Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Russia is importing petrol, calling it the rightful result of the work of the Security Service, the Armed Forces, intelligence and Ukrainian weapons manufacturers.
Quote: "Today, there were also reports on our entirely justified strikes against Russian targets – against their logistics and fuel infrastructure. I am grateful to our warriors for their precision. Russia chooses war, Russia destroys our people’s lives, and must be held accountable – our long-range capabilities will increase.
Taking land is the only way to win a war. Outlasting an opponent’s ability/will to fight doesn’t work at all, right?
Remind me: who controls Afghanistan? You know, that small country that didn’t even have a standing army who fought against the most powerful military on the planet for 20 years … after fighting the Soviets for 10.
Probably a fluke though – it’s not like that’s repeatedly happened in wars across history.
True. But also Afghanistan’s climate and terrain make it costly to occupy, and there was no comparable benefit to being there, besides possibly control of the opiate trade. And large-scale mechanized warfare was also horrendously difficult in Afghanistan, but much more possible in Ukraine and vicinity.
So the Russians left because there was nothing worth stealing that would justify the high casualty rate. The US fucked off because there was no reason to be there besides to slap the Taliban around and kill however many Al-Qaida fighters could be found. But the war aims for the US were never well-articulated, and that led to bizarre rules of engagement that could never achieve more than a holding pattern. The US could have stayed and exterminated every single Talib, but that would have almost inevitably spread the conflict to the Taliban’s sponsors, Pakistan, which has nukes (and a far larger popultation than Afghanistan). Not a good state to destablize.