Atheist Forum

I heard on Meidas Touch that Putin told Trump he would stop helping Iran if Trump will stop helping Ukraine.

Unbeliever wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 9:44 pm I heard on Meidas Touch that Putin told Trump he would stop helping Iran if Trump will stop helping Ukraine.

Despite all their success, things certainly took a turn for the worse for Ukraine with Trump's war. Putin will be swimming in $$$ with these oil prices. $2.8 billion in additional monthly export revenue for Russia, with about $1.6 billion flowing directly to the state through taxes. Just when things were getting pretty bad for the average Russian.

Yeah, but the world suddenly realized that Ukraine has invaluable military expertise essential for fighting drone wars (all wars from now on) and there are tons of orders for Ukrainian interceptor drones as well as related equipment like acoustic equipment to detect incoming drones. When it comes to fighting shaheds, there's no one more experienced than someone who's been doing just that for 4 years now. And not just the West is looking to buy, but also the Middle Eastern countries of Qatar, the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan (potentially also Japan)

And it's not just a matter of having drone technology, but also the ability to use it effectively. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine beats NATO forces in military exercises (I should note that the Ukrainians had US, British, and Spanish forces on their team - for at least some of the 5 scenarios - though five out of five shows that it wasn't a fluke). Those people would be operating drones for the Russians right now if Kyiv had fallen in 2022. Suffice it to say that they wouldn't be taking wedding photos in that scenario.

Thankfully, that didn't happen and Ukraine is selling its drone technology to Western countries and other countries reliably opposed to Iran at the very least if not also Russia and North Korea.

Bottom line: both Ukraine and Russia will be getting large influxes of cash in the near future. Russia will be able to prolong the war and stave of economic collapse, which is hugely bad. But also Ukraine will be able to expand their defense production and shore up their own economy, which is a good thing. I would certainly have preferred the Iran issue to not complicate this war, but chickenhawks never consider other people's lives and rapists don't understand the word no, so here we are.

At any rate, Russian equipment and manpower losses are so severe now that it'll almost certainly end in military defeat regardless of oil prices. Yes, Russia can lure people there with cash, but that only works for so long and that technique has become less and less effective over the years.

If I had to predict an outcome right now, I would say that it would become a frozen-war/ceasefire within a year or two along the existing battlelines similar to what happened with the Korean War.

Cassia wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2026 2:51 pm If I had to predict an outcome right now, I would say that it would become a frozen-war/ceasefire within a year or two along the existing battlelines similar to what happened with the Korean War.

A year ago, I would have completely agreed. But seeing the Ukrainians wrest some territory back in the past month thanks in part to the Starlink-Telegram fiasco is very encouraging. The Ukrainians actually took more territory than they have lost this year.

While I doubt the Ukrainians will be able to take everything back, realistically yes there will have to be some sort of freezing of the battlelines, but where those battlelines may end up is up in the air. Russian forces have degraded tremendously since 2022 to the point that 2022 forces seem like an entirely different country. No longer able to take territory almost at all and previously solidly-held territory lost to new Ukrainian tactics of drone swarms rapidly followed by infantry attacks. There really is a chance that they could lose a large amount of territory similar to what was lost by Russia after the failed attack on Kyiv in 2022. And those aren't my words, that's a Russian soldier saying that on Telegram before it was banned.

My personal hope is that Ukraine retakes a significant amount of territory prior to a negotiated settlement, which helps Ukraine's negotiating position because 1) Ukraine no longer has to demand that territory because they'll have it 2) Ukraine credibly threatens remaining Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, motivating Russia to negotiate in earnest.

If we survive and relearn a few things, history will look back at this era and see it as another age of power crazy, war monger dictators and their enabler oligarch/billionaires and suck-up politicians. The last few thousands of WW2 vets are still alive, yet here we are with that nationalist/fascist mentality again.

They don't realize that Daniel Day Lewis's character in Gangs of New York wasn't the good guy.

Cassia wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2026 2:16 am If we survive and relearn a few things, history will look back at this era and see it as another age of power crazy, war monger dictators and their enabler oligarch/billionaires and suck-up politicians. The last few thousands of WW2 vets are still alive, yet here we are with that nationalist/fascist mentality again.

When I was in high school, I very sharply criticized the people who supported/tolerated fascist rule in their country. That shoe doesn't feel so good now that I'm walking in it.

Ukraine downs Russian KA-52 Helicopter with fpv drone



The helicopter was $16 million usd. The drone was a couple thousand tops. Ludicrously one-sided exchange.

Russia tried to downplay the incident, saying that the helicopter may be downed, but at least the crew is okay. The crew absolutely was not okay.

Speaking of casualties, a few days ago was one of the deadliest days for Russia with just over 1700 invaders killed/wounded in Ukraine within 24 hours. Apparently, the cause of the uptick was a spike in convoy-style attacks where many vehicles attempt to assault in a single direction. That didn't work a year ago, so I'm not sure why Russia would think it would work now. Not to mention that Russia's ability to deploy vehicles, even budhanka vans, is significantly reduced compared to a year ago. I wonder why.

Ukraine destroys 6 Grad MLRS, wipes out a battalion's worth of missile launchers

This happened near Pokrovsk. The loss of such units lessens the invaders' ability to bombard Ukrainian positions as well as provide fire support (firing at Ukrainians while other Russian units are advancing or retreating)

Ukraine strikes Russia's main oil port in the Baltic, near St Petersburg

About 1 million barrels/day disrupted.