding: “It will not play out over the next week or two. We’re still looking I think at several months.”
Hopes that Ukraine could quickly clear Moscow’s forces from its territory following the launch of a summer counteroffensive are fading as Kyiv’s troops struggle to breach heavily entrenched Russian positions in the country’s south and east.
Late last month President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that progress against Russian forces was “slower than desired” but that Kyiv would not be pressured into speeding it up.
I love boosting good news, especially given the enormous amount of Russian disinformation surrounding the “failure” and “slow going” of the offensive.
It was never going to be quick, or easy, and I think that the extraordinary successes of earlier Ukrainian counter-offensives set expectations higher than the reality on the ground.
But in the balance, Ukraine went from having half its territory captured by the 2nd strongest army in the world to knocking them back on their knees and retaking half of what was lost in the space of less than two years. That’s an incredible success in the face of overwhelming odds, even with NATO and EU support. One only has to look at the Russian takeovers in Eastern Europe after WWII to get a sense of how unique it is that Ukraine was able to not only resist, but drive back the invaders.
From California and all Americans who support freedom, Слава Україні!
Don’t use Nazi terms
It also ignores war aren’t always won by taking and holding territory: many are won by simply outlasting the enemy’s willingness or ability to maintain the conflict.
So he’s trying to argue the blue area = the red area in size. Doesn’t look exactly so.
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Blinken makes no distinction between what territory changed hands before 2022 and after. That wasn’t the claim
Edit: Even so, the red area that is not outlined still looks bigger than the blue areas.
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“Map projections” lmao. The mercator map makes area look bigger the further north it is. So if anything, it would oversize the area that Ukraine has retaken in the north while undersizing the area that Russia has taken in the south. But within a small country, distortion from map projection will be negligible.
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I think you’re wrong actually. The map in question does not seem to use the ISW data.
This is the point you are referring to from ISW: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-23-2023
(Aside, According to this arcticle, your 54% is not an actual hard percentage, but an estimate. From their own words, they measure the area of the map using Mercator projection, and state using a different projection would give you a different estimate. They don’t correct for projection error in their measurement, which as I pointed out earlier, biases the figure towards overestimating the recaptured territory in the north, and underestimating the area still under Russia’s control in the south. )
But compare LiveUA map to the timelapse here. Their data shows large areas under Russian control that are not shown as recaptured on the LiveUA map. I should not have said “looks like” when it is clear from the map that the red area, minus Crimea and pre-2022 DPR and LPR, is still much larger than the blue area.
Saying 50% has been recaptured is contingent upon how much territory Russia actually controlled in the Kharkiv and Kiev areas during the first few weeks of the war. This figure is insanely variable based on who you ask. In those first few weeks, Russian propagandists would greatly overstate how much territory in the north had been captured. In reality, Russia went into the northern area with a very small force and captured a few highways. If you paint with a very broad brush, all of the surrounding area came under Russian control, even if Russian troops never had a presence there. But that does not correspond to the strict reality.
It’s funny that he works for the US government and his name is A. Blinken
It sounds like a joke from Robin Hood: Men in Tights
#JetsForUkraine
Why not just say #NukeTheWorld?
Also American jets need Pristine runways to take off. Ukraine couldn’t use F16s if they had them even if they had trained pilots.
