You should have called them out more on the “Russia lost net territory” assertion because it just flat out isn’t true. There hasn’t been a single month since 2022 in which Russia has not made net gains in territory.
Even arch-neocon think tank ISW admits this:
And if someone wants to double check that claim, here’s the granular breakdown on a sub-weekly basis, including the latest data up to mid April, based on neutral mapper Suriyak: https://smo-tracker.com/war-posts
Not that territorial advance matters all that much in a war of attrition scenario, but still, we should not let demonstrably false claims go unchallenged.
As you note, the whole discussion of territory is a diversion given that’s not what’s relevant here. But yeah, even here these people just have to resort to lying.
You should have called them out more on the “Russia lost net territory” assertion because it just flat out isn’t true. There hasn’t been a single month since 2022 in which Russia has not made net gains in territory.
Even arch-neocon think tank ISW admits this:
And if someone wants to double check that claim, here’s the granular breakdown on a sub-weekly basis, including the latest data up to mid April, based on neutral mapper Suriyak: https://smo-tracker.com/war-posts
Not that territorial advance matters all that much in a war of attrition scenario, but still, we should not let demonstrably false claims go unchallenged.
As you note, the whole discussion of territory is a diversion given that’s not what’s relevant here. But yeah, even here these people just have to resort to lying.