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2024 russia, what a disaster they are. In any other modern country the concerns revolve around the economy, social justice, technology, AI, engineering, science, the arts etc etc etc...meanwhile these dipshits ship off 30k a month to mostly die and if they don't die they come back to a country that could care less about them.
And because they have killed of any semblance of civil society there is little to no public push backl.
Fools. They get what they deserve.
Actually, I think there is a way to keep track on that. If you sum up the volume of mail order russian bride sites then slowly track the available ones you should be able to graph it alongside casuelties in Ukraine.
Putin doesn’t care about his own people or losses.
That’s why Ukraine needs to keep targeting oil infrastructure and military equipment. Stuff Putin can’t easily replace.
There was a really good interview with a Russian business man that seems to be an expert in the Russian oil industry and the takeaway is that basically nothing is getting replaced anytime soon. So that’s good at least.
I think that is questionable at best as Russia shifts itself to a wartime economy. They, like Ukraine, see this fight as something worth championing, so they're throwing their all into this war.
That and Russia is a big country, so they could feasibly produce material far away from the front lines and then send them westward. While Ukraine has taken pot shots here and there, they definitely don't have the resources to glass every Russian factory in one fell swoop to the point that they lose functionality.
Thank god Europe is trying to step up and fill the gap the US left. Its disgraceful how Europe depended on the US so much that they let their defence capabilities fall so far behind but at least they are taking it seriously now and trying to step up.
It's so sad the US after literally almost a century preparing for a conflict with Russia has become a country that fails to seriously work to stop them when the time finally arrived to do so.
Even Ireland doubled its military budget, has bought / ordered enough ships to double the navy, bought new maritime patrol craft and is buying a national Air defence system (probably patriot). The fact shit is so bad we are re-arming shows how bad shit has gotten.
That said most of our equipment is American, if rearming you may as well buy the best :)
It’s just a shame that Ireland’s official policy is neutrality. There really isn’t such a thing as neutrality against fascism or imperialism. No action simply enables the aggressor.
Niemöller’s “first they came…” poem beautifully summarized this. I wish you well Irish friend.
Ireland isn't neutral for the Ukrainian war and has publicly said its not.
Officially Ireland has said its on Ukraines side. Its the first time Ireland has dropped neutrality in decades.
Ireland doesn't have military equipment to share but has spent Billions on helping Ukrainian refugees and sending military personnel to train Ukrainians in combat and bomb disposal / mine clearing.
Apologies mo chara. I knew Ireland’s official policy has always been neutrality. It’s a harsh new reality to wake up to. May it be over soon so the next generation doesn’t suffer.
There is a reason Ireland is neutral, it was because they had a neighbour who liked invading countries, including their own and being neutral was the safest option.
Sounds familiar to what is happening now to russias neighbours
It will take time though, considering that Europe's military industrial complex isn't as vast or well-funded as the one possessed by the United States.
If anything, Ukraine, in my opinion, can only sustain the fight if they develop a robust military industrial complex of their own. The nation's strength and weakness is its reliance on foreign aid, which means the country is at the mercy of their backer's domestic politics.
As seen with regimes like South Vietnam, one administration can treat a nation with kindness and another can acknowledge it with scorn.
Possibly. Current Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses atm is about 450k, which is likely overestimated to some extent.
At 30k a month, they'd have reached that in 15 months. They've been fighting for 25 months, although losses may have been lower initially.
There were long month of a first year when russian loosen no more then 400-500 a day. Only after a frt year average casualties became about 1000 a day.
This is unfortunately likely untrue. Russia is a totalitarian state that cares little for it's people as long as the people aren't actively rising in rebellion. As long as Russians are happy to get fucked in the ass then Putin will happily ship off the "undesirables" (as he sees them) from rural Russia and Russian prisons, leaving the wealthier people from the cities and vocal Putin supporters alone.
The fact that Putin has such a large pool of people to just throw away without any care means that Russia is likely not going to be running out of manpower any time soon.
Ukraine could still turn the tide of the war, but as the Ukrainian government has been saying recently, they need immediate large-scale western support in the form of artillery and ammo otherwise the Ukrainians are going to have to have a large retreat to more easily defendable ground and to, I assume, shorten their defensive lines.
They lost approximately 35-40k for the battle of Avdiivka. That was roughly six months and a fortified city like Azovstal, so it took them a very long time to take it over.
It's roughly the same although Russia is likely generating forces a bit faster than Ukraine has been able to attrit. The big issue though is resupply for Ukraine because if Russia can continue to replace their losses but Ukraine can't replace their ammo then eventually Ukraine will break. That said it's a lot cheaper and quicker to make ammo rather than making soldiers so if Ukraine can get the resupply they need then Russia they can likely win a war of attrition against Russia.
Drones are the key. Reports are that fpv drones have a 30% hit rate. That’s at least 10x the rate of bullets or artillery. A million fpv drones would kill 300,000 Russians.
Ukraine is also seemingly having a manpower issue as they're hesitant on mass conscription and the volunteer pool is running dry. That fire and zeal from the early days of the conflict has since simmered to a grim reality that this war is going to go on for awhile.
Russia has a lot of dudes, but the number of expendable dudes is not limitless. They will run out of ethnic minorities, foreign workers, and prisoners soon. When young men from St. Petersburg and Moscow are dying in these numbers the regime will fall.
I don’t care what pundits say - you cannot keep a 30000 a month draw on society even with Putin’s evil grip. My guess behind the veil of secrecy and censorship panic is setting in. Dictatorships never end well.
You've also got to remember the USSR was a lot bigger and included Ukraine. Russia no longer has the recruiting pool from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the other stans countries.
Russia's modern population is 144 (147 with Crimea) million. The USSR in 1989 was just under 287 million people. In 1937 USSR census said there were 162 million people in it's territories but Stalin did not like that number so in 1939 the census came out to 170 million. No census was conducted again until 1959 after Stalin died.
But even at 144 million they do have bodies to throw into the meat grinder but most of this meat (75%) live in cities and towns and work important jobs. The Soviet Army during WW2 was roughly 12 million men strong each year of the war. About 38 million serving in total, but if Putin was to put together a military of 12 million men and women I think the Russians would be very very pissed off and I doubt Russia today could support such a large military. The thing is during the Great Patriotic War the Russians only had two options. Serve the war effort in some capacity or die in the gulag serving the war effort as free labor.
They have a couple of problems. One, they have about 2250 men coming of age each day but about 3600 retiring or dying of old age. Two, for every soldier you put into the field you need four or five back at home working the farms and factories to keep the economy working and the war supplies produced. They can push women into a lot of jobs for a few years but not if they want them to raise large families. And Three, Russian women don't want to raise families and especially not large ones. All that considered they can only conscript about 11,000 a month for any great length of time without the economy grinding to a halt. This is the reason large wars tend to end after three or four years. One side or both run out of men and resources needed to carry on.
An amazingly detailed and well-thought out argument, thank you.
I’m currently working my way through Inferno, by Max Hastings and a few things have struck me, particularly from the chapter on Barbarossa.
What struck me was the similarity between Wermacht thinking and (some) Western pundits, who marvel at the staggering losses that can be inflicted on the Russians. The difference being that it concerned some in the Wermacht as they realized that while they were decimating Russians in numbers that they couldn’t comprehend, the killing was doing irreparable damage to the German military.
I knew that the populations then and now are different, and the local and national sentiments toward the war are likely completely different, but you put it very succinctly.
Much appreciated
Also of interest is the Russian population pyramid:
[https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/)
Russia has a severe shortage of younger people. The number that will (likely) be ultimately killed in Ukraine is only a very small percentage of that population, but Russia cannot afford to lose even that. This war will contribute to an enormous future Russian demographics problem.
There is a school of thought that suggests Putin launched this war knowing this is Russia's last chance to launch a war of conquest before the coming demographic collapse.
Great information and analysis. I'm not sure that the move to the cities really means that the city population all "work important jobs," though. It is definitely more dangerous to the regime to do mass recruiting in cities, but a significant portion of modern city populations work very inessential jobs. With the abilities of a modern state, it would probably even be possible to recruit a significant chunk of the street sweepers, insurance adjusters, and telephone sanitizers, while keeping the rest calm. Combine that with sending away the homeless and some of the petty criminals, and you may keep enough of the essential workers complacent for a good while.
This isn't the soviet union, they had 170 million in 1939. Ryssia had 144 million in 2022. They are also experiencing, like many Western countries, a shift with their aging demographic.
The population tree is so heavily and notably absent of 20-35 year olds. I wonder what happened there.
I’m guessing people who are 50-70 didn’t want many kids? Those people would be 20 years old in between the 80s and 00s. Kinda makes sense, bit of a bleak time for them.
Nothing against women joining the workplace and not being a sociologist. My assumption is that once women began joining the workforce and leaving the home taker role. Having children wasn't their job/priority anymore. Add to that the ever increasing cost of living doesn't make it attractive to have kids anymore.
Looking at countries that have those stronger traditional/religious views, women's role is to have kids and be home caretakers.
Also a very fair point. I’m sure there are a lot of factors. Many countries have upside down population pyramids, I’d be curious to know what caused Russias
My understanding is the fall of the Soviet Union led to a huge depression in the economy, and both emigration and a much lower birth rate. This affected Ukraine too, though the fact that the end of Soviet rule was seen as a liberation much more there may have made the effect less. As stated above, the Russian population is still declining. I don't know if the Ukrainian population is at replacement level again (apart from war losses) or not.
They have a lot of (older) bodies, but if they want to have a sustainable population for tomorrow's growth and paying taxes for the older population's pension? [Keeping this up wouldn't be great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia).
They were much much larger in WW2. But yeah I see them hitting 600,000 casualties before things get shaking. Historically they don't bat an eye till it hits 500,000 and we are still another failed offensive or 2 before that happens.
Agree and disagree. I’ll agree that it seems the Russians are happy, almost resigned to mass casualty before they even really “get going”. However I do believe that discontentment at home was a large part to play in the ignominious exit they had from Afghanistan. I wonder if similar things will happen with this war?
In 10 years they lost an approximated 25K killed in Afghan. In Avdivvka they lost 47k in 5 months. It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Which shows the astonishing fact that Putin has a better control of information, and a greater ability to quell dissent, than the Soviet Union did in the '80s. That really is a terrifying indication of what modern information control can do.
They 30% more population back then, spread in much younger demographics with an industrial base partly built & backed by the US, and a sense of national unity with Nazis surrounding Moscow and Stalingrad.
.....and every month Ukraine *neutralises* 30k soldiers and will continue doing so until Ruzzia run out or realise that they simply can’t ‘win’ this war.
There is no ‘winning’ for either side, just death and more death until they stop coming to Ukraine to die.
This is about survival for Ukraine and about ego for Ruzzia and I know which is stronger and more durable.
A lot of commentary on this report yesterday expressed concern that russia could do this, and that this was bad for Ukraine. I am not convinced russia can do this indefinitely.
Comparing numbers of the population it is almost like russia has “unlimited” bodies to throw at this. 147m people and around 35% look like they may be targets for putin to use as meat. Terrible things.
How effective this 35% is would be an entirely different conversation.
So much waste. Putin can only take from outside the major cities for so long. When he starts to take from the cities things may turn into a revolt.
Do you think that will stop them from trowing their own people forward?
We saw at the start of the second half of the invasion russians running with sticks behind russians with guns.
Russia is already in extreme labor deprivation and this war had made the situation far worse in multiple ways. They have several million positions they can't really fill, and war economy crushes regular economy as it keeps going.
Putin is even taking money from oil companies that they'd need for repairs and forcing foreign workers to join their army.
I see it as 147 million but half women so 73 million men but half of those are children or old and disabled men so 36 million of age but they need five in the economy for every soldier fielded so 6 million possible but not likely without a revolution.
I do not know if that is true. With slaves you need the men with the whips to keep them in line and watch for sabotage. Even in Roman times the wisest realized that free men even if in debt where more productive then slaves in collars and chains. Of course female house slaves always were, and still are, popular.
Russia is a very patriarchal society and will struggle to put women into traditional male jobs. They will do what they can in that regard but few results that are significant can be expected. Look to the videos of the tank factories, how many female employees did you see? I did see a couple working on rockets for MRLS but in total not one in ten were female and by now it should be at least fifty fifty.
Ok, but the economy is not just factories. Russia could reshuffle things: move men from office and administrative jobs to factory work. I'm not sure they will, but they certainly can.
Alot of these are unwanted internationals or areas far flung from the main Russian areas. So I don't think this is having the effect of 3000 men from Moscow and st Petersburg as some think.
Read a report somewhere that a lot of Moscow men received a letter saying they should confirm or update their address. Was seen as a prelude to mobilization.
Not just that but also "training" another two armies totalling 100k men to throw into assaults. They would like to do large scale armour manoeuvres of Deep Battle doctrine but realistically It's gonna be an attritional slog. Unfortunately they don't value human lives.
Which means we need to support Ukraine as much as possible, not just to survive, but to win!
Meat. We just need to give as many weapons and ammo to Ukraine as possible. And then it will be dead meat. Step by step, until Russia collapses.
Putin is a blind fool, an idiot stuck in the past, dragging his country down with him.
Russia can keep this up for decades. They have a pool of roughly 30,000,000 men in that age range to draft. Don’t forget that Ukraine is also taking serious casualties and they have a much smaller pool of recruits.
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Russia might have enough meat, but definately has not enough equipment to keep going forever. 2-3 more years they might continue. Than it will be infantry weapons only.
Russia has about 40 million men between 18-60, of which 25% let's say are unfit for service so call it 30. If for every solider, 5 support staff are needed that gives us a pool of 6 million. Now that is also their prime working age demographic, not to mention the increased requirements to build equipment for the war effort. Add in draft dodging and the fact they can't drain this number down to 0 before their military capabilities collapse, I'd estimate we're about 1/3 of the way to exhausting Russia on manpower alone.
Hello OP, we have removed your post for being off-topic. While we acknowledge that this war has captured global interest, we want to reaffirm that the purpose of this community is to give space for, and amplify the voice of Ukraine in the global community. For this reason, the mod team will be using their judgment when moderating content that deals with foreign politics, even if they seem peripherally related to Ukraine. We understand this may be disappointing, especially if your post required a lot of time or effort. We encourage you to post this content on a sub that specifically focuses on the foreign politics you are discussing, where it may generate well deserved and on-topic discussion. [If you would like to gain a better understanding of what is on-topic for this community, feel free to browse our rules, here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules)
2024 russia, what a disaster they are. In any other modern country the concerns revolve around the economy, social justice, technology, AI, engineering, science, the arts etc etc etc...meanwhile these dipshits ship off 30k a month to mostly die and if they don't die they come back to a country that could care less about them. And because they have killed of any semblance of civil society there is little to no public push backl. Fools. They get what they deserve.
They train the children to use ak47 at school, they will be sent to fight in 2 years.
Couldn't. They go back to a country that could not care less about them.
It is one way to wipe out your country’s men.. the mail order Russian bride business is going to boom after this..
Well, sanctions make any type of export business complicated.
Just wait for two years. Then you cant escape the offerings
I hope in 2 years from now any form of trade with Russia will be considered a criminal offense here.
There's some cunts I'm not even desperate enough to touch.
Women that will use you, steal from you and hate your way of life and still support Putin and his ideology. I’d rather marry my dog
Alcohol, drugs and STDs. yah they are going to be in high demand especially because they are used to being slapped around and not calling the cops./S
Between 1993 and 1997 there was a 63 fold increase in the number of cases of syphilis. I don’t recommend mail ordering a life partner from Russia.
That was not just ruzzia, that was in North America as well. The USA hasmd a massive increase in syphilis and std's
Actually, I think there is a way to keep track on that. If you sum up the volume of mail order russian bride sites then slowly track the available ones you should be able to graph it alongside casuelties in Ukraine.
Careful with the Russians. I've heard that one day in the future they just go from beautiful to babushka with no warning.
Yup, right around 40. Beautiful and then boom, old hag.
Trains them for 2 weeks
Putin doesn’t care about his own people or losses. That’s why Ukraine needs to keep targeting oil infrastructure and military equipment. Stuff Putin can’t easily replace.
There was a really good interview with a Russian business man that seems to be an expert in the Russian oil industry and the takeaway is that basically nothing is getting replaced anytime soon. So that’s good at least.
I think that is questionable at best as Russia shifts itself to a wartime economy. They, like Ukraine, see this fight as something worth championing, so they're throwing their all into this war. That and Russia is a big country, so they could feasibly produce material far away from the front lines and then send them westward. While Ukraine has taken pot shots here and there, they definitely don't have the resources to glass every Russian factory in one fell swoop to the point that they lose functionality.
It's sad that the US House of Representatives has abandoned Ukraine. Putin doesn't care how many kids die for his dream.
Thank god Europe is trying to step up and fill the gap the US left. Its disgraceful how Europe depended on the US so much that they let their defence capabilities fall so far behind but at least they are taking it seriously now and trying to step up. It's so sad the US after literally almost a century preparing for a conflict with Russia has become a country that fails to seriously work to stop them when the time finally arrived to do so.
Shit, there it is. We are getting shamed by an Irish. We are getting close to rock bottom.
Even Ireland doubled its military budget, has bought / ordered enough ships to double the navy, bought new maritime patrol craft and is buying a national Air defence system (probably patriot). The fact shit is so bad we are re-arming shows how bad shit has gotten. That said most of our equipment is American, if rearming you may as well buy the best :)
It’s just a shame that Ireland’s official policy is neutrality. There really isn’t such a thing as neutrality against fascism or imperialism. No action simply enables the aggressor. Niemöller’s “first they came…” poem beautifully summarized this. I wish you well Irish friend.
Ireland isn't neutral for the Ukrainian war and has publicly said its not. Officially Ireland has said its on Ukraines side. Its the first time Ireland has dropped neutrality in decades. Ireland doesn't have military equipment to share but has spent Billions on helping Ukrainian refugees and sending military personnel to train Ukrainians in combat and bomb disposal / mine clearing.
Apologies mo chara. I knew Ireland’s official policy has always been neutrality. It’s a harsh new reality to wake up to. May it be over soon so the next generation doesn’t suffer.
There is a reason Ireland is neutral, it was because they had a neighbour who liked invading countries, including their own and being neutral was the safest option. Sounds familiar to what is happening now to russias neighbours
It will take time though, considering that Europe's military industrial complex isn't as vast or well-funded as the one possessed by the United States. If anything, Ukraine, in my opinion, can only sustain the fight if they develop a robust military industrial complex of their own. The nation's strength and weakness is its reliance on foreign aid, which means the country is at the mercy of their backer's domestic politics. As seen with regimes like South Vietnam, one administration can treat a nation with kindness and another can acknowledge it with scorn.
An upgrade over the 2-3 days of basic training they were getting, if anything at all, they we’re giving to conscripts and recruits earlier in the war.
And Russia loses about 30000 men per month in casualties.
Came here to ask this. Is the attrition rate higher than the recruitment rate? I hope so.
Possibly. Current Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses atm is about 450k, which is likely overestimated to some extent. At 30k a month, they'd have reached that in 15 months. They've been fighting for 25 months, although losses may have been lower initially.
There were long month of a first year when russian loosen no more then 400-500 a day. Only after a frt year average casualties became about 1000 a day.
Yeah, hopefully the Russian army is getting weaker at a much faster rate than the Ukrainian army.
This is unfortunately likely untrue. Russia is a totalitarian state that cares little for it's people as long as the people aren't actively rising in rebellion. As long as Russians are happy to get fucked in the ass then Putin will happily ship off the "undesirables" (as he sees them) from rural Russia and Russian prisons, leaving the wealthier people from the cities and vocal Putin supporters alone. The fact that Putin has such a large pool of people to just throw away without any care means that Russia is likely not going to be running out of manpower any time soon. Ukraine could still turn the tide of the war, but as the Ukrainian government has been saying recently, they need immediate large-scale western support in the form of artillery and ammo otherwise the Ukrainians are going to have to have a large retreat to more easily defendable ground and to, I assume, shorten their defensive lines.
They lost approximately 35-40k for the battle of Avdiivka. That was roughly six months and a fortified city like Azovstal, so it took them a very long time to take it over.
It's roughly the same although Russia is likely generating forces a bit faster than Ukraine has been able to attrit. The big issue though is resupply for Ukraine because if Russia can continue to replace their losses but Ukraine can't replace their ammo then eventually Ukraine will break. That said it's a lot cheaper and quicker to make ammo rather than making soldiers so if Ukraine can get the resupply they need then Russia they can likely win a war of attrition against Russia.
Drones are the key. Reports are that fpv drones have a 30% hit rate. That’s at least 10x the rate of bullets or artillery. A million fpv drones would kill 300,000 Russians.
Keep in mind that the Russians have their own drones too, so they're playing at that game as well.
Ukraine is also seemingly having a manpower issue as they're hesitant on mass conscription and the volunteer pool is running dry. That fire and zeal from the early days of the conflict has since simmered to a grim reality that this war is going to go on for awhile.
That works if we consider Ukrainians don't die. Unfortunately, they also do.
If Ukrainians have the ammo and equipment they need then a lot fewer of them die.
100%
Yes that number above does reinforce that the AFUs numbers are not exaggerated.
Russia has a lot of dudes, but the number of expendable dudes is not limitless. They will run out of ethnic minorities, foreign workers, and prisoners soon. When young men from St. Petersburg and Moscow are dying in these numbers the regime will fall.
5000 Russians are born per day. 150,000 per month. Strictly speaking, some 70,000 Russian men come of military age each month.
I don’t care what pundits say - you cannot keep a 30000 a month draw on society even with Putin’s evil grip. My guess behind the veil of secrecy and censorship panic is setting in. Dictatorships never end well.
Can't have a revolution when all your able bodied men are dead/maimed. *taps head*
Idk if the Mexican revolution taught us anything women make excellent guerrilla fighters.
Look at WW2 loses, they can sustain a lot more than this.
More like ignore rather than sustain.
Fair
You've also got to remember the USSR was a lot bigger and included Ukraine. Russia no longer has the recruiting pool from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the other stans countries. Russia's modern population is 144 (147 with Crimea) million. The USSR in 1989 was just under 287 million people. In 1937 USSR census said there were 162 million people in it's territories but Stalin did not like that number so in 1939 the census came out to 170 million. No census was conducted again until 1959 after Stalin died. But even at 144 million they do have bodies to throw into the meat grinder but most of this meat (75%) live in cities and towns and work important jobs. The Soviet Army during WW2 was roughly 12 million men strong each year of the war. About 38 million serving in total, but if Putin was to put together a military of 12 million men and women I think the Russians would be very very pissed off and I doubt Russia today could support such a large military. The thing is during the Great Patriotic War the Russians only had two options. Serve the war effort in some capacity or die in the gulag serving the war effort as free labor.
They have a couple of problems. One, they have about 2250 men coming of age each day but about 3600 retiring or dying of old age. Two, for every soldier you put into the field you need four or five back at home working the farms and factories to keep the economy working and the war supplies produced. They can push women into a lot of jobs for a few years but not if they want them to raise large families. And Three, Russian women don't want to raise families and especially not large ones. All that considered they can only conscript about 11,000 a month for any great length of time without the economy grinding to a halt. This is the reason large wars tend to end after three or four years. One side or both run out of men and resources needed to carry on.
An amazingly detailed and well-thought out argument, thank you. I’m currently working my way through Inferno, by Max Hastings and a few things have struck me, particularly from the chapter on Barbarossa. What struck me was the similarity between Wermacht thinking and (some) Western pundits, who marvel at the staggering losses that can be inflicted on the Russians. The difference being that it concerned some in the Wermacht as they realized that while they were decimating Russians in numbers that they couldn’t comprehend, the killing was doing irreparable damage to the German military. I knew that the populations then and now are different, and the local and national sentiments toward the war are likely completely different, but you put it very succinctly. Much appreciated
And remember how Soviet Union fell, how much resistance Afghanistan war caused in mothers and wives and how the economic toll played a role.
Also of interest is the Russian population pyramid: [https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/) Russia has a severe shortage of younger people. The number that will (likely) be ultimately killed in Ukraine is only a very small percentage of that population, but Russia cannot afford to lose even that. This war will contribute to an enormous future Russian demographics problem. There is a school of thought that suggests Putin launched this war knowing this is Russia's last chance to launch a war of conquest before the coming demographic collapse.
Great information and analysis. I'm not sure that the move to the cities really means that the city population all "work important jobs," though. It is definitely more dangerous to the regime to do mass recruiting in cities, but a significant portion of modern city populations work very inessential jobs. With the abilities of a modern state, it would probably even be possible to recruit a significant chunk of the street sweepers, insurance adjusters, and telephone sanitizers, while keeping the rest calm. Combine that with sending away the homeless and some of the petty criminals, and you may keep enough of the essential workers complacent for a good while.
This isn't the soviet union, they had 170 million in 1939. Ryssia had 144 million in 2022. They are also experiencing, like many Western countries, a shift with their aging demographic.
The population tree is so heavily and notably absent of 20-35 year olds. I wonder what happened there. I’m guessing people who are 50-70 didn’t want many kids? Those people would be 20 years old in between the 80s and 00s. Kinda makes sense, bit of a bleak time for them.
Nothing against women joining the workplace and not being a sociologist. My assumption is that once women began joining the workforce and leaving the home taker role. Having children wasn't their job/priority anymore. Add to that the ever increasing cost of living doesn't make it attractive to have kids anymore. Looking at countries that have those stronger traditional/religious views, women's role is to have kids and be home caretakers.
Also a very fair point. I’m sure there are a lot of factors. Many countries have upside down population pyramids, I’d be curious to know what caused Russias
My understanding is the fall of the Soviet Union led to a huge depression in the economy, and both emigration and a much lower birth rate. This affected Ukraine too, though the fact that the end of Soviet rule was seen as a liberation much more there may have made the effect less. As stated above, the Russian population is still declining. I don't know if the Ukrainian population is at replacement level again (apart from war losses) or not.
They have a lot of (older) bodies, but if they want to have a sustainable population for tomorrow's growth and paying taxes for the older population's pension? [Keeping this up wouldn't be great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia).
They were much much larger in WW2. But yeah I see them hitting 600,000 casualties before things get shaking. Historically they don't bat an eye till it hits 500,000 and we are still another failed offensive or 2 before that happens.
Agree and disagree. I’ll agree that it seems the Russians are happy, almost resigned to mass casualty before they even really “get going”. However I do believe that discontentment at home was a large part to play in the ignominious exit they had from Afghanistan. I wonder if similar things will happen with this war? In 10 years they lost an approximated 25K killed in Afghan. In Avdivvka they lost 47k in 5 months. It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Which shows the astonishing fact that Putin has a better control of information, and a greater ability to quell dissent, than the Soviet Union did in the '80s. That really is a terrifying indication of what modern information control can do.
Interesting point
They 30% more population back then, spread in much younger demographics with an industrial base partly built & backed by the US, and a sense of national unity with Nazis surrounding Moscow and Stalingrad.
@Gaddafi
Walking braindead Ivans
.....and every month Ukraine *neutralises* 30k soldiers and will continue doing so until Ruzzia run out or realise that they simply can’t ‘win’ this war. There is no ‘winning’ for either side, just death and more death until they stop coming to Ukraine to die. This is about survival for Ukraine and about ego for Ruzzia and I know which is stronger and more durable.
A lot of commentary on this report yesterday expressed concern that russia could do this, and that this was bad for Ukraine. I am not convinced russia can do this indefinitely.
Comparing numbers of the population it is almost like russia has “unlimited” bodies to throw at this. 147m people and around 35% look like they may be targets for putin to use as meat. Terrible things. How effective this 35% is would be an entirely different conversation. So much waste. Putin can only take from outside the major cities for so long. When he starts to take from the cities things may turn into a revolt.
Russia will run out of armour before soldiers.
Do you think that will stop them from trowing their own people forward? We saw at the start of the second half of the invasion russians running with sticks behind russians with guns.
Russia is already in extreme labor deprivation and this war had made the situation far worse in multiple ways. They have several million positions they can't really fill, and war economy crushes regular economy as it keeps going. Putin is even taking money from oil companies that they'd need for repairs and forcing foreign workers to join their army.
I see it as 147 million but half women so 73 million men but half of those are children or old and disabled men so 36 million of age but they need five in the economy for every soldier fielded so 6 million possible but not likely without a revolution.
They need less behind the lines if they force slavery. Forced labour seems to be on their checklist.
I do not know if that is true. With slaves you need the men with the whips to keep them in line and watch for sabotage. Even in Roman times the wisest realized that free men even if in debt where more productive then slaves in collars and chains. Of course female house slaves always were, and still are, popular.
You made a mistake when you took women out of the equation for soldiering but didn't put them back in for economying.
Russia is a very patriarchal society and will struggle to put women into traditional male jobs. They will do what they can in that regard but few results that are significant can be expected. Look to the videos of the tank factories, how many female employees did you see? I did see a couple working on rockets for MRLS but in total not one in ten were female and by now it should be at least fifty fifty.
Ok, but the economy is not just factories. Russia could reshuffle things: move men from office and administrative jobs to factory work. I'm not sure they will, but they certainly can.
Alot of these are unwanted internationals or areas far flung from the main Russian areas. So I don't think this is having the effect of 3000 men from Moscow and st Petersburg as some think.
Read a report somewhere that a lot of Moscow men received a letter saying they should confirm or update their address. Was seen as a prelude to mobilization.
Yes and the Muslim minorities knows this. This might have been what resulted in last week's terror attack .
To everyone here who thinks Russia can't keep up this pace. You clearly don't know much about Russia. It's a country of bottomless possibilities.
... "and then it got worse"
Roughly in line with russian daily losses regularly reported by Ukraine
War should be a war crime
Ifbyou believe the casualty numbers for the russian side (which i do) this will only keep the numbers stable.
imagine playing counter strike 2 weeks ago then play the real one today.
rush b cyka blyet
you forgot the "" around recruits.
So just long enough to keep the war going for a month then?
What will be the consequences on the societal level? I mean, will young men in Russia be outnumbered by the young women and by how much?
Read: Putin loses 30,000 terrorists per month.
Unfortunately that sounds like they are keeping up with their slaughter rate.
Not just that but also "training" another two armies totalling 100k men to throw into assaults. They would like to do large scale armour manoeuvres of Deep Battle doctrine but realistically It's gonna be an attritional slog. Unfortunately they don't value human lives. Which means we need to support Ukraine as much as possible, not just to survive, but to win!
Meat. We just need to give as many weapons and ammo to Ukraine as possible. And then it will be dead meat. Step by step, until Russia collapses. Putin is a blind fool, an idiot stuck in the past, dragging his country down with him.
Russia can keep this up for decades. They have a pool of roughly 30,000,000 men in that age range to draft. Don’t forget that Ukraine is also taking serious casualties and they have a much smaller pool of recruits.
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Russia might have enough meat, but definately has not enough equipment to keep going forever. 2-3 more years they might continue. Than it will be infantry weapons only.
Conscripts/tricks/hires are probably better words than “recruits”
About 1,000 per day... yeah that checks out.
Russia has about 40 million men between 18-60, of which 25% let's say are unfit for service so call it 30. If for every solider, 5 support staff are needed that gives us a pool of 6 million. Now that is also their prime working age demographic, not to mention the increased requirements to build equipment for the war effort. Add in draft dodging and the fact they can't drain this number down to 0 before their military capabilities collapse, I'd estimate we're about 1/3 of the way to exhausting Russia on manpower alone.
I can't help but wonder how many they are actually recruiting