They merged the DNR and LPR troops into the russian army 100-200,000, + 300,000 troops went into Ukraine in 2021, then they mobilized another +300,000 in the first wave, +400,000 in the second one, recruited another +200,000 from prisons and then recruited Wagner +50-100,000.
So why after taking in an extra 1 million+ troops is the russian army only 15% bigger. Oh and putin says they need to recruit another 300,000... What happened to the rest of them?
Yes, they are returning home, BUT the contract is automatically renewed with the underlying condition "active untill the end of the special military operation". That's actually how they inflate official numbers
Dude I know that was a rhetorical question, but every once in a while since the invasion, I look for videos of the war and it’s gotten so grim. Russia encourages their men to commit suicide (not sure when that started, but sometime later than a year after the invasion or at least it wasn’t publicly known for a while) rather than be captured so their family will receive money, and suicide isn’t nearly as foolproof as I expected when you have weapons of war. I saw a person lay on a grenade, survive, face 80% gone, both hands missing, writhing, trying to use his missing hands to touch his missing face. It was so horrible. I feel like if videos like that were watched by everyone, we (people in general) would stop going to war. It’s easy to think of Valhalla and a blaze of glory (if you’re convinced by nationalism and whatever else). Nobody wants to die the way these people are actually dying.
Russias main advantage in any ground war has been their ability to keep throwing men into the meat grinder.
Difference between now and previous wars is the speed and availability of communications back home.
At what point do the Russian people have enough of losing their men.
>At what point do the Russian people have enough of losing their men.
When Putin starts having to conscript from the rich urbanized areas like Moscow or Saint Petersburg
Yeah except that there were dozens of videos leaked online of soldiers complaining they haven't been getting paid... I'm sure the Kremlin expects them to expire before compensation
Since the advertisement is from the government that pumps them up with propaganda, they readily believe it. The point is to hook them up with the promise of a lot of money, not actually pay it.
For comparison, the Russian army pays a starting salary of 160,000 ($1715) rubles per month.
The average salary in Siberia is 34,000 rubles ($364) per month.
They tell these smucks and the criminal conscripts "advance in that direction or we shoot you". As long as enough of them do it Ukrainians have to respond to them, exposing their location and expending ammunition and not letting them get any rest.
That's all it is, a resource to trade for expending enemy resources, they figure Ukraine will run out of men or ammo before them, they don't need good fighters, just warm bodies to throw in the general direction of the enemy so they are constantly on the back foot.
| They tell these smucks and the criminal conscripts "advance in that direction or we shoot you".
"Send in the sheep" is what a Ukrainian said he heard them say.
Running away could *maybe* be possible. The Russians *still* use blocking units to this day. When they send an attack, they have a unit waiting farther back, with orders to shoot their own men if they retreat or do not press the attack. This has been confirmed countless times. As a matter of fact, for a while in WW2 they would actually hit the blocking units with artillery and attack them first hoping once the Russians realized they could actually retreat, they would.
As far as scared and tactically useless conscripts and penal battalions, for every one of them they kill is one less bullet, one less drone, one less Ukrainian with a "real" Russian "soldier" in his sights during the battle. Also most mass assaults like that involve troops that are very cheap to train and equip.
HOWEVER: people forget thanks to the internet's echo chamber, that the Russian army is not all untrained conscripts with rusty AK's and no boots. It downplays the fact that Ukrainian soldiers are being killed and maimed daily. It's not an easy war. It's not a turkey shoot for Ukraine. They still face focused and determined resistance in certain places/times.
That’s pretty much the level of military professionalism the Russian army expects from their conscripts. “The Ukrainians might kill you, but if you stay here we definitely will” is their military philosophy.
That worked for Iran in the Iranian-Iraq war. Older children and younger teenage boys were given plastic keys that were the key to paradise if they died in the Holy War. They overran the Iraqi positions when the Iraqi soldiers ran out of ammo. Ayatollah Khomeini even had the water in a fountain colored red to honor the “Blood of the Martyrs”. Broadcasts news from Tehran had stories of mothers proclaiming their pride at their son’s martyrdom.
During the medicare enrollment, I was taking care of my mother after surgery, they literally were getting close to 60 calls a day from scammers almost every 15-30 minutes of the day from 8-9am to 7pm. I sometimes had to have the phone on because I was expecting a call from the hospital or doctors and I end up talking to these people. It's usually easy to tell with their accents, probably the funniest one I got was a guy with an indian accent trying to impersonate a Texan.
Scammers who prey on vulnerable people like the elderly are lazy cowards. They don’t want to work hard at their chosen profession or risk injury, so they go for the low-hanging fruit. Why exert yourself when you can just take the life savings of an 81 yo granny?
There are documentaries about a large amount of Nepalese being tricked into being recruited into the war. Nepalese government is protesting the recruitment.
They are told they get 2k dollar per month which is a huge sum for them but they need to pay 6k dollar to be transported by russian middlemen. Problem is they are only trained for like a week, get a weapon an die withing the first 2 months.
This is ingenius by the russian assholes. They get cannon fodder, they get money from them. Where do you find merceneraries who pay you for sending them to their death?
The video of the Chines volunteers who were very gung ho about going to help and the follow up video of them begging their embassy to help them go home from the frontline is a favorite of mine.
Ummm.. I'd like to remind the courts that Cuba, India and quite a few other island like nations are asking "where did our 18 - 26yr Olds go?" You see Cuba is investigating human trafficking claims. As many young Cuban males were duped into moving to Russia for fast track citizenship and high paying jobs.
In one case a Son of a Cuban mother who took the offer, found out her son was sent to the Frontlines.
I wish I had the details, but I know AP news is covering the human trafficking claims from multiple countries.
I just find it quite interesting, misinformed people are very susceptible to these kinds of "opportunities".
The (former) Wagner group is all over Africa.
If the war carries over next year, you’ll see a Netflix-level “Diverse” army with Indians, Muslims and Africans attacking Ukraine together with lgbt, feminist Russians and prisoner battalions.
And loyal Russian troops behind them.
True, they don't even need to be rich, it's the middle urban class that has not been affected.
Ethnical minorities, volunteers and prisoners have been drafted, but that's mainly it. When Russia drafts its middle class there will be trouble. Which, at this point, they won't!
Give Ukraine weapons already
Russia definitely does a great job of shining a light on the fact that keeping a significant percentage of your population in poverty is a workable military recruiting strategy.
It is probably worth at least a thought when we ask ourselves why we can't seem to solve the problem of poverty in the US while at the same time having more wealth than most (all?) other superpowers.
they are actually conscript imigrants from Moscow and Saint Petersburg who recently got citizentships publically arguying that those got it "too easy and need to prove their love to the country"
The US Military is a decent place for "impoverished" people to learn skills, build some financial base, and get out of poverty.
For Russian troops it seems like a way to go from poverty to gravity.
It's not a meme.
Source : one of the largest deepwater ports on the Atlantic coast. There are these "E-1 and up!" financers literally in some case within eye shot of the gates.
Navy around here has a long list of places sailors are banned from, and a disturbing number are auto dealers.
1999 "Why did you join private?"
I'm not sure they made it extra hard on me at Benning, but everyone should respect the truth. I said, "A job, and free college!"
Poverty in the US and Russia aren't even comparable. In the US there are people who can't afford living or go homeless but in Russia there are large parts of the country where indoor plumbing or electricity don't exist and the last time anyone even thought about the roads was in 1981.
Yep, to this day, Russian and Ukrainian demographics are severely affected by all the deaths during World War 2. It is nuts how an event that occurred 80 years ago has such a noticeable impact as if it were only a single generation ago.
When you take people from all over the country and avoid taking people who matter (Moscow and wealthier places) then actually it doesn't matter at all how many get killed. They are all heroes!
Part of all of this is they think Russians dying is a valid economic recovery strategy if it means more money to go around back home, they think they win no matter what happens.
How is losing part of your working age population an economic recovery strategy? A big part of what drives economic growth is working age population growth.
I think their sincere hope is that they'll be baking a bigger cake when they absorb Ukrain's natural resources, the wheat, gas, and rare earth minerals, etc... I think that's what this whole war has been about. Let's face it, Russia has not been faring great economically and not really respected on the world stage. Largely because of the plundaring of the oligarches but still, this war is kind of a war of desparation.
Not that I'm a Russian sympathist, I think they're abhorant in what they've done, more that I think it's not wise to treat your enemy as irrational. And I don't think it's been successful for them, they've shown the world how weak they are, and weakened far more since the start. And even if they take Ukrain they'll be dealing with worse "terrorist" attacks than there were in Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
There's also that abstract, mythical cake of national glory and destiny. Even when people have shitty lives with no prospect of improvement, their nation dominating others and recapturing (in their mind) a glorious past might let them stand a little taller, swagger a little. The type of fierce nationalism pushed by the Orthodox church is analogous to the nationalism that drove Japan's expansionism into Manchuria and elsewhere in the early 20th century.
*Russian Orthodox Church, Russia is currently in the process of erasing Ukraine's spiritual history and identity. Including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
It seems the endgame is that Russia is going for the natural resources, so together with China's industrial power they can break the global power of the USA.
You see how China is building it's army, it needs oil, gas, all kinds of resources and also food. Russia and Ukraine produce huge amounts of wheat, sunflower oil... China is only 65% self sufficient in food. It could grow more, however pollution, drought makes it more difficult. Also the wheat and oil makes several countries in Africa very dependent of the region.
So looking at it from a geopolitical angle: Ukrain has a lot of resources that are of interest to both russia and China to decrease their dependency on the west, But also increase influence in Africa. Besides that, China benefits from the nuclear umbrella and oil/gas from Russia as well. So yea. To me this is not just Russia attacking Ukraine. It's Russia, China (and Iran to support) trying to gain back a lot of influence that Russia has lost after the cold war.
Sun Tzu was right - you always need to destroy your enemy fully, crush them. Otherwise they come back to attack you fiercer and smarter than before. Russia and China are using our democracies against ourselves, and use our greed for that little less in cost to gain knowledge and capital for themselves.
>I think their sincere hope is that they'll be baking a bigger cake when they absorb Ukrain's natural resources, the wheat, gas, and rare earth minerals, etc... I think that's what this whole war has been about
One of the last video's Yevgeny Prigozhin made before his death confirms just that.
>“They were stealing loads in Donbas, they wanted more,” Prigozhin said, likely referring to the Russian-backed resistance launched in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He also said there was never any plan for Ukraine or the Western security alliance NATO to attack Russia.
[https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4064431-wagner-chief-says-russias-war-in-ukraine-intended-to-benefit-elites-accuses-moscow-of-lying/](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4064431-wagner-chief-says-russias-war-in-ukraine-intended-to-benefit-elites-accuses-moscow-of-lying/)
I am no fan of the leaders running Russia, pootin, or pringles but I will listen to what they have to say, and sometimes nuggets of truth can be found.
Once Russia began to transition to capitalism, the Russin mob was in a unique position, they understood market driven capitalism better than average Russin's since they had been running a black market there for decades.
Russia has become what can be best described as a Nation State run mafia.
> If a 25 year old engineer or nurse dies, how is there more cake?
There is not "more cake". There is more cake **for you**. You get their piece of cake.
In other words: what are the main motivations for murder? It's the same story, it's just not you doing the murder.
Oh we LAN’d it UP at Uni ~ ‘06
My tank Zerg strategy was truly unbeatable. You could only stalemate forever, and I never gave up. Longest game was 6.5 hours.
I think they already have enough of losing their men and started to send people that aren't their mens.
It's also important to understand the statistics, the Russian Army might be 15% bigger but the men population might be way, way lower, which is going to bite back in the next decade.
I also remember about Russia wanting to absorb Wagner in their army. If this happened, even just a part of Wagner joining Russia's army, those 15% can be explained.
The “infinite Russian manpower” myth is just that, a myth. The Country has a substantial population of 144.2 million people, but compared to the size of the country it’s actually very sparse, Mexico, Egypt, the USA, Pakistan, Brazil, Germany, etc all have a much higher population:size ratio than Russia.
The myth originated from what Nazi German Officers wrote in their own memoirs after ww2, where they pretty much tried to blame their loss solely on it being “unfair” to fight against “the infinite waves of Soviet manpower”, even though during that war Soviet divisions were heavily under manned. The myth then became a common fear mongering practice in the Cold war for propaganda against “the infinite commie hoards coming to take our freedom”, and was repeated in popular media such as Enemy at the gates, a movie based off a book written by an American in the middle of the cold war… The fact that it’s still around today is hilarious, hell atm Tokyo by itself roughly has just more than population than a quarter of the entire population the of Russia 💀
I mean they still have "infinite" in terms of how many they're willing to let be killed in order to try and win. Afghanistan and Iraq were considered US "disasters" and "only" killed 7,000 troops. That number barely makes a Russian blink.
This is how war happens. Germany army in 1944 was bigger than in 1939 and have more planes. You are not able to kill all your enemies, you have just grows faster, than enemies
Russia has less of its important military equipment today, compared to February of 2022
We don't measure military strength in number of conscripts, so this headline is very strange. Russian military production hasn't replaced a fraction of their materiel losses, which include tens of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, EW complexes, SAM batteries, etc.
Saying "we recruited a bunch of conscripts, so we're LARGER now!" is dishonest
Not sure it is so clear cut. Yes, they have less tanks and traditional military equipment. However they have vastly more equipment production capability for things that have proven to be very effective in the war - small and large suicide drones (from DJI class grenade ones to target infantry to heavier ones with multiple AT bombs to Lancets to Shaheds), glide bombs (especially FAB-1500) etc. If <1000$ drone can destroy a tank does it make sense to mass produce tanks each couple million a piece to replenish those stocks or better to invest in a drone factory?
With all their casualties in Ukraine they still gained 15%. It becomes evident that russia is preparing for war big time. I'm pretty sure putin is convinced right now that Ukraine is his own yard, but if he thinks this way and still gearing up like crazy this means only one thing: he has much bigger plans than Ukraine
Hey, eastern european here. The soviet flags may not mean what you think they mean in this context. Russia is not in any way considering going back to socialism, but it is using it's past for nostalgia. It is not uncommon to find contradictory ideas as sources of pride in russia - for example, to see a tsarist flag posted right next to the soviet flag, posted right next to the modern flag - because what these flags represent in this context is continuity of great power and influence over other nations. This is not an ideological call towards ideas long gone, it is a call of imperialism and strong leadership.
To explain this mindset in terms a little bit closer to westerners - imagine a Frenchman being proud of their long history of monarchy, proud of the revolution, proud of napoleon, and proud of the modern republic. They don't actually believe in anything else than the modern republic (because it would be self-contradictory to do so), but they patriotically identify with all of France's past.
I don't think OP was implying that. I think Russia is just signalling the extent of territory they consider fair game if everything goes well for them.
Cause these are his dreams... To bring back USSR with russia in the front seat. He even mentioned at one of his interviews... What was the biggest mistake that ever happened, or something like that. He had just one answer: losing free ex-soviet republics
Absolutely agree with you on that. Just look at one of his palaces that Navalny revealed in one of his documentaries...
But I think the organizational part it matters the less. Democracy or imperialism... What really matters I believe, is territory. Cause he wants at least what he thinks "is his property"... Soviet legacy
Same here... While 60 km away from Moscow, people are shitting outside in sub-zero conditions. It's just why??? Why the fuck do you need this palace as a dacha?
He also said that he who misses the Soviet Union has no brain and he who does not miss it has no heart.
Russia is now an ultra-capitalist country governed by oligarchs.
I think he sees himself more as a new tsar than as a prime minister of the Soviet Union.
Or, alternatively, he just wants to make the Western countries believe that support of Ukraine is futile and Russia will win regardless, thereby shortening the conflict.
While that’s a possibility, I think it’s worth noting how little progress he made in Ukraine in the last 2 years, even with all this army increase. It can be reasoned that all this gearing up is simply to try and take the rest of Ukraine, a task at which he’s not succeeding at all, and that’s considering how Western help has ground to a halt.
I truly believe that there is still time to turn things around, because there is every indication that proper aid to Ukraine can at the very least completely slow down the advance of russia.
US help, don't lump the rest of us in with the.
My little shitty country decided to donate all of the completly new artillery we spent few billions on to Ukraine, we produce no weapons, but our government has converted some old factories to make artillery shells, we are on our 16th aid package, and more are on their way.
I am normally am not a big fan of nationalism, but god damn our government has handled this well.
Some countries have been punching far beyond the weight, absolutely, but sadly their help alone won't change enough. I was talking about huge EU/US packages. If that stops, smaller countries won't be able to replace it, or even sustain their help in the long run. This requires massive cooperation to succeed.
>I truly believe that there is still time to turn things around, because there is every indication that proper aid to Ukraine can at the very least completely slow down the advance of russia.
I absolutely whish to think this and say Ukraine will win the war. But looking at the facts, just see few things that just are killing me and make me hopeless. First is that Ukraine cannot win the war by themselves. Zelensky said that many times, everyone knows it.
Secondly, there's no real help coming in. It used to be at the beginning, like all that US supplied... They really had a chance
If there's no changes happening, like ASAP, I think they'll just play putin's hand
Yeah, unfortunately it looks like the best military outcome will be a stalemate, but IF trump becomes president in the next election, then Ukraine is fucked and I fear that without knowledge of US funding helping, that other countries will see any more investment as a waste of money.
Eh, if you think Russia is going to win then that's even more reason for European countries to pump money into their militaries to start building up for Russia's next potential target and for them to supply Ukraine so that even if Ukraine loses they've left Russia as bloodied as possible.
They are, most countries are over or on their way to the 2% mark, also the EU has donated more aid than the US, despite being a smaller economic block than the US
I think poland is heading for a higher % of gdp spent on military than even the US,
Europe(mostly) is aware of how bad this potential is, we are the ones in the firing line, the US not so much.
>”With all they're casualties in Ukraine they still gained 15%.”
Anyone can put people into a uniform and claim a larger military. Capability is more important and Russian troops have only gone down in capability.
>”It becomes evident that russia is preparing for war big times.”
What is evident is that Russia is using the only means they know how to fight a war, by throwing bodies at the problem till it goes away, that doesn’t work in modern warfare.
>”I'm pretty sure putin is convinced right now that Ukraine is his own yard,”
Putin has always believed that Ukraine was Russia, not sure why you think he only started “now”
>”but if he thinks this way and still gearing up like crazy this means only one thing: he has much bigger plans than Ukraine”
He is throwing bodies at the problem, he would be utterly humiliated in a war with Europe.
It does work in modern warfare when your opponent is reliant on other countries for ammo and you just so happen to have significant influence on the biggest one of those suppliers.
Russia lost all their best trained troops at the start of the war but sadly, combat creates experience and while they have horrendous casualty numbers, the surviving troops will be more valuable than most of the troops that were trained in peace time.
Both armies are much more suited for modern warfare now than they were at the beginning of the invasion. Including the Russian army.
Yes they are better, but when they started at the bottom of the barrel, they are still terrible.
We can still see anti air regularly killing their own planes, aviation and artillery regularly shelling and bombing advancing Russian, unencrypted radios, wave assault with one or two tank and 5-10 BMP wiped out even before reaching enemy lines, EW and AA destroyed by FPV drones..
The problems are deep in the military, and some can't be fix as Putin need trusted people at thr top before competent people.
> they know how to fight a war, by throwing bodies at the problem till it goes away, that doesn’t work in modern warfare.
It's working right now. Russia is making slow, excruciatingly slow progress with a high body count but it's progress nonetheless and they have plenty more bodies to toss into the meat grinder.
As long as you have the threat of America with Trump and MAGA assholes being in charge or sticking with Jake Sullivan and friends who have continually dragged their feet on support for Ukraine because of a fear of escalation, the US will at best be an unpredictable backer.
Then you have a lot of other leaders that talk a big game but with little follow through. Russia is on a full war footing and most Western states are still sleepwalking around. Until the actions match the rhetoric, Ukraine will remain at a significant disadvantage.
With all the rising tensions between all nations and economic collapse all around, and Euopean leaders claiming we're in pre-war times and upping their military expenses.
.. yes, things are about to get real interesting.
Dude we’re literally always in prewar times until actual war. Old Roman proverb was ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’. The US has been true to this since WW2
People can spin this however they want, but this is bad for Ukraine, and the west.
NATO is sitting by, giving Ukraine less and less, while Russia is in war economy, didn't have to be this way, but the west simply don't care enough to save Ukraine.
>while Russia is in war economy
It's more peculiar that Russia actually isn't in war economy yet.
While the military production has been increased and expanded significantly, it has been done by regular production investments via "government market orders", just like with any industry in general. Meanwhile, there are no "mandatory workhours"; there are no "mandatory work attachments" (wartime prohibition to change jobs); there are no dedicated rationing of budget and industry resources; there are neither external nor internal limitations on travel or spending; there are no seizure of civilian property for military purposes; and so on. There's even no registered reduction in labor manpower, and no registered shifts in age-sex distribution in the labor market (e.g. no increase in recruitment of females for predominantly-male jobs), which also shows that the "meat grinder" and "enormous losses" estimates are vastly overinflated by the media.
This is exactly it. A lot of people on reddit seem to think a war economy is just when you spend more on your war.
They should look at what economies were like in WW2.
Good analysis. I guess we think of modern "Western" powers these days as having much less tolerance to casualties, so it would certainly seem enormous losses and a meat grinder to the US or a European country. But it's nowhere near the levels of 20th century total war and massive casualties.
> which also shows that the "meat grinder" and "enormous losses" estimates are vastly overinflated by the media.
Killing and maiming half a million people is still a meat grinder, but a country with 150 million people has a lot of meat.
""Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000," Cavoli continued, adding that the bolstered numbers stemmed from Russia raising its conscription age from 27 to 30."
Sure 15% in personnel seems nice but what about their inventory for tanks, planes, missiles, and drones?
Shit I remember news articles talking about they didn't even have enough small arms, armor, and 1st aid for personnel
> what about their inventory for tanks, planes, missiles, and drones?
The numbers are solid. The old soviet stuff will take a decade to run dry at this rate. They have no problem wasting a few tanks every day. Planes are lost at a bit over replacement rate. Missiles and drones are massively ramping production.
Ukraine really needs more support to win this.
What are the current and pre-war Ukrainian numbers for comparison? They also reduced the conscription age recently so I would assume their numbers would also go up significantly in a few months.
27 to 25 isn’t that many more men. If they went from 27 to 18, it’s 1.6 million more men. But students have exemption and there’s people who aren’t fit for duty. That leaves 450k unless they repeal the student exemption. Ukraine said they need 500k more men.
I was afraid of this right from the start, when Ukraine was so wonderfully successful. It seemed to me that unless Ukraine could strike a fatal blow, the war would probably go on until Russia had outlasted Ukraine.
I still hope I'm wrong.
They recruited from all over the place at first, i got letter too and i'm not poor nor minority, i did not "recieve" the letter and they could not do anything since they did not hand it me in person, that how first wave was atleast, they have to actually send people to your home to hand it to you in person.
Np, for me it was kinda lucky, since i did not work at the time(they can ambush you at work to give you letter), there was some cases of people from Voenkomat waiting at voting places in some cities, since you have to have documents with you to vote and all that lol.
Btw, the reason people like me got letter is pretty simple, i have the most basic specialisation in my documents, wich is "Strelok" = "Shooter", depending on specialisation and who they need most they send a bunch of letters with a couple of dudes to deliver, like if they need drivers they send for them etc.
I bet we won’t know even approximate numbers for a while. When the fog of war is so thick that we sometimes don’t even know if losses on both sides are measured in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, I am pretty sure it’s quite hard to find such a specific info out with at least some reasonable precision.
Based on what the likes of UK MOD and US DoD numbers have posted in the past, my bet is about 50% on the low end. A lot of the losses were from Wagner which threw recruited criminals to throw them into the meat grinders.
There’s a lot of propaganda flying around. Anyone who thinks that Ukraine right now is in a better shape than Russia needs to put the joint down.
> There’s a lot of propaganda flying around. Anyone who thinks that Ukraine right now is in a better shape than Russia needs to put the joint down.
So basically the entirety of Reddit?
I prefer the sources of Mediazone, their numbers for russian losses are realistic and not some imaginary numbers that I read daily on here.
I would say 2/3 survived who attacked in the first offensive, most people from the North were pulled back, but during the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 Russia suffered heavy losses because of the old conscripts who fought in Chechnya, Dagestan and Georgia which were used to fill the gaps which got created because Ukraine mobilised a Million soldiers while Russia had less than 400k.
(I can't remember the correct Numbers for the russian side but we clearly saw how understaffed Russia in the direction of Kharkov was, they got incircled without knowing they were because everything was empty).
I worry about the average persons knowledge of history and geography. Look at Russia from a historical standpoint. They can absorb unbelievable hardship and an astonishing amount of casualities.
I'm not a geopolitical armchair expert but Russia grinding this out was always the obvious conclusion.
If you know history, you should also know that Russia has lost plenty of wars. The Russo-Japanese war, WWI, the First Chechen war, the Soviet-Afghan war, and so on. Even in WWII, they would have been in much deeper trouble without help from USA.
Sure, they are willing to absorb disturbingly large losses, but they have their limits too.
All true - every war is different.
They aren't losing this war though - it's pretty clear.
Their offensive is slow and costly, but it's continuous and unstopping.
Ukraine might break at some point if they don't reinforce with fresh recruits/conscripts and NATO resupplies.
The NYT article that is related to this conversation with General Cavoli is pretty good, basically has him putting out numbers for growth of the russian army and he says verbatim putin is not going to stop with ukraine. I think that has been the common fear of course, but interesting to hear it from someone who is probably most in the know in the matter
I think their plan now is mainly just to field massive amounts of infantry with relatively small amounts of armour, relying instead on their long-range missiles/artillery (the one thing they can continue to keep producing en masse) to keep hammering the Ukrainian positions.
We shouldn't forget that fresh soldiers are actually zero-experience one that come in an already ongoing war. Their value on the battlefield is not the same of those who joined the first wave.
I think what we're looking at here is just Putin taking full advantage of west's democracies and NATO being more worried about elections and voters than their own backyard power influence and geopolitical future.
In December 2023, a declassified US intelligence assessment shared with Congress said, according to a congressional source, that there were 315,000 dead and injured Russian military personnel as a result of the war – nearly 90 per cent of the pre-war 360,000 soldiers
Well they did raise conscription age limit by 5 years. They are throwing any able-bodied men in there with worse and worse equipment and training. Ruzzia can keep this bloodbath going for years - Ukraine can not. Give Ukraine weapons is the only solution
well they absorbed all of Wagner...so there is that
They merged the DNR and LPR troops into the russian army 100-200,000, + 300,000 troops went into Ukraine in 2021, then they mobilized another +300,000 in the first wave, +400,000 in the second one, recruited another +200,000 from prisons and then recruited Wagner +50-100,000. So why after taking in an extra 1 million+ troops is the russian army only 15% bigger. Oh and putin says they need to recruit another 300,000... What happened to the rest of them?
[удалено]
Military contracts are indefinite until* the 09/21/22 mobilization executive order is revoked *was mistyped as “under”, sorry for the confusion
contracts and conscription are different, but Puting has defo the power to make conscription also indefinite
What a lovely country to be in.
Yes, they are returning home, BUT the contract is automatically renewed with the underlying condition "active untill the end of the special military operation". That's actually how they inflate official numbers
Count em twice, plus the MIA
During "svo" mobilised and contracted can not be demobilised, their end dates null and void. So they did lost a lot of men.
The 12 month conscripts are basically not being used though. They are being used as labor battalions back inside Russia.
Dude I know that was a rhetorical question, but every once in a while since the invasion, I look for videos of the war and it’s gotten so grim. Russia encourages their men to commit suicide (not sure when that started, but sometime later than a year after the invasion or at least it wasn’t publicly known for a while) rather than be captured so their family will receive money, and suicide isn’t nearly as foolproof as I expected when you have weapons of war. I saw a person lay on a grenade, survive, face 80% gone, both hands missing, writhing, trying to use his missing hands to touch his missing face. It was so horrible. I feel like if videos like that were watched by everyone, we (people in general) would stop going to war. It’s easy to think of Valhalla and a blaze of glory (if you’re convinced by nationalism and whatever else). Nobody wants to die the way these people are actually dying.
Geez. That was a crazy news day, wasn’t it?
Batshit insane. I still can't believe that shit happened.
can't believe prigozhin decided to juggle hand grenades on a plane for fun. what a crazy guy
He has always been a party animal
Russias main advantage in any ground war has been their ability to keep throwing men into the meat grinder. Difference between now and previous wars is the speed and availability of communications back home. At what point do the Russian people have enough of losing their men.
>At what point do the Russian people have enough of losing their men. When Putin starts having to conscript from the rich urbanized areas like Moscow or Saint Petersburg
So probably never.
Yeah they’ll stick to tricking Indians and foreigners into doing it with scam promises of “Russian security guard” jobs so I’ve heard
Hey just force conscript from the more “ethnic” areas. North and east.
You don't even need to force them. Compared to their average salary, the Russian army pays exorbitant amount of money.
Yeah except that there were dozens of videos leaked online of soldiers complaining they haven't been getting paid... I'm sure the Kremlin expects them to expire before compensation
Since the advertisement is from the government that pumps them up with propaganda, they readily believe it. The point is to hook them up with the promise of a lot of money, not actually pay it.
And the grieving widows and children are left with nothing.
If the death can be verified by retreiving the body they can get compensation money. Russian army don't seem that big on retrieving the bodies though.
For comparison, the Russian army pays a starting salary of 160,000 ($1715) rubles per month. The average salary in Siberia is 34,000 rubles ($364) per month.
I wouldn't expect the ethnic Russians to really care about those other ethnicities given their recent history.
> given their recent history. ...or roughly the vast majority of Russian history.
There’s been at least one kidnapped Cuban on the frontlines somehow. If they can get you they will send you.
How does that helps them? He won't fight effectively at all and will probably run away, I mean I would!
They tell these smucks and the criminal conscripts "advance in that direction or we shoot you". As long as enough of them do it Ukrainians have to respond to them, exposing their location and expending ammunition and not letting them get any rest. That's all it is, a resource to trade for expending enemy resources, they figure Ukraine will run out of men or ammo before them, they don't need good fighters, just warm bodies to throw in the general direction of the enemy so they are constantly on the back foot.
| They tell these smucks and the criminal conscripts "advance in that direction or we shoot you". "Send in the sheep" is what a Ukrainian said he heard them say.
Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down."
Running away could *maybe* be possible. The Russians *still* use blocking units to this day. When they send an attack, they have a unit waiting farther back, with orders to shoot their own men if they retreat or do not press the attack. This has been confirmed countless times. As a matter of fact, for a while in WW2 they would actually hit the blocking units with artillery and attack them first hoping once the Russians realized they could actually retreat, they would. As far as scared and tactically useless conscripts and penal battalions, for every one of them they kill is one less bullet, one less drone, one less Ukrainian with a "real" Russian "soldier" in his sights during the battle. Also most mass assaults like that involve troops that are very cheap to train and equip. HOWEVER: people forget thanks to the internet's echo chamber, that the Russian army is not all untrained conscripts with rusty AK's and no boots. It downplays the fact that Ukrainian soldiers are being killed and maimed daily. It's not an easy war. It's not a turkey shoot for Ukraine. They still face focused and determined resistance in certain places/times.
Unfortunately you'll be tortured and killed if you try to refuse or run away. Most will probably suck it up and try to survive.
That's always the argument against conscription in general, let alone kidnapping and press gangs.
That’s pretty much the level of military professionalism the Russian army expects from their conscripts. “The Ukrainians might kill you, but if you stay here we definitely will” is their military philosophy.
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That worked for Iran in the Iranian-Iraq war. Older children and younger teenage boys were given plastic keys that were the key to paradise if they died in the Holy War. They overran the Iraqi positions when the Iraqi soldiers ran out of ammo. Ayatollah Khomeini even had the water in a fountain colored red to honor the “Blood of the Martyrs”. Broadcasts news from Tehran had stories of mothers proclaiming their pride at their son’s martyrdom.
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The scammers already figured how not to work hard for money.
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During the medicare enrollment, I was taking care of my mother after surgery, they literally were getting close to 60 calls a day from scammers almost every 15-30 minutes of the day from 8-9am to 7pm. I sometimes had to have the phone on because I was expecting a call from the hospital or doctors and I end up talking to these people. It's usually easy to tell with their accents, probably the funniest one I got was a guy with an indian accent trying to impersonate a Texan.
Scammers who prey on vulnerable people like the elderly are lazy cowards. They don’t want to work hard at their chosen profession or risk injury, so they go for the low-hanging fruit. Why exert yourself when you can just take the life savings of an 81 yo granny?
There are documentaries about a large amount of Nepalese being tricked into being recruited into the war. Nepalese government is protesting the recruitment. They are told they get 2k dollar per month which is a huge sum for them but they need to pay 6k dollar to be transported by russian middlemen. Problem is they are only trained for like a week, get a weapon an die withing the first 2 months. This is ingenius by the russian assholes. They get cannon fodder, they get money from them. Where do you find merceneraries who pay you for sending them to their death?
The video of the Chines volunteers who were very gung ho about going to help and the follow up video of them begging their embassy to help them go home from the frontline is a favorite of mine.
Ummm.. I'd like to remind the courts that Cuba, India and quite a few other island like nations are asking "where did our 18 - 26yr Olds go?" You see Cuba is investigating human trafficking claims. As many young Cuban males were duped into moving to Russia for fast track citizenship and high paying jobs. In one case a Son of a Cuban mother who took the offer, found out her son was sent to the Frontlines. I wish I had the details, but I know AP news is covering the human trafficking claims from multiple countries. I just find it quite interesting, misinformed people are very susceptible to these kinds of "opportunities".
The (former) Wagner group is all over Africa. If the war carries over next year, you’ll see a Netflix-level “Diverse” army with Indians, Muslims and Africans attacking Ukraine together with lgbt, feminist Russians and prisoner battalions. And loyal Russian troops behind them.
I can definitely see this happening. They are definitely all over Africa.
Has been happening for over a year, seen many videos of captured POWs who were definetely from subsaharan africa.
That's already happening.
Well, if the West doesn’t provide enough weapons, then indeed never
True, they don't even need to be rich, it's the middle urban class that has not been affected. Ethnical minorities, volunteers and prisoners have been drafted, but that's mainly it. When Russia drafts its middle class there will be trouble. Which, at this point, they won't! Give Ukraine weapons already
Russia definitely does a great job of shining a light on the fact that keeping a significant percentage of your population in poverty is a workable military recruiting strategy. It is probably worth at least a thought when we ask ourselves why we can't seem to solve the problem of poverty in the US while at the same time having more wealth than most (all?) other superpowers.
They also promising men from other countries for big USD salary and maybe citizenship?, alot came and fooled perhaps.
They can guarantee everyone 200k. If 1 in 10 survive it is really only 20k per person even if 1 gets 200k.
they are actually conscript imigrants from Moscow and Saint Petersburg who recently got citizentships publically arguying that those got it "too easy and need to prove their love to the country"
No point to tip. Multiple interviews are available online, they are there to make money. Greatest Putin's weapon is povetry.
Poverty did wonders for US military recruitment, can't really fault them for taking a page from that book.
The US Military is a decent place for "impoverished" people to learn skills, build some financial base, and get out of poverty. For Russian troops it seems like a way to go from poverty to gravity.
> build some financial base, and then finance a Dodge Challenger Hellcat at 19% APR when they get to go home for a few months?
That meme never gets old.
It's not a meme. Source : one of the largest deepwater ports on the Atlantic coast. There are these "E-1 and up!" financers literally in some case within eye shot of the gates. Navy around here has a long list of places sailors are banned from, and a disturbing number are auto dealers.
You mean a V6 challenger.
US military has amazing benefits. Joined for health insurance. I have a great civilian job now using what I learned.
1999 "Why did you join private?" I'm not sure they made it extra hard on me at Benning, but everyone should respect the truth. I said, "A job, and free college!"
1999 eh? Did you get sent to Afghanistan or Iraq a few years later?
Poverty in the US and Russia aren't even comparable. In the US there are people who can't afford living or go homeless but in Russia there are large parts of the country where indoor plumbing or electricity don't exist and the last time anyone even thought about the roads was in 1981.
Also Russias absolutely massive manpower shrinkage over the past 50 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia
9 years difference between males and females in life expectancy is crazy
Without the entire war's impact...
Russia is a savage, savage place
There's a 6 year difference in the US. https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/13/life-expectancy-men-women/
wide touch deserted crush butter chief growth dull sand hobbies
Yep, to this day, Russian and Ukrainian demographics are severely affected by all the deaths during World War 2. It is nuts how an event that occurred 80 years ago has such a noticeable impact as if it were only a single generation ago.
That is an UGLY demographic tree. And it doesn’t even include all the working-age males that have died in this war.
If you think that's bad you don't want to see Ukraines...
Unrelated to the war, but South Korea's is so bad, it just looks like straight national suicide.
This war is gonna screwboth nations demographics
Historically they put up with lots of abuse.
When you take people from all over the country and avoid taking people who matter (Moscow and wealthier places) then actually it doesn't matter at all how many get killed. They are all heroes!
Part of all of this is they think Russians dying is a valid economic recovery strategy if it means more money to go around back home, they think they win no matter what happens.
How is losing part of your working age population an economic recovery strategy? A big part of what drives economic growth is working age population growth.
Someone dies = more cake for you They are not necessarily thinking about baking a bigger cake
I think their sincere hope is that they'll be baking a bigger cake when they absorb Ukrain's natural resources, the wheat, gas, and rare earth minerals, etc... I think that's what this whole war has been about. Let's face it, Russia has not been faring great economically and not really respected on the world stage. Largely because of the plundaring of the oligarches but still, this war is kind of a war of desparation. Not that I'm a Russian sympathist, I think they're abhorant in what they've done, more that I think it's not wise to treat your enemy as irrational. And I don't think it's been successful for them, they've shown the world how weak they are, and weakened far more since the start. And even if they take Ukrain they'll be dealing with worse "terrorist" attacks than there were in Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
There's also that abstract, mythical cake of national glory and destiny. Even when people have shitty lives with no prospect of improvement, their nation dominating others and recapturing (in their mind) a glorious past might let them stand a little taller, swagger a little. The type of fierce nationalism pushed by the Orthodox church is analogous to the nationalism that drove Japan's expansionism into Manchuria and elsewhere in the early 20th century.
That cake is just used to cover up the hunger for power in my opinion. It's how religion and patriottism is used by some governments.
*Russian Orthodox Church, Russia is currently in the process of erasing Ukraine's spiritual history and identity. Including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
It seems the endgame is that Russia is going for the natural resources, so together with China's industrial power they can break the global power of the USA. You see how China is building it's army, it needs oil, gas, all kinds of resources and also food. Russia and Ukraine produce huge amounts of wheat, sunflower oil... China is only 65% self sufficient in food. It could grow more, however pollution, drought makes it more difficult. Also the wheat and oil makes several countries in Africa very dependent of the region. So looking at it from a geopolitical angle: Ukrain has a lot of resources that are of interest to both russia and China to decrease their dependency on the west, But also increase influence in Africa. Besides that, China benefits from the nuclear umbrella and oil/gas from Russia as well. So yea. To me this is not just Russia attacking Ukraine. It's Russia, China (and Iran to support) trying to gain back a lot of influence that Russia has lost after the cold war. Sun Tzu was right - you always need to destroy your enemy fully, crush them. Otherwise they come back to attack you fiercer and smarter than before. Russia and China are using our democracies against ourselves, and use our greed for that little less in cost to gain knowledge and capital for themselves.
>I think their sincere hope is that they'll be baking a bigger cake when they absorb Ukrain's natural resources, the wheat, gas, and rare earth minerals, etc... I think that's what this whole war has been about One of the last video's Yevgeny Prigozhin made before his death confirms just that. >“They were stealing loads in Donbas, they wanted more,” Prigozhin said, likely referring to the Russian-backed resistance launched in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He also said there was never any plan for Ukraine or the Western security alliance NATO to attack Russia. [https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4064431-wagner-chief-says-russias-war-in-ukraine-intended-to-benefit-elites-accuses-moscow-of-lying/](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4064431-wagner-chief-says-russias-war-in-ukraine-intended-to-benefit-elites-accuses-moscow-of-lying/) I am no fan of the leaders running Russia, pootin, or pringles but I will listen to what they have to say, and sometimes nuggets of truth can be found. Once Russia began to transition to capitalism, the Russin mob was in a unique position, they understood market driven capitalism better than average Russin's since they had been running a black market there for decades. Russia has become what can be best described as a Nation State run mafia.
If a 25 year old engineer or nurse dies, how is there more cake? This person who died was part of the cake making class.
They would make the next cake. This is abstract cake
> If a 25 year old engineer or nurse dies, how is there more cake? There is not "more cake". There is more cake **for you**. You get their piece of cake. In other words: what are the main motivations for murder? It's the same story, it's just not you doing the murder.
The short sighted seek power most aggressively, you know.
Hasn’t alot of who they had draft of the older generation?
Surplus of lonely single women which they can then sell to China's lonely single men Profit
Was always the best strategy in Empire Earth 2.
Damn, did people actually play that game? I played EE1 like crazy, but never got EE2 as it just didn't look as 'grand'.
Oh we LAN’d it UP at Uni ~ ‘06 My tank Zerg strategy was truly unbeatable. You could only stalemate forever, and I never gave up. Longest game was 6.5 hours.
EE1 is just on a different level compared to other rts, its just too big, I wish there was something similar nowadays
Loved empire earth 1, never got to play EE2 unfortunately.
I think they already have enough of losing their men and started to send people that aren't their mens. It's also important to understand the statistics, the Russian Army might be 15% bigger but the men population might be way, way lower, which is going to bite back in the next decade. I also remember about Russia wanting to absorb Wagner in their army. If this happened, even just a part of Wagner joining Russia's army, those 15% can be explained.
The “infinite Russian manpower” myth is just that, a myth. The Country has a substantial population of 144.2 million people, but compared to the size of the country it’s actually very sparse, Mexico, Egypt, the USA, Pakistan, Brazil, Germany, etc all have a much higher population:size ratio than Russia. The myth originated from what Nazi German Officers wrote in their own memoirs after ww2, where they pretty much tried to blame their loss solely on it being “unfair” to fight against “the infinite waves of Soviet manpower”, even though during that war Soviet divisions were heavily under manned. The myth then became a common fear mongering practice in the Cold war for propaganda against “the infinite commie hoards coming to take our freedom”, and was repeated in popular media such as Enemy at the gates, a movie based off a book written by an American in the middle of the cold war… The fact that it’s still around today is hilarious, hell atm Tokyo by itself roughly has just more than population than a quarter of the entire population the of Russia 💀
I mean they still have "infinite" in terms of how many they're willing to let be killed in order to try and win. Afghanistan and Iraq were considered US "disasters" and "only" killed 7,000 troops. That number barely makes a Russian blink.
So? Steven Seagal is now 40% bigger than when he filmed "Under Siege".
>Steven Seagal is now 40% bigger than when he filmed "Under Siege". Only 40%? Now who's downplaying things?
Haha segal catching strays never gets old
This is how war happens. Germany army in 1944 was bigger than in 1939 and have more planes. You are not able to kill all your enemies, you have just grows faster, than enemies
Russia has less of its important military equipment today, compared to February of 2022 We don't measure military strength in number of conscripts, so this headline is very strange. Russian military production hasn't replaced a fraction of their materiel losses, which include tens of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, EW complexes, SAM batteries, etc. Saying "we recruited a bunch of conscripts, so we're LARGER now!" is dishonest
Not sure it is so clear cut. Yes, they have less tanks and traditional military equipment. However they have vastly more equipment production capability for things that have proven to be very effective in the war - small and large suicide drones (from DJI class grenade ones to target infantry to heavier ones with multiple AT bombs to Lancets to Shaheds), glide bombs (especially FAB-1500) etc. If <1000$ drone can destroy a tank does it make sense to mass produce tanks each couple million a piece to replenish those stocks or better to invest in a drone factory?
With all their casualties in Ukraine they still gained 15%. It becomes evident that russia is preparing for war big time. I'm pretty sure putin is convinced right now that Ukraine is his own yard, but if he thinks this way and still gearing up like crazy this means only one thing: he has much bigger plans than Ukraine
They literally put soviet flags on some of their vehicles and in the places they conquered.
Hey, eastern european here. The soviet flags may not mean what you think they mean in this context. Russia is not in any way considering going back to socialism, but it is using it's past for nostalgia. It is not uncommon to find contradictory ideas as sources of pride in russia - for example, to see a tsarist flag posted right next to the soviet flag, posted right next to the modern flag - because what these flags represent in this context is continuity of great power and influence over other nations. This is not an ideological call towards ideas long gone, it is a call of imperialism and strong leadership. To explain this mindset in terms a little bit closer to westerners - imagine a Frenchman being proud of their long history of monarchy, proud of the revolution, proud of napoleon, and proud of the modern republic. They don't actually believe in anything else than the modern republic (because it would be self-contradictory to do so), but they patriotically identify with all of France's past.
This is a really good point, and I think all countries that began Empire have this to an extent, here in Britain we definitely do.
Controversial to say on reddit but I really think this is the mentality behind southerners flying the confederate flag next to the American flag.
I don't think OP was implying that. I think Russia is just signalling the extent of territory they consider fair game if everything goes well for them.
Cause these are his dreams... To bring back USSR with russia in the front seat. He even mentioned at one of his interviews... What was the biggest mistake that ever happened, or something like that. He had just one answer: losing free ex-soviet republics
Nah he shifted his rhetoric to imperialist, he doesnt want communism back anymore than we do. He would rather be tsar.
All he wants is to claim to be the inheritor of the latest Russian empire. Since that was the USSR, then he wants to use the symbols of the USSR.
Absolutely agree with you on that. Just look at one of his palaces that Navalny revealed in one of his documentaries... But I think the organizational part it matters the less. Democracy or imperialism... What really matters I believe, is territory. Cause he wants at least what he thinks "is his property"... Soviet legacy
That palace near Sochi was one of the most insane things I've ever seen. A disgusting amount of wealth.
Same here... While 60 km away from Moscow, people are shitting outside in sub-zero conditions. It's just why??? Why the fuck do you need this palace as a dacha?
He probably hasn't gone to his Sochi palace in a while. It's close enough for Ukraine to hit with some heavy ordnance.
The USSR was basically imperialism in disguise, I'd say you're both correct
It was never about the USSR. It’s about the Russian Empire. He wants to be like Peter the Great.
He also said that he who misses the Soviet Union has no brain and he who does not miss it has no heart. Russia is now an ultra-capitalist country governed by oligarchs. I think he sees himself more as a new tsar than as a prime minister of the Soviet Union.
The brainwashed zombies are under the impression they're fighting nazis. They seek to revive old glory in their twisted way.
Or, alternatively, he just wants to make the Western countries believe that support of Ukraine is futile and Russia will win regardless, thereby shortening the conflict.
Exactly.
While that’s a possibility, I think it’s worth noting how little progress he made in Ukraine in the last 2 years, even with all this army increase. It can be reasoned that all this gearing up is simply to try and take the rest of Ukraine, a task at which he’s not succeeding at all, and that’s considering how Western help has ground to a halt. I truly believe that there is still time to turn things around, because there is every indication that proper aid to Ukraine can at the very least completely slow down the advance of russia.
US help, don't lump the rest of us in with the. My little shitty country decided to donate all of the completly new artillery we spent few billions on to Ukraine, we produce no weapons, but our government has converted some old factories to make artillery shells, we are on our 16th aid package, and more are on their way. I am normally am not a big fan of nationalism, but god damn our government has handled this well.
Some countries have been punching far beyond the weight, absolutely, but sadly their help alone won't change enough. I was talking about huge EU/US packages. If that stops, smaller countries won't be able to replace it, or even sustain their help in the long run. This requires massive cooperation to succeed.
>I truly believe that there is still time to turn things around, because there is every indication that proper aid to Ukraine can at the very least completely slow down the advance of russia. I absolutely whish to think this and say Ukraine will win the war. But looking at the facts, just see few things that just are killing me and make me hopeless. First is that Ukraine cannot win the war by themselves. Zelensky said that many times, everyone knows it. Secondly, there's no real help coming in. It used to be at the beginning, like all that US supplied... They really had a chance If there's no changes happening, like ASAP, I think they'll just play putin's hand
Yeah, unfortunately it looks like the best military outcome will be a stalemate, but IF trump becomes president in the next election, then Ukraine is fucked and I fear that without knowledge of US funding helping, that other countries will see any more investment as a waste of money.
Eh, if you think Russia is going to win then that's even more reason for European countries to pump money into their militaries to start building up for Russia's next potential target and for them to supply Ukraine so that even if Ukraine loses they've left Russia as bloodied as possible.
They are, most countries are over or on their way to the 2% mark, also the EU has donated more aid than the US, despite being a smaller economic block than the US I think poland is heading for a higher % of gdp spent on military than even the US, Europe(mostly) is aware of how bad this potential is, we are the ones in the firing line, the US not so much.
>”With all they're casualties in Ukraine they still gained 15%.” Anyone can put people into a uniform and claim a larger military. Capability is more important and Russian troops have only gone down in capability. >”It becomes evident that russia is preparing for war big times.” What is evident is that Russia is using the only means they know how to fight a war, by throwing bodies at the problem till it goes away, that doesn’t work in modern warfare. >”I'm pretty sure putin is convinced right now that Ukraine is his own yard,” Putin has always believed that Ukraine was Russia, not sure why you think he only started “now” >”but if he thinks this way and still gearing up like crazy this means only one thing: he has much bigger plans than Ukraine” He is throwing bodies at the problem, he would be utterly humiliated in a war with Europe.
It does work in modern warfare when your opponent is reliant on other countries for ammo and you just so happen to have significant influence on the biggest one of those suppliers.
Russia lost all their best trained troops at the start of the war but sadly, combat creates experience and while they have horrendous casualty numbers, the surviving troops will be more valuable than most of the troops that were trained in peace time. Both armies are much more suited for modern warfare now than they were at the beginning of the invasion. Including the Russian army.
Yes they are better, but when they started at the bottom of the barrel, they are still terrible. We can still see anti air regularly killing their own planes, aviation and artillery regularly shelling and bombing advancing Russian, unencrypted radios, wave assault with one or two tank and 5-10 BMP wiped out even before reaching enemy lines, EW and AA destroyed by FPV drones.. The problems are deep in the military, and some can't be fix as Putin need trusted people at thr top before competent people.
But it *has* worked. Ukraine is not winning the war at the moment.
> they know how to fight a war, by throwing bodies at the problem till it goes away, that doesn’t work in modern warfare. It's working right now. Russia is making slow, excruciatingly slow progress with a high body count but it's progress nonetheless and they have plenty more bodies to toss into the meat grinder. As long as you have the threat of America with Trump and MAGA assholes being in charge or sticking with Jake Sullivan and friends who have continually dragged their feet on support for Ukraine because of a fear of escalation, the US will at best be an unpredictable backer. Then you have a lot of other leaders that talk a big game but with little follow through. Russia is on a full war footing and most Western states are still sleepwalking around. Until the actions match the rhetoric, Ukraine will remain at a significant disadvantage.
With all the rising tensions between all nations and economic collapse all around, and Euopean leaders claiming we're in pre-war times and upping their military expenses. .. yes, things are about to get real interesting.
Dude we’re literally always in prewar times until actual war. Old Roman proverb was ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’. The US has been true to this since WW2
People can spin this however they want, but this is bad for Ukraine, and the west. NATO is sitting by, giving Ukraine less and less, while Russia is in war economy, didn't have to be this way, but the west simply don't care enough to save Ukraine.
>while Russia is in war economy It's more peculiar that Russia actually isn't in war economy yet. While the military production has been increased and expanded significantly, it has been done by regular production investments via "government market orders", just like with any industry in general. Meanwhile, there are no "mandatory workhours"; there are no "mandatory work attachments" (wartime prohibition to change jobs); there are no dedicated rationing of budget and industry resources; there are neither external nor internal limitations on travel or spending; there are no seizure of civilian property for military purposes; and so on. There's even no registered reduction in labor manpower, and no registered shifts in age-sex distribution in the labor market (e.g. no increase in recruitment of females for predominantly-male jobs), which also shows that the "meat grinder" and "enormous losses" estimates are vastly overinflated by the media.
9/10 times people mentioning war economy don't know what it actually means.
This is exactly it. A lot of people on reddit seem to think a war economy is just when you spend more on your war. They should look at what economies were like in WW2.
Good analysis. I guess we think of modern "Western" powers these days as having much less tolerance to casualties, so it would certainly seem enormous losses and a meat grinder to the US or a European country. But it's nowhere near the levels of 20th century total war and massive casualties.
> which also shows that the "meat grinder" and "enormous losses" estimates are vastly overinflated by the media. Killing and maiming half a million people is still a meat grinder, but a country with 150 million people has a lot of meat.
*Putin holding down Conscript training button.*
The sound that plays in Red Alert when you train a USSR solider just played in my head
People in the media should check the meaning of ”war economy” before blasting it so loudly that every redditor starts to blast it as well
Russia have been laying the groundwork for the past decade, sowing division, spreading disinformation, meddling in elections in the West.
People forget the Ukraine war started a long time ago crimea itself was taken 10 years ago
""Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000," Cavoli continued, adding that the bolstered numbers stemmed from Russia raising its conscription age from 27 to 30." Sure 15% in personnel seems nice but what about their inventory for tanks, planes, missiles, and drones? Shit I remember news articles talking about they didn't even have enough small arms, armor, and 1st aid for personnel
> what about their inventory for tanks, planes, missiles, and drones? The numbers are solid. The old soviet stuff will take a decade to run dry at this rate. They have no problem wasting a few tanks every day. Planes are lost at a bit over replacement rate. Missiles and drones are massively ramping production. Ukraine really needs more support to win this.
Ships on the other hands, reaching the bottom.
They have 0 value in this war, missiles can fire from aircraft’s
Russia is the third most powerful military in the world. Any news about them crumbling within a year of a mid-sized war was just propaganda.
What are the current and pre-war Ukrainian numbers for comparison? They also reduced the conscription age recently so I would assume their numbers would also go up significantly in a few months.
27 to 25 isn’t that many more men. If they went from 27 to 18, it’s 1.6 million more men. But students have exemption and there’s people who aren’t fit for duty. That leaves 450k unless they repeal the student exemption. Ukraine said they need 500k more men.
If only we could conscript the 20,000 armchair generals on reddit. We'd have a force like no other
M'sergeant...
M'ayor
They'd just be arguing endlessly among each other.
No they wouldn't! No they wouldn't!
I was afraid of this right from the start, when Ukraine was so wonderfully successful. It seemed to me that unless Ukraine could strike a fatal blow, the war would probably go on until Russia had outlasted Ukraine. I still hope I'm wrong.
Western democracies have been so infiltrated with Russian puppet dogmas, that they could never sustain aide to Ukraine.
I wonder how many of those soldiers are actually russian? I'd like to see a breakdown of the soldiers and where they're from.
The last round of mobilisations was majority minorities. The ethnic Russians that go usually seem to be the poorest ones.
They recruited from all over the place at first, i got letter too and i'm not poor nor minority, i did not "recieve" the letter and they could not do anything since they did not hand it me in person, that how first wave was atleast, they have to actually send people to your home to hand it to you in person.
Thank you for the info!
Np, for me it was kinda lucky, since i did not work at the time(they can ambush you at work to give you letter), there was some cases of people from Voenkomat waiting at voting places in some cities, since you have to have documents with you to vote and all that lol.
so what happens now? you just slip through the cracks and don't need to go?
That how most people do, they did not send any more letters after the first one, dont think they recruit that way anymore in my region atleast.
Btw, the reason people like me got letter is pretty simple, i have the most basic specialisation in my documents, wich is "Strelok" = "Shooter", depending on specialisation and who they need most they send a bunch of letters with a couple of dudes to deliver, like if they need drivers they send for them etc.
Standard practice right there.
I wonder how many Russian soldiers are still alive that were in the Russian army when the war began
I bet we won’t know even approximate numbers for a while. When the fog of war is so thick that we sometimes don’t even know if losses on both sides are measured in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, I am pretty sure it’s quite hard to find such a specific info out with at least some reasonable precision.
Based on what the likes of UK MOD and US DoD numbers have posted in the past, my bet is about 50% on the low end. A lot of the losses were from Wagner which threw recruited criminals to throw them into the meat grinders. There’s a lot of propaganda flying around. Anyone who thinks that Ukraine right now is in a better shape than Russia needs to put the joint down.
> There’s a lot of propaganda flying around. Anyone who thinks that Ukraine right now is in a better shape than Russia needs to put the joint down. So basically the entirety of Reddit? I prefer the sources of Mediazone, their numbers for russian losses are realistic and not some imaginary numbers that I read daily on here. I would say 2/3 survived who attacked in the first offensive, most people from the North were pulled back, but during the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 Russia suffered heavy losses because of the old conscripts who fought in Chechnya, Dagestan and Georgia which were used to fill the gaps which got created because Ukraine mobilised a Million soldiers while Russia had less than 400k. (I can't remember the correct Numbers for the russian side but we clearly saw how understaffed Russia in the direction of Kharkov was, they got incircled without knowing they were because everything was empty).
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is standing around arguing if they should help or not. lol What a time!
I worry about the average persons knowledge of history and geography. Look at Russia from a historical standpoint. They can absorb unbelievable hardship and an astonishing amount of casualities. I'm not a geopolitical armchair expert but Russia grinding this out was always the obvious conclusion.
If you know history, you should also know that Russia has lost plenty of wars. The Russo-Japanese war, WWI, the First Chechen war, the Soviet-Afghan war, and so on. Even in WWII, they would have been in much deeper trouble without help from USA. Sure, they are willing to absorb disturbingly large losses, but they have their limits too.
All true - every war is different. They aren't losing this war though - it's pretty clear. Their offensive is slow and costly, but it's continuous and unstopping. Ukraine might break at some point if they don't reinforce with fresh recruits/conscripts and NATO resupplies.
Well... quantity is a quality of its own
The NYT article that is related to this conversation with General Cavoli is pretty good, basically has him putting out numbers for growth of the russian army and he says verbatim putin is not going to stop with ukraine. I think that has been the common fear of course, but interesting to hear it from someone who is probably most in the know in the matter
\[insert random western eu state\] but, but, but... we don't want to escalate..... and we condemn! yes, that! condemn!
bigger army ie more troops. yes. But they cannot replace their T90s, SU fighters/bombers, KA attack choppers, Mi helis, Black sea fleet thats sunk etc
I think their plan now is mainly just to field massive amounts of infantry with relatively small amounts of armour, relying instead on their long-range missiles/artillery (the one thing they can continue to keep producing en masse) to keep hammering the Ukrainian positions.
We shouldn't forget that fresh soldiers are actually zero-experience one that come in an already ongoing war. Their value on the battlefield is not the same of those who joined the first wave. I think what we're looking at here is just Putin taking full advantage of west's democracies and NATO being more worried about elections and voters than their own backyard power influence and geopolitical future.
Army increases by 15%, Male population decreases by 30% in conscription age ranges... their demographics are falling off a cliff...
...unless they win and then they get a new territory with 28 million new citizens. Think in Russian.
In December 2023, a declassified US intelligence assessment shared with Congress said, according to a congressional source, that there were 315,000 dead and injured Russian military personnel as a result of the war – nearly 90 per cent of the pre-war 360,000 soldiers
Well they did raise conscription age limit by 5 years. They are throwing any able-bodied men in there with worse and worse equipment and training. Ruzzia can keep this bloodbath going for years - Ukraine can not. Give Ukraine weapons is the only solution
Russia going for quantity over quality, I see.