Denying Putin's narrative

Frank L Palmer

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday December 06, 2025 · 8:15 AM PST

2025/12/06 · 08:15

Putin’s argument is that

1) Russia is now winning

2) therefore, its ultimate victory is inevitable (and imminent)

3) Therefore, Arming Ukraine is useless.

Actually,

1) while Rusia is gaining ground currently,

1a) it is doing so slowly,

1b) and at a tremendous cost in

2) The present area of Ukraine occupied by Russia is about half of the maximum they controlled in September 1, 2022. They had reached — although only by probrs— much more than that on April 1, 2022.

3) when armed with he weapons they request, Ukraine is eroding Russia’s ability to wage war — immediately, to wage war in Ukraine, but also to invade a Nato country.

What we need to do is to keep the actuality in front of wester news media who write agout this subject.

I wrote a letter to the editor (LTE) to the San Francisco Examiner on November 6and another to the Chicago Sun Times on November 25. The letter to the Examiner read:

Putin's defense of the invasion of Ukraine is that anywhere a Russian sets his feet is Russian territory. Russian jingoists use that argument to claim Alaska. Really, though, "Russian North America" extended as far south as the Bay Area in the 19th century. Some of the Russians who set their feet there were buried on Russian Hill.

Those who accept Putin's claim to Ukraine implicitly implicitly accept Russian claims to San Francisco.

If you have written a LTE on the invasion, mention it in a comment on this post,

The team & the fans

Frank L Palmer

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 03, 2025 · 3:59 PM PST

2025/12/03 · 15:59

When you sit in the bleachers, you can praise or criticize all the players on the team, even the greatest stars. You can tell everyone within earshot what you would do if you were the coach.

What you can’t do is affect the score.

Similarly, some of us are following the invasion of Ukraine with intense interest. We are debating the strategy involved in holding Pokrovsk. We are agreeing on the villainy of the pro-Putin politicians.

As long as we atr talking among ourselves, we are doing nothing to influence the course of the war.

Now, the amount of material and monetary support from the West is a major influence on the course of the war. Whatever we — Daily Kos members — can do to encourage that support is the greatest contribution we can make short of going there and taking up a gun.

Writing LTEs (letters to the editor) doesn’t make you a star, but it does pug you on the team. There are other ways of bending opinion, and you haven’t seen me criticizing any of them, but I think this os an effective one.

On October 23m I wrote a LTE to the Washington Post. It aid:Not too long ago, some people -- and not only Putin's American fan club -- saw the Dobropyla salient as the beginning of a breach in Ukraine's defenses in the Donbas. The Ukrainian defense lne was going to crack, and Russia would take a huge section of Ukrainian territory.

Now, the Ukrainian military has taken most of the salient back, and the process of doing so has left the Russian army with less material and fewer soldiers. Next time that we start counting Russian chickens, let's wait until they hatch.

Newer
Older

RSS