> Desert storm was a war against an isolated 3rd world country with no military industry and military hardware from the 1970s.

Why do you keep embarassing yourself on a topic you have no clue about except what you heard from Russian propaganda?

Saddam's army was full of modern western and soviet kits and was much better equipped than the AFU (not only for the time but in general: Irak in 1991 had more modern weapons than the Soviet leftover the Ukrainians had back in 2022).

Ukraine is as much of a shithole country as Saddam's Ukraine was, of just happened to have a more competent military leadership, and faced an incompetent opponent.

> Were the Iraqis plugged into the supply chains of a global superpower (like, say, the vietcong was) then it'd be a bit more comparable.

It wouldn't have, because the supply wouldn't have arrived in time. Like what happened in the 6 days war, where the Arab countries were indeed plugged into the Soviet supply line but lost too fast for that to matter. That's the point of the Airland Battle doctrine to begin with. That's also why the US refused to hand over heavy weapons before the invasion, as they genuinely expected the Russians to be capable of toppling the AFU in just a few days or weeks, and didn't expect their aid to be enough to overcome the challenge.

> Was a phrase used by US General Mark Milley

As if Soloviev and other Kremlin-approved pundits never said that as well.

Also the “special military operation” phrase itself was coined by Putin and people calling that a “war” were criminalized.

> By contrast, in 2022 Putin gave a timeline of "as long as it takes".

After the retreat in early 2022, which he described like it was all going according to plans…

Why are you listening to pathological liars?

> Not just barely. We've emptied our inventories of air defense missiles. European capitals are essentially undefended.

Same question as above, why do you keep believing Russian BS?

While air defense is probably the only domain where the assistance has been nontrivial (unlike tanks or airframes with the single digit packages), only a minor fraction of the stocks have been handed over to Ukraine (stocks which were never enough to protect European cities in the first place, as the Western doctrine for air space protection leans much more on fighter jets and AA missiles than on SAM batteries which fit a much narrower niche than in Warsaw pact's doctrine). Needless to say that the AA capabilities of European nations are still untouched and would pose an overwhelming threat to a VKS which have proved its poor combat readiness at the start of the war and has been badly maimed by a country without modern fighters…

> Trump, meanwhile, has decided to wrap up supplies because he wants to save the remaining arms for a war with China.

You missed the memo from last week when Hegseth said China isn't a priority for the US and that they are focusing on the “Western hemisphere ”.

> This never happened even once. The west just made a big song and dance about crossing what they declared to be Russian red lines.

This level of selective forgetting is unbelievable, really.

> It is impressive enough that the largest country in Europe

You keep repeating this BS, but Ukraine is only barely more populated as Belgium and the Nederland combined. It's very, very far from being the largest country in Europe population wise…

> Europe supplied by the richest and most powerful military bloc in the world

The said military block has barely provided a few percent of its defense budget to Ukraine for the past three years.

> is being defeated at all

It's not so far. Putin and his enthusiasts may dream about Ukraine being defeated but the truth is that 3 years in Russia still isn't defeating anyone.

> stick our fingers in our ears and just pretend everything is rosy.

Not everything is rosy, especially because European leaders are too reluctant to supply Ukraine and have not taken the appropriate industrial investments to make that supply possible.

But that doesn't mean the picture is rose on the Russian side either…