- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
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I’ve found that Colonel Maruks Reisner provides some of the best information available on the war.
He doesn’t update frequently but all his analysis are sober, detailed, and realistic. He states his pro-Western, pro-NATO, pro-Ukrainian bias clearly.
If I could sum up the general trend of his presentation it’s, “The status quo favors Russia. If we don’t get our heads out of our asses and step up Russia will win.”
Which is probably why they’re trying to bid up Ukraine with the US using their own minerals.
Edit: Although some are suggesting this article is just propaganda, Russia’s main challenge is that their economy is on the brink of failing and domestic support becomes a question if that happens. From a skim that appears to be the main thrust of it.
And god I hope they keep going and keep winning.
Step up, EU. It’s on you now that the US are traitors.
As an American I’d like to apologize for the shit show my country currently is.
I’ve never felt shame like this.
Start doing something about it, please.
You’ve had many opportunities to feel shame like this, starting with the unconditional support & complicity of the U.S. government in the genocide in Gaza…
Y’all must have not been around for the Iraq invasion. I stopped being a Republican when my party lied its way into an unnecessary conflict. Iraq only had what Cheney and Reagan sold them in the 80’s. To fight Iran. It’s insane to me for people to forget this important point. We almost brought back the draft for that war. I heard from many leadership individuals that were from my home town. That it was coming any day. Thank god it didn’t. But they abused the troops by forcing them to do extra terms in the conflict zone. No one remembers that either it seems. The GOP was fine forcing service members back into contracts for another 3 years.
I didn’t forget about the Iraq war, I was in the streets protesting against it. It was painfully obvious the US administration was lying about WMDs.
But whattabout Vietnam?
What about it?
His point, I think, is the line of whataboutist thinking that got the conversation to this point, from the OP.
Supporting the genocide in Gaza was my first deep shame for my country, and I’m not a spring chicken.
To be fair that’s a proxy war between the US and the Arab world.
It was always going to end one way. People are mostly desensitized and the Oct events pushed the majority off the fence. Which was kinda the point. It’s a rats nest and anyone trapped there is unfortunately walking dead trapped between the gears of globalism.
American voters had zero say in it really. I’m not sure anyone can do anything really. It’s like trying to hold back the sea.
It is only this bad because the US has provided nearly unconditional military, diplomatic and financial support to Israel for 75+ years despite them committing numerous war crimes, invading all of their neighbors and hindering countless peaceful processes. Israel can’t even defend itself without the assistance of foreign countries as we have seen last year when they needed the US, France, Jordan and others to step in when Iran sent a few missiles.
I actually really don’t care about Gaza.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support what they’re doing over there… But… It’s a bunch of religious people fighting over what they think is holy land… When holy Land is in contention they’re always killing each other over it…
Do better. It’s a very powerful country backed by the US who is invading many countries while committing numerous war crimes including genocide and ethnic cleansing. If you don’t care about Gaza don’t pretend to care about human rights and the rule of law.
No wonder Krasnov Trump and Nazi Elon Musk are panicking and begging for a deal.
We Europeans should have never hesitated to supply Ukraine. Let’s make up for the fuck-up and give them everything we have and the AmeriKan Nazis can piss and moan on the sidelines.
What if the US stepping back is exactly what Europe needs to become a true superpower?"
It hit me recently that Europe has largely relied on the US to take the lead on global issues, often playing it safe and deferring to American influence. But what if the US pulling back its support is actually a blessing in disguise?
Without the US as the default leader, NATO and the EU could finally step up, stand on their own, and evolve into a unified superpower. This shift could bring much-needed stability to the region—and potentially the world—especially as the US faces its own internal challenges.
Sure, it’s not guaranteed to play out this way, but isn’t this a more appealing vision than the current status quo or the rise of authoritarian powers dominating the global stage?
USA has also quite sternly asked Europe to not become a superpower. And this is something that was openly spoken aloud in 1980’s and 1990’s. Their offer has been “we’ll handle this superpower stuff on your behalf, you guys keep to yourself.” That has kept USA the clear leading superpower, which has been extremely useful for the American economy, and we have been able to concentrate on other stuff, which has been good for our economy.
It’s been an agreement between USA and Europe that Europe will not start competing of power with USA. We have more population and a bigger economy than USA, so I’d guess that now that the agreement has ended, we’ll have to become what we would already have been for decades if we hadn’t been asked not to.
In the 1990s, the US would have been glad if the Europeans would have managed the Yugoslav disintegration and ensuing wars with ethnic cleansing themselves. They were unable and had to rely on the US in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Absolutely!
But of course the US leadership understood that this is a consequence of asking EU to refrain from doing that kind of stuff. Would still have been better for USA if Europe would have done much more, so the demands make sense. And I agree that more should have been done!
I’ve heard this one before. As much as I’d like to believe it…
It’s propaganda.
Your mom is propaganda.
Russia is going to run out of troops.
IDK when, but they’re basically feeding their population into a meat grinder trying to take Ukraine.
That’s not too say the Ukraine isn’t taking losses… I’ve just, seen some numbers that indicate that Russia is going to run out of people to send to their deaths before Ukraine will.
Putin needs to give this up before he doesn’t have a military anymore.
It’s not that they will run out of people. They have people, but to keep recruitment levels so high and equipment manufacturing so high they are overcharging their economy. Right now in Russia there are three types of jobs if you want to make money afaik, work in the military complex (arms manufacturing), in the gas extraction industry or directly in the military.
It’s Dutch disease x100, if the state at some point stops being able to fund the war machine, their economy collapses.
To add to this, Putin can recruit from the poorest regions for a while, but at some point he needs to get men from the larger cities. The last thing he wants is protests from Moskou etc. The average person from Moskou hadn’t had that much negative effects from the war yet. But if you, your son or father is forced to the battlefield it’s a different story.
I hope you’re right. Because in general the reaction of the Russian population to the war has been so meek, I’m starting to doubt it would be any different once recruitment starts hitting the biggest cities.
It’s so meek because of the political stance of “I am not political” that permeats the whole society.
Its main idea is that “I make actively sure to not see or hear what is happening around me, and in return I can live my life reasonably carefree.” That’s an unspoken contract between the junta leading the country and its populace. If one side breaks the contract, it’s null and void.
The funny thing is, the people have not noticed that the contract has been broken, because they are actively avoiding noticing anything that has to do with society!
And the word “actively” is of great significance. Because it’s not passivity, it’s a stance held up actively by each individual. The situation of the Russia is all the time deeper and deeper “in your face”, and eventually it’ll be so deep that there’s nothing the individual can do to avoid noticing it.
And then they become active in… Well, some other manner.
Im afraid this is happening in America
Why?
People are proudly political here.
We also live very comfortable lives compared to the Russians. Most of us don’t want to ruin that.
I do see a lot of of US people saying stuff like “all politicians are always corrupt”. That’s the thought Putin has been trying to actively cultivate in Russians’ minds, because when people don’t trust politicians in general, they won’t come to think that they could vote in someone who is much less corrupt than Putin.
When people lose their trust in national politics ability to act in the best interest of their nation, they will get proud of being apolitical. After all, for them it’s come to mean “not taking part in a corruption scheme”.
Also… My impression is that a growing amount of people in USA are NOT living more comfortable lives than rural Russians. Living in an RV and having to work two jobs isn’t really very different life from living in a dilapidated and crooked wooden house that’s letting the wind in from several places. I don’t know how common that kind of living is in the States, but it seems to be an existant phenomenon. Those people do not live in a different comfort than people in the poorest regions of the Russia. Also, I’ve seen photos of large amounts of people living in kind of streetside villages consisting of camping tents. That is a kind of life that is less comfortable than anything I’ve seen during my travels in the Russia.
A much smaller share of US people live under such.circumstances than is the case in the Russia, but for those who do, I am absolutely able to fathom why any change is better for them than status quo! There’s only one way to go from the rock bottom.
Because people are beginning to shut down or ask what someone else will do about this.
LOL you live like ants compared to the rest of the world, you just don’t know it.
No healthcare, sick days, massive homelesnzss and junkies.
The US is a shithole.
Makes sense their leaders would be so buddy-buddy with north korea.
who is kidnapping kids?
Russia? From Ukrainians? Is that what you mean?
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oh yes the sanctions will force Russia to surrender.
Any day now! 🤡No, the bombs will once it’s army is destroyed, and any attempts to rebuild are routed.
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To be clear: The Russia’s losses are increasing month after month, but their recruitment capacity is not. They are recruiting about 1000 soldiers every day, maybe a bit less. And the number seems to be going down, not growing. They are losing 1300 to 1800 each day now meaning a net loss of something like 400 to 900 soldiers per day!
They won’t run out of population anytime soon, but they will run out of soldiers.
They are losing 1300 to 1800 each day
Russia is losing up to half a million men per year? What’s your source for this? It seems outlandish
Ukraine publishes daily statistics about Russia’s manpower losses. One would think those numbers are simply propaganda and any army would “of course” exaggerate such numbers.
But, firstly: The numbers reported by Ukraine rise and fall hand-in-hand with the numbers given by Oryx. There is something of an almost fixed multiplier between Oryx numbers and official data provided by Ukraine. And the Oryx numbers are always published later than Ukraine publishes its own, so Ukraine cannot be just copying Oryx’s numbers and multiplying them. And it’s logical that Oryx shows only a fraction of the real number, because for most Russian combat losses there is no photo proof, and Oryx only counts what has photo proof.
So, at least the Ukrainian numbers rise and drop without fake data added. Then the question is whether the scale of the numbers is correct, or if Ukraine intentionally inflates them with some static multiplier. Since there is data about the Russia’s recruitment capacity and the whole size of the Russia’s army, it’s visible that by recruiting about 1000 per day they can keep their army’s size constant. That shows that the losses must be around the same ballpark. And it coincides with the numbers published by Ukraine.
But yes, now that Russians mostly do not have tanks to use in their attacks, they are really using pure meat wave attacks, and that costs a LOT of men. There’s a reason Putin is trying to convince Trump to force Ukraine into an armistice. Losing that many soldiers – indeed almost half a million per year! – is extremely unsustainable, no matter what image Putin is trying to give.
And remember: these numbers are about irrecoverable losses, of which only a fraction are deaths. The number of deaths is far lower.
It’s roughly 1 death for 3-4 injured and out of combat
For the Russia it’s about 1:2½, and getting worse, for Ukraine it is currently around 1:4 or 1:5.
I think these guys are CIA bots. They aren’t using common sense. Everyone including the state department and CIA agrees that Russia has air superiority right? What do you think the casualties of Russia are compared to Ukraine?
Lol what? Russia does not have air superiority. You need a functioning air force for that. They’re to scared to fly anything and Moscow has been hit by Ukrainian drones.
Lol air superiority. Lol I say.
That only means they will have to scale back offensive operations and switch to a defensive posture.
Yup. And that means the Russia will be losing huge amounts of troops and equipment without gaining anything from it. The Ukrainian economy is very small, I think about the size of Slovakia’s economy. The EU can hold Ukraine’s economy up as long as it wants to. Nobody is doing the same for the Russia.
If the Russia had to switch to defending territory without gaining anything more, how would it push for a victory before its economy collapsing?
Russia has been steadily and slowly gaining territory over the last year.
If the Russia had to switch to defending territory without gaining anything more, how would it push for a victory before its economy collapsing?
The current attempt is Trump. It’s doubtful the Russian economy will collapse any time soon. They still have some slack and the Russian population could suffer far more. Their strategy after the first couple of months was to outlast Ukraine and its supporters. The moaning about costs in the countries supporting Ukraine is only growing. Russia has a firm lid on all opposition.
Nobody is doing the same for the Russia
China
the Russia has been steadily and slowly gaining territory over the last year with a speed of 0.7 % of Ukraine’s territory per year. Which is not strategically relevant. Strategically seen, the Russia has not advanced.
I don’t really see China starting to actively cover the Russian budget. That would jeopardize China’s trade with Europe.
The Russia’s strategy has been to outlast Ukraine’s supporters will to support Ukraine. That will never happen, unless the voices making the fake claims about time being on the Russia’s side are given too much space. Helping Ukraine is so much cheaper than the costs that incur if the Russia takes over Ukraine that there is no logical reason for the EU to end Ukraine’s support ever. Even if some countries were to withdraw their support, enough will retain it to keep Ukraine’s head over water.
The Russian economy will collapse, sooner or later.
The Russian economy will collapse, sooner or later.
I agree, but think it’s later. Russia needs to lose on the battlefield as well before they stop the war.
If it’s a year later, then it is. The Russia won’t be able to recruit soldiers after its economy collapses. They are in for salary and death compensation that is defined in Rubles. Once the Ruble compensation loses its value, relatives get less motivated for letting their sons go to the front. And when the 2000$ salary becones a 100 $ salary, nobody goes to war for that money.
Without soldiers the front cannot be kept.
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Russia is running out of troops but their recruitment numbers are way higher than Ukraine’s. I support the Ukrainian armed forces unconditionally and have donated to them multiple times so believe me that it brings me no pleasure to say this, but there is no way Russia runs out of soldiers before Ukraine does.
Russia won’t run out of troops, but they will run out of capable troops: Russian Casualties & Force Generation - Losses, Recruitment & Sustaining the war in Ukraine
Honest question, what makes Ukraine troops that much better trained?
“Capable” in this context doesn’t just refer to training alone.
As laid out in the video, Russian recruits are getting older and older (as in: have sometimes even fought in Soviet era conflicts) and recruitment standards are dropped more and more (apparently having Schizophrenia is OK for a Russian soldier) to keep a steady influx of warm bodies. Next, Russian recruits appear to be broadly separated into two groups: The meat shields who are rushed to the front with minimal training to plug the biggest holes in the units (stark examples include only multiple days between reported recruitment and death). The second group is going through a more traditional training regiment but also shortened. This shortening also applies to officer candidates.
In short: Recruits are getting less physically capable due to the average age increasing drastically over time, and militarily less capable due to shortened or basically nonexistent training.
As for the Ukrainians: I expect the video with analysis on their casualties and recruitment to drop this week.
Well the Ukrainians are at least trying to train their troops while Russia has been caught shoving raw recruits into the front line after literally no training. Those reports are obviously magnified by each side’s information ops but we do know the Russians have a survivability problem. The two biggest things you learn in basic are what to do when someone starts shooting, and how to hit things with your rifle. Everything else is extra that’s meant to make you able to use specialized equipment. The real learning environment has always been combat itself. And in this arena the Ukrainians are absolutely dominant.
Because Ukranian troops have 2 things Russian troops will never have.
- Commanders that don’t use idiotic human wave attacks.
- Shoes.
It’s good to remember that a small subset of Ukrainian commanders do see soldiers as mere cannon fodder. Mere 11 years ago, the Ukrainian military was run almost precisely the same way as the Russian one. And many commanders are from before 2014. Many of them have converted to the new ways since 2014, but some haven’t. That’s a problem that severely hampers Ukraine’s recruitment capacity. Still, Ukrainians are a nation that will flex when it needs to. If the Russia starts advancing faster than the 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total area in year like they did in 2024, people get more afraid of what is going on and get motivated to join the armed forces.
Also
- a good reason to fight
The motivation of russian soldiers is about as sound as was the motivation of US troops in Vietnam. “Protect the free world from communism by attacking another country”. Yeah, ok.
The US had an active force of half a million troops at the height of that attempted occupation and a total of more than 3 million troops had been deployed in Vietnam over the course of the 6 years of war. The US committed various terrorist acts and warcrimes. By the numbers, they had superiority in pretty much every way. At some point it looked like there were doing fine, and they utterly lost. They lost 58k soldiers.
Sounds vaguely familiar to me.
Unfortunate slight difference, The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back. I doubt Putin would bat an eye at such a policy we’re simply fortunate the russian military simply isn’t capable of that kind of attack.
The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back.
Look I want to live in a universe with a version of the US without Henry Kissinger too, but this just doesn’t seem like an honest view of the history here.
I don’t understand in what sense the U.S. held back from bombing. Fuck, one of the major criticisms of U.S. military strategy in the Vietnam war was the idea that if they just bombed them hard enough, over and over and over again carpet bombing with B-52s loaded to the brim with conventional bombs, than that would magically win the war all by itself.
Along the way, Rolling Thunder also fell prey to the same dysfunctional managerial attitudes as did the rest of the American military effort in Southeast Asia. The process of the campaign became an end unto itself, with sortie generation as the standard by which progress was measured.[129] Sortie rates and the number of bombs dropped, however, equaled efficiency, not effectiveness.[130]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder
https://renewvn.org/the-most-bombed-place-on-earth/
https://www.maginternational.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/laos/
To be clear, I don’t think this makes the illegal Russian invasion and war in Ukraine okay. I am against the war and support arming Ukrainians, fuck Putin, but I think it is important to be realistic about things as we discuss this. I am not even sure the Russian military could even approach a conventional bombing campaign on the same scale, I certainly don’t think they could do it without getting absolutely chewed up by AA since most of the munitions would have to be likely delivered by ground attack aircraft like the su-25 or even more vulnerable strategic bombers.
A bombing campaign of that size is essentially impossible to do in a near peer conflict like the war in Ukraine which is an environment where both sides have extensive missiles armaments, radar and electronic warfare capabilities.
Do you even realize that Ukrainian terrorism via the SBU (CIA) happens around once every two weeks?
The thousands of ethnic Russians killed by banderists?
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In addition to all the other valid arguments I want to also mention the rotation principle of the ukrainians. They deploy for six months to the Frontline and then rotate between the dugouts and a safehouse for two weeks at a time. So their soldiers have time to relax and eat good food even while deployed which keeps morale high.
Russia used to just keep their common troops on the frontline until they were exhausted. If I recall correctly they changed this in the last months, but they most likely lost almost all of their pre war trained troops.
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they will run out of capable troops
I think you’ve got the wrong tense there, comrade.
How manu are is still left of well trained VDV and guards units?
yes kidnapped ukranian teens are so muck better trained. 🤡
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Ukraine is taking horrendous losses that we should be more concerned about. Stay focussed on Ukraine succeeding, not just Russia failing
Fair point.
Go Ukraine!
Russians are going to be less willing to die to invade Ukraine than Ukrainians are to defend their homes.
As a person who lives in a place, I would be hard pressed to ever be unwilling to defend the place where I live. I can’t even imagine giving up the fight so a foreign government can occupy the land I call home.
I would be surprised if Ukrainians would ever get tired of defending their home land.
I can, however, see Russians being unwilling to sign up to invade a country that clearly doesn’t want them there.
All I’m trying to say is: I agree.
defend US interests?
The kidnapping videos say enough about what ukranians want.Okay Z oomer
I wouldn’t really mind him not having a military anymore…
hahahaaaaaaa still ibelieve your fantasy news?
Any day now!Not true. Ukraine is the one with the manpower shortage.
Wow, what an incredible take with zero supporting information, either information I’ve seen published, ever, or information provided by you, the poster.
Thanks for this, DrDickHandler, it’s really helping this conversation evolve into something better!
(/s for anyone too tired to see it)
It’s also possible they will stop the zapp Brannigan tactics and dig in to wait for the west to lose interest.
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I honestly don’t know how to read the situation. Ukraine’s fought terrifically, but their status seems far less sustainable even if you discount the Trump stuff. I don’t put a lot of stock in these claims that Russia is on the verge of imploding due to the stress of the war, any day now. It is possible, but mostly seems like wishful thinking.
External aid changes the situation a bit, but not ultimately that much because no Western power seems willing to directly intervene with troops. Barring that, the overall situation between the two countries feels a bit like what Shelby Foote said about the US Civil War: “the North fought that war with one hand behind its back… If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back.”
This is true to an extent. But in 1862 the US didn’t have to worry about an invasion from Canada. If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai. Also ISIS is going to start infiltrating from Central Asia, again. Russia has real security concerns on it’s borders that require a real military presence. They could not easily strip their border guard (a national paramilitary police that’s commonly included in their military headcount) or border military units. They also cannot strip the major metro areas of their paramilitary units, such as the elite units guarding Moscow. Otherwise the next Prigozhin could succeed.
Russia already stripped what they could from the Far East at the start of the war so now they’re largely left with units on NATO borders that haven’t been called in yet. As much as it sucks, we all know NATO isn’t going to attack Russia. And in fact this is where most of the reinforcing units are coming from for things like the Kursk Salient.
The next issue is battlefield saturation. In the American Civil War how many troops you could field was largely limited by control of water ways and rail lines. With modern vehicles and supply chains the limit is reached differently these days. Basically there’s a point at which if you add another division to a line it starts to be detrimental instead of helpful. They will actually get into each other’s way. This has remained largely unchanged since World War 2. And in fact the number of troops Russia has in Ukraine is reminiscent of World War 2, In June they reported they have 700,000 troops in Ukraine. This is likely the maximum amount of pressure they can put in the area.
So as long as Ukraine can deal with that number of troops efficiently, they could theoretically fight forever.
If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai.
Are there any real pretensions on the territory on China’s part? It sounds like it would just cause more problems than it’s worth (though it’s not like that fact prevented Putin from attacking Ukraine), and possibly kill off BRICS.
Out of the BRICS nations, the least important is Russia. They have oil and land. And although China gets through a lot of oil, not much if it comes from Russia.
That said, I highly doubt China would invade any part of Russia. They don’t need to. Superpowers tend not to poke the others directly.
It won’t be an invasion - it will be a special military occupation as the citizens in those areas really want Chinese representation.
Russia isn’t a super power. And the reason countries don’t poke each other outside of cultural ones is fear of retaliation. If the military is gone then what retaliation is there?
Uh yeah. China is literally building islands to expand it’s ability to access resources. The Russian Far East is also very resource rich. That’s a pretty big incentive right there.
This is hopium, they kind of have to say this otherwise why would European countries keep supporting them?
Remember when Putin was sick and dying? Or when the Russians would revolt and oust the government? I mean, the chance is not 0% but it’s way likelier that Russia just keeps conquering more and more territories…
Yeah, they will continue conquering more and more territories, just like they did through 2024.
During 2024 they advanced faster than expected. And managed to conquer a whopping 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total territory. Less than kne percent. Or even less, if you take into account what they lost in the Kursk province.
(Also, what is weird about a person having cancer and surviving?)
Faster than expected by whom? If you were listening to the Western media, Ukraine was about to launch a counter-offensive and regain the lost territories; not only did that not happen, they lost even more territories.
Nothing weird about someone having cancer and surviving. The weirdness is claiming Putin’s had several different cancers, Parkinson disease, leprosy and would soon die, repeatedly over the years, notably in 2014, 2020 and 2022.
They were indeed about to launch a counter offensive and indeed did. In 2023. They did not get almost any of the equipment the west had promised to supply for bringing the offence plans to reality, so the counter offensive got botched. In 2024 there was no talk of a counter offensive. Remember that the last two quarters of 2024 Ukraine got zero military help from USA.
You’re mixing up the years.
Ukraine got tremendous military help from the USA throughout last year. It’s not because more funds had not been appropriated that the already appropriated funds and military assistance wasn’t provided.
I am not mixing the years, there were also a counter-offensives in 2024.
Which counter offensives?
Kharkiv and Kursk come to mind.
Thing is there is a hand behind the back on both sides. Russia has nukes. So do France and UK, one shouldn’t forget… Tho USA dropping support does change the conventional war, the USA dropping support doesn’t fundamentally change this hand behind the back part.
USA’s Mr. 47 will seriously take $5m from Mr. Putin to invite him to live in ‘the land of the free’. And spend all of his ruble there.
I hope that Ukraine dismantles Russia’s corpse for the best bits. Putin’s personal wealth can be used for funding the rebuilding of Ukraine.
Good. Slava Ukraini
Heroiam slava!
Says Kyivpost.
Lines on the map seem to very slowly move in Russia’s favor and Russia’s “leadership” doesn’t care about human cost as long as it allows further operation of their state.
It’s their job to study strengths and weaknesses, so the quote is kinda stupid. Whether they are aware of anything can be said only retrospectively.
I just don’t see where Russia is losing, I live in Russia and every year since 2022 people (sometimes not the dumbest kind, but with age comes naivete, and everyone is naive outside of their immediate profession) around me would say how Russian economy and\or defenses are going to crumble soon because of this war.
And before that since 2020 how they are going to crumble because of inability to adapt.
And before that because of sanctions, yes, what was called sanctions then was seriously talked about.
And before that because stealing elections is unpopular and generally immoral.
And before that because Putin will certainly lose an election, right?
It just doesn’t work like that.
In Russia there’s an expression “глубинный народ” (something like “depths’ people” or “deep people”, hard to translate), meaning some consistent deep popular feeling about something, it’s usually ascribed barbaric feelings, like only caring how the rest of the world fears your nukes or hating everyone intelligent.
But it’s also sometimes ascribed wisdom. For example, about prophets predicting the death of Russia’s regime all by itself one day. Some of those prophets being children of the previous generation of that regime, supposedly separated from the current generation, but after becoming irrelevant coming back to their herd, like Sobchak.
Things are achieved when people work to achieve them, and with the amount of work they take, not the honest amount, not the amount those people can possibly do. Life is not honest.
Russia is not losing this war. It might reformat it into some kind of frozen conflict.
They said this before
And it was true before. Strategic situations change.
Russia ran out of weapons and is now sharing a single Mosin Nagant between 100 men.
As much as that made me laugh it’s not true. I wish it was though.
They will start sending women. I assume that’s how mail brides started back in WW1?
I wonder how long before Putty notices he has fed everyone to the cannons and is now all alone.
If their losses climb back to 1800 per day, meaning 700-ish dead per day, and their population is about 140 000 000, that makes a nice round number of 200 000 days. Or 547 years. However, because the Russia’s population was already decreasing fast for other reasons anyway, the real number is more like 100-ish years.
BTW, Ukraine has lost on average 64 soldiers per day as dead during these three years. Counting with 40 000 000 inhabitants, that means the last Ukrainian will die on the front in 625 000 days from now. Or 1712 years.
Reading these numbers, keep in mind that they are about dead soldiers, not about losses in manpower. Most of manpower losses come in the form of severe inrecoverable wounds. For Ukraine it’s 1:4 or 1:5, so per one dead you have four to five crippled, and for the Russia it’s 1:2,5. The Russia has less wounded because so many of their wounded become dead some hours after being wounded. So, the manpower losses are higher in Ukraine, but most of the lost Ukrainian soldiers return to their families, while a huge share of the lost Russian soldiers turn into soil.
Good ruzzians are soil? OK good notes.
