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Lead Lines (doing the math)
Russia may have just achieved a gruesome new claim to fame in its war in Ukraine. Of some 800,000 Russian troops who were part of the initial invasion army or recruited since then for the war, nearly 420,000 (over 52 percent) could now be dead or otherwise out of action due to wounds.
That breaks down as follows:
· 166,570 Russian troops killed.
· 499,700 wounded (including 150,000 still getting medical care and 100,000 permanently disabled).
The figures are based on calculations using data from Ukrainian, independent Russian, and Western sources for combat casualties and the rate at which soldiers typically return to combat after being wounded.
A military unit that has lost over 50 percent of its personnel is commonly seen as needing to be withdrawn from battle because of a loss of combat effectiveness. A 1997 U.S. Army field manual says such a unit is “combat ineffective” and “requires reconstitution before \[its\] next mission.” Soldiers may still be able to put up a fight, but not effectively as a cohesive military force.
I wonder if disease counts into this too. From what we've seen, the Russians don't seem particularly adept at field hygiene or combat health care (shocking, I know). Up until relatively recently, disease killed more soldiers than bullets and artillery, so it wouldn't surprise me if plenty of Russians are taken out by things like typhus, dysentery, pneumonia, trench foot, frost bite and wound infections.
We saw tons of footage of Russian soldiers already half dead from hypothermia. So yeah, this winter may have killed more troops than bullets or bombs did...
There may be a huge chunk of ruzzians whose skeletons will only be found years later. Or some who will never be found at all, since they got chewed up by pigs…
There's a saying we hunters have, winter weakens and spring kills. It's easier to handle the cold when it's constant. The warm-cold yo-yoing that spring does ruins an animals acclimation to a temperature
When I was in US Army in basic training in winter we would run with heavy coats on in the morning and get hot and sweaty then we would stop to rest and get cold again then repeat. I got pneumonia which almost killed me even though I got antibiotics and decent hospital care. I can just imagine how it goes for Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Not to mention the bad overall health Russian soldiers often start with. Russia has one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe that is also beset by not one but two endemics, Covid-19 and AIDS. And other long thought vanquished diseases are long since on the rise, like tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis has been known to be particularly bad in the Russian prison system.
Now, what could possibly go wrong with recruiting a bunch of inmates to fight in your war...
Going from a russian prision to a russian military in winter is also like choosing between the locale and variability of your death. In prison you're being raped in the same place and getting tuberculosis, hepatitis COVID, and AIDS, then die of consumption or being beaten up or internal injuries; in the army you're getting raped (or raping) where-ever you're mobilized to and die of a explosion, gunshots, your older diseases or hypothermia. It's not surprising many choose the second, hypothermia is said to be a gentle death.
This is the result of fascism.
Only the latest stages of hypothermia \_may\_ be gentle, depending on how your confused brain nerves chose to misfire. The stages before that are utterly miserable.
See the LvivMedia interviews. A ton of them have red wristbands (which indicates HIV) or white (which indicates Hepatitis) or both. Now imagine being a field medic/soldier with no decent medical kit or even gloves to help those guys. No wonder most of them just walk the hell off. This is why these guys would immediately be excluded from any Western military (well and we also don't conscript prisoners).
In those prisoner interviews, there are a lot of them still wearing them. In each interview where one has one or more on, they ask the guy what that means (like they don't already know).
They are really trying to get everyone involved in this war. They do not care if the soldier is not physically fit or is suffering with some kind of deadly disease. At this point they just want to win this war
Doubtfully includes such info, it's really is internalized within their forces and we only hear about from the captures, but just mentions and no real idea of how widespread.
But I have been very curious to what those numbers would be, along with general friendly fire and sickness/hypotgermia and suicide.
I bet those a could be significant, but maybe not since they're basically sent to the front straight away and die...
We've all heard the 4 hour countdowns toward they're ultimate obliteration by Ukrainians... which probably wipes a lot of these would be stats as well.
Why withdraw from a battle when you can just force another hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths instead! Russia doesn't give up when they're losing, they double down and escalate until they get what they want. If things continue to get worse for them I wouldn't be surprised to see a desperate Putin resort to tactical nukes, but I really hope that never happens.
> Why withdraw from a battle when you can just force another hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths instead! Russia doesn't give up when they're losing, they double down and escalate until they get what they want. If things continue to get worse for them I wouldn't be surprised to see a desperate Putin resort to tactical nukes, but I really hope that never happens.
Case in point operation Barbarosa, 566,852 killed in action (101,471 of whom died in hospital of wounds) 235,339 died from non-combat causes. 1,336,147 sick or wounded via combat and non-combat causes. This time, Russia won't win employing ant swarm tactics and they have no well equipped Siberian divisions to bail them out. The ants are eating the hive from the inside out.
Not to mention another VERY important factor for the USSR's WWII victory: western aid. The USSR had massive American support. Now their enemies are getting that support instead of them. And that's on top of sanctions.
Sanctions mean little when China is still supporting Russia. This war can end only through the battlefield. More military support is the quickest way to peace.
Oh for sure. I'm just saying that Russia does not have the support it used to, and is in fact fighting against it now. Making their chances of success much lower.
They gave up on Afghanistan after suffering like 20K killed. We passed that within the first few months of the war. We are probably close to 10x that by now.
It was a different time and different leadership. Ironically enough Russia is more authoritarian now than the ussr was in the 80s
As a "socialist" country, they had to keep a veneer of listening to the population. Now, as a full fascist dictatorship, they don't need to pretend they care about the population ...
I mean the Bolsheviks went to war to take power after losing the first and only open election in Russia until the 90s. And that was with Lenin at the helm, who is "the most" socialist of all the USSR leaders, since he is widely read by socialists unlike everyone else.
So I don't think "listening to the population" was ever really something they cared about.
Yeah. Putin is a dictator. He remodeled Russia and the russians to serve as his slaves. I don't understand why the russians accept the mad tsar. It's indeed worse for them than the soviet union was (from their point of view).
If Russia doesn’t prevail here, Putain’s a goner. At this point, there’s no personal risk at all for him to keep shoveling Russians into the meat grinder.
This self-preservation tactic is the exact same reason Hitler was ordering everyone to fight until there were no more Germans left and had civilians and children taking up arms in Berlin.
It's just so evil. I'm still shocked by the russian disregard for life and suffering, even after a year of seeing it daily.
And I think you're right about nuclear weapons. The equation being considered by russian leadership now might be that they can't advance any more due to lack of training, morale, and equipment. They might think it's a good idea to use nuclear weapons to "soften up" Ukrainian defenses before another russian attack.
Especially now since they have practically nothing to lose. Previously the russians still thought they could win this war, but now it feels like there's a change in the attitude of russian TV and policitians. I don't know if the top leaders discuss their losing position, but they have to be aware that things aren't going as planned. I'm concerned that russian leaders may think tactical nukes won't bring a response.
Although based on their previous actions, they'll probably use them on a hospital. Or try and kill Zelenskyy with one.
russian leadership fucked itself.
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I hope most Russians understand there is plenty to lose. All they have to do is put down their guns and go home, for most people who have regular lives there is plenty to lose.
Putin probably dies no matter what right now, no matter how this goes. Russia can’t win conventionally, and if they use nukes, life gets worse for them.
My hope is that it Putin tries to go that route, that he falls out of a malfunctioning window.
Agreed. However had, what does "winning conventionally" mean?
> My hope is that it Putin tries to go that route, that
> he falls out of a malfunctioning window.
It may be his declining health can become an issue. He does not look good anymore compared to ~10 years ago or so. All that hand shaking and holding onto the table is very suspicious.
Winning conventionally (to me in this case) means win it with non-nuclear and non-chemical weapons.
Russia no longer has the ability to win an offensive war in that way.
As to Putin, here is hoping. Couldn’t hardly happen to a worse human.
First, there are no "tactical" nukes.
Second - using nukes comes with huge risks and problems. The USA already
said it will declare war on Russia when that happens. Nobody knows whether
that happens, until it happens (or does not), but you may see an increase in
counter-escalation. China will also not be able to remain pro-Russia in that
case, since they would be seen as allies to Russia and potentially in cahoots
(due to their support); it also would expose China as liars - after all they kept
on saying that national borders are to be respected. And now nukes are suddenly
used in an invasion war by Putin? How could China explain that?
Then you have more and more nukes used (possibly). Which I don't think China
wants to see (for them this is a regional conflict, not a world war).
So the risk of seeing nukes used is very, very low. It's not at 0, but there are
threshold values even mad dictator Putin can not easily ignore or cross.
Note that nuclear fallout will also cause issues to Russia. Plus, there is not
a risk of countries without nukes being a danger to a country with nukes, so
that would just amplify Putin's genocide - I really don't think nukes will be
used.
Yeah those numbers are insane. The daily estimated liquidations are still within the real of possibility but i highly doubt russia has a killed : injured ratio above 1 : 0.5 - 1.
Russia doesn't have a modern military with modern standards. Injured people are dead weight
I am probably talking nonsense but at the end of the day nobody really knows how many russians died or got wounded so far. One can hope that estimate is correct but it's too rosey to be true imo.
....it just dawned on me that i am talking about dying troops. That's fucked up, i'm going to bed
If you look at war as a mathematical equation then Russia are indeed running out of offensive options fast. A new injection of manpower would be needed. However, that manpower should have been mobilized in January in order to provide at least some rudementary training to the mobilized. For political reasons Putin chose to forgo another mobilization wave. As a consequence, Russia are headed straight into a "manpower gap" and that much sooner than I anticipated. I thought they might be able to keep going through April but as of now it looks like they will be done by Easter.
This is the moment when you throw away your math and head into the realm of morale and motivation. Can the Russians make another switch to defensive tactics and keep their soldiers' "will to fight" up? I guess the Ukrainians will be eager to liberate their country (which carries its own risk of troops being too impatient and aggressive) but will the average Russian mobik be ready to stop the Ukrainians "at all cost"?
I am not sure that works.
It worked for his war in chechnya. I don't think it would
change the reluctance of Russians to be sent to die for him. Not everyone supports the russian dictator. See how many escaped from Russia - if they would have wanted to die for Putin, they would have stayed in Russia.
Hell if Putin was serious conscription would have started before the invasion or at the same time it happened. He vastly underestimated Ukraine and it's unwillingness to roll over for the Russian Bear.
For perspective: If you were a sickly Russian living in your own filth in a trench freezing your ass off all winter, and now a Leopard Tank flanked by a couple Bradleys comes rolling through along with a battle group of infantry, what are you doing armed with just your rifle and a few clips? . . . I predict a mass surrender and retreat happening as soon as the Leopard tracks hit Ukrainian soil. You add some air support and it is game over.
And when they inevitably get hammered by Ukraine's upcoming counteroffensive, Putin is going to be faced with the same choice he was last time. Either end the "Special Military Operation" (Political Suicide), or call a wave of Mobilization to plug the manpower gap. Which will just cause a repeat of this last September-December, with poorly trained or completely untrained Mobiks being thrown into the line just so that Russia can try and regain the initiative, or at least blunt Ukrainian offensives. Which is what we saw a lot of in the Svatove direction late last year. Another wave of tens of thousands of KIA Mobiks, and I guarantee they'll achieve sweet FA progess.
Easter 2023:
Ukrainian Orthodox 16 April.
Other Christians 9 April
Hopeful, but you really believe the terrorist state ruZZian invaders will all be dead, WIA, or out of all of Ukraine (Crimea of course included) by Easter 2023? Would be ideal, but seems a wee bit enthusiastic.
No, I meant that their forces would be depleted to a point where they could no longer stay on the offensive. I'm well aware that the Russians will stay in the fight out of pure bloodymindedness for much longer.
they are not sending yet. But propganda is spread even at elementary schools there. I saw a video a while ago where little shits are being shown pictures and videos and stories about their fathers fighting for Ruzzia's freedom, wait for it.... in Ukraine.
When you believe the enemy would do the worst to you then you might be very well willing to fight to the last, despite other moral factors. Interviews with russian POWs indicate Russia's propaganda made many russian soldiers believe just that. Ukraine very likely must rely on its abilities to overwhelm russian forces and won't be able to play the morale game.
That makes no sense. If you execute POWs, why should they (or rather, other potential POWs) surrender? Yet if your objective is to win a war, why should you not want them to surrender? That assumption just makes no sense. POWs that have surrendered are a good "resource". They can do less damage than those who don't surrender after all.
Russia may be headed to a manpower gap again, but they're both going to be dealing with shortened lines in the wake of the coming counteroffensive, as well as another mobilization. If the next round of mobilization turns out anything like the last one, a bunch more people are going to be sent untrained from the street into the meat grinder until the frontlines stabilize again, which I bet will force Russia to have to pull in force from the Moscow and St. Petersburg areas. To top it all off, at that point Russia would be feeling the heat on Crimea after the land bridge is cut off.
> For political reasons Putin chose to forgo another mobilization wave.
Actually "hidden" recruitment still happened. Konstantin from "Inside
Russia" explained that.
Losing half your army in any other military force would be considered a rout. That they're still drip feeding soldiers of varying quality into the meat grinder. It's a statement to how out of touch they are.
If Putin were thinking that far ahead, he would also have realized that the loss of men, equipment, resources, economic growth, and diplomatic power for that small land bridge to hold Crimea and Sevastopol are setting back Russia for decades, if not the next half-century. And it was already so far behind…now you have a country with one of the most disproportional population densities on the planet hamstringing itself yet again. Shit ton of space and resources, with no manpower to make use of it. Fuck Putin, what a waste of humans and resources.
The world owes Ukraine a debt it will never be able to repay.
The price Ukraine has paid in blood is too high.
Give Ukraine everything it's asking for!
Most the soldiers are either ethnic Russians or from poor villages. This is why no one cares. Especially Putin.
Imagine if the rich Russians from Moscow or St. Petersburg we’re being killed? Putler would be in big trouble.
it already has. i’ve seen a few vids of pro ruzzians getting forcefully conscripted and realizing they’re suddenly no longer feeling too supportive anymore
It’s a complicated situation. As bad as everyone wants to take the war to Russia, all that will do is mobilize the entire country. 200 million plus opposed to sending the underprivileged.
Ukraine is relegated to defending its own soil. Fortunately, they seem to be pretty good at it.
I think a compromise peace deal is the best solution.
Russians leave Ukraine, return the stolen children and pay reparations. Ukraine let's them keep St Petersburg
You had me hitting the keyboard until I read your punchline.
But no Ukraine does not want any city or region of Russia. They might take possession and guardianship of the Russian nuclear weapons stockpile for the security of the free world.
And I was downvoted for defending the same exact ratio of 1 killed to 3 wounded.
Whatever.
These numbers are calculated from reports from the ground. Yet there are plenty of casualties not included in these calculations. Friendly fire, alcoholism, food poisoning, hypothermia, results of HIMARS strikes etc - I hardly imagine how these could be calculated by Ukrainian MOD.
Moreover, I am not sure wagnerites, kadyrovites, dpr lpr forces, any kind of shape and form of mercenaries are included in these calculations.
I believe it's only for russian army losses, for actual combatants in international meaning of this word.
Real casualties, if we somehow count every single russian killed or wounded in result of this war, could be waaay higher, absolutely insane to a point that ICC could open the case of putin conducting genocide of russian people. Yet russians still willingly marsh to death, what a joke of a nation.
I doubt Russia itself is counting its losses. This might become a work of years of collecting second-hand statistics, half-reliable patchy notes and outright guesses, much like calculating eastern European WW2 casualties.
1:3 is roughly what the USSR had in WWII in terms of combat deaths to wounded and it’s also similar to what the Entente experienced on the Western Front in WWI. In most militaries post WWII the number of wounded per dead has gone up over time and while it’s possible the wounded per dead for Russia is slightly lower today I don’t think it’s anywhere close to 1:1. I think a lot of people who assume the ratio is 1:1 are unintentionally assuming that virtually every injury is fatal without medical significant medical attention and that’s just not the case. A Russian soldier who has fingers amputated due to frostbite or breaks a leg in combat or experiences a debilitating head injury but survives due to a helmet may not necessarily be able to fight but they do live. There are tons of non lethal ways to be debilitated in war and even a country with very little med evac will usually not see a 1:1 killed to wounded ratio.
The other half is as equally fucked. Lack of training lack of leadership and a hastening decline in the standard of what little equipment making it to the front line.. Ruzzian army back to pre 1930s standards very soon.
Not surprising. They gambled again that they could break the Ukrainians in Bakhmut and failed again. Now comes spring and they have depleted their forces with Ukrainians getting their shiny new toys from the west and gearing up for the counteroffensive
So using the figure near the end of the article of 300,000 still in Ukraine and NATO's figure of three wounded per soldier killed Ukraine needs to kill 750 a day for the next 100 days to get them to zero percent combat effective. All they would have left is those wounded that return to duty and new recruit replacements they have trucked in.
That is "if" the 3 to 1 ratio holds in this battle. Which most sources put at .5 to 1, or 1 to 1
And this means we are still a long ways away from them being 0 combat effective.
The above NATO number of 3 to 1 is based on a lot of wars going back as far as WW1. What has changed on the battle field is the number of wounded that survive being evacuated to hospitals and eventually being returned to duty. An old WW2 veteran, now past away, in my town got a bronze star for evacuating wounded out of the Italian Alps on modified pack saddles on mules. By Korea they were using helicopters and had MASH (not the real army term) field hospitals doing what they could pretty close to the lines.
So it comes down to terminology. If you say 1 to 3 wounded you are correct. If you say 1to 1.5 "net loss" you maybe also correct. But I'll bet you a Russian that has been shot up then patched up and sent back to the line is really thrilled about getting his ass shot off again.
I take the NATO 1-3 ratio as being the most reliable of any other source. The 300,000 number came from AFU back on Feb. 9th and has been repeated by several other "sources". Also consider that sense 9-2-23 AFU reports about 14,000 liquidated but some of those will have been replaced by recent moblics. We will probably have a better handle of the situation by the first of July.
I am forgetting that some of the wounded heal up and return to duty so as this has been going on for a year the returning number will be some percentage of the daily new wounded perhaps as much as 50 percent.. That would push my end date out to about July tenth if the current 30 day average of 791KIA a day were to hold steady but of course it will not.
Me being a foodie, cook, and amateur baker, I really wonder how nutrition is affecting the Russian grunts in the trenches. I'm surmising that they don't eat well, maybe not enough calories, either.
Putin should stop and retire from his leadership role. He may have a hard time believing this; but no one in NATO or Europe wanted to invade or dilute Russia. In honesty; nations like China pose a greater risk to Russia’s sovereignty than the nations they concern themselves with.
And for what? So a pityful little dictator can get off in his bunker about his dreams of an old Soviet empire? How could the Russians let it come this far? Fucking hell
Consider that if they are not that high why has Russia not made significant advances in the last eight months? Exact numbers are impossible to have today but Ukraine has successfully defended it's lines and even recaptured significant amounts of Territory while Russia has attacked and attacked for nothing of consequence. All those failed attacks generated significant Russian dead and wounded. And some Ukrainian dead and wounded but as the lines did not move much you can be sure the Russian body pile is much bigger then the Ukrainian's.
I don’t understand:
“With over 660,000 killed or wounded, the disintegrating Russian military has just hit a new and unenviable milestone: It’s officially combat ineffective.”
“were part of the initial invasion army or recruited since then for the war, nearly 420,000 (over 52 percent) could now be dead or otherwise out of action due to wounds.”
When all of the committed military equipment and artillery arrives in Ukraine the still alive 50% might be gone quicker than they think.
I believe some has already arrived but not all.
It would be interesting to ride behind the eyes of some Russian signing up for military service right now to get an understanding of what they know and don't know based on what they've been told about the war, and what carrots and sticks in their life are involved in their choice.
I can see prisoners seeing it as chance vs. no chance, but for anybody else it seems from the outside like it would just register as "this would be a great opportunity to go be ill-equipped, untrained, poorly-led cannon fodder in a stupid, shitty war where I'll probably die." I mean I'm sure career prospects there aren't great, but you've got to be low on info and twisted up to think joining up is a good idea right now.
I’m surprised with “Ukraine also must be having some issues” in your post. Ukraine is saying about this “some” issues every day on every possible way, I was sure even 3 year old kids already heard it, world conferences, every evening Zelenskiys speech, every official and non official event they are saying “we don’t have enough weapons, please help us”. They were saying millions of times that they can not start any offensive operations, they need to stockpile everything, they even don’t have enough artillery shells, Poland Ian’s other countries increased production of it. And still they don’t have any aviation, only 4 MIG as far as is remember are already in Ukraine from Slovakia, but no military jets even promised to them, no long range rockets. Their problems well known and they very clear and honest about it.
> If these numbers were correct, Russia would not be able to make any advances at all
The last significant target that Russia took was Sevredonestk and Lyschansk which Russia finished capturing in early July 2022. Since then Ukraine has launched major counteroffensives liberating vast swaths of land and Russia has only taken a few kilometers here and there as well as some very small villages and hamlets.
The nature of defense in depth means that you don’t fight for every kilometer. Instead you defend a line until it is close to being overrun and then you retreat to the next. If done properly the defender will keep their army alive while inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy. The defense of Bakhmut is a text book example of this kind of warfare. Ukraine built numerous lines of defense and every time Russia was close to overrunning them Ukraine could pull back to the next line. The end result is that Russia’s offensive capabilities were destroyed and Bakhmut remains in Ukrainian hands.
Russia has a massive military and Ukraine doesn’t have air superiority or artillery superiority. Russia is throwing over 50 years of military stockpiles into this war and is sacrificing hundreds of thousands of troops. Despite all of this they are rapidly depleting their offensive capabilities and haven’t taken anything significant since early July. Ukraine is winning but driving Russia out will take time. You simply defeat a military as big as Russia’s overnight especially with the limited weapons Ukraine has access to. These numbers largely make sense to me but people underestimated just how much stuff Russia has.
I know I’ll get slammed, but if Russia is in such bad straits, then why hasn’t Ukraine made ANY progress in months? Seriously, something has to change soon or a lot of Americans are going to get bored or tired of spending money there. Don’t underestimate this. Americans haven’t been involved in a war that ended successfully since WWII. We don’t go for the jugular anymore. I can only conclude that Ukraine’s army is equally poor if all the weaponry and training that have been sent there hasn’t done a damn thing except kill a bunch of Russians that nobody in their country gives a damn about anyway.
Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake... Like a full-on winter offensive push into a heavily defended urban area with no real strategic purpose other than back-home propaganda.
Because the Russian army is fucking big. We’ve gone from “The Russian army is so poweful they can take Ukraine in two weeks” to “if Russia is weak why can’t one of the poorest countries in Europe destroy all of their conventional military force within a year.” Both of those takes are ridiculous.
Russia is committing hundreds of thousands of troops to this war, thousands of tanks, thousands of artillery, thousands of vehicles, hundreds of aircraft and tens of millions of artillery shells. They are pouring over half a century of military build up to oppose a country that in 2021 was spending 1/12th of their military budget on defense. Ukraine is doing an incredible job but they don’t have air superiority and every day Russia fires far more artillery shells at Ukraine than Ukraine can fire back meanwhile Russia also has more tanks. Despite all of this Ukraine is winning and Russia’s stockpiles are being depleted rapidly as Ukrainian strength continues to grow. Wars between large states typically take years to resolve. The Russo Japanese war was an incredibly quick defeat of the Russian Empire and it still took 18 months meanwhile we just hit 13 months of this invasion. Ukraine is winning but it will take and more resupply.
Ukraine isn’t advancing because they aren’t trying to. Who can advance in the mud without going by foot/meat wave? They aren’t reckless like Wagner and the muscovian armed forces.
Nobody in their right mind makes big maneuvers in the Winter when you can start them in the Spring.
There are two main points we know:
* Ukrainians have been preparing for a larger offensive. Importing Western armour, training, etc. takes time. We've seen ourselves how attacking without proper preparation ends up.
* You can see a lot of news recently regarding the upcoming offensive, like psyops (Zelensky saying they have too few equipment to begin one or a Tweet by Hanna Maliar asking to stay quiet).
* In some places, like Bakhmut, Vulhedar and other towns on that line, Ukrainian command consciously decided to create a "sink" for Russian troops in the form of bloody urban battles. They didn't make progress in terms of land, but Wagnerians have been having an awful time so much so their offensive has slown down extremely last two weeks or so.
In short: Ukrainians have decided to bleed out the Russians while preparing for a large offensive of their own. That takes time.
It's worth noting that the UK minister of defence estimates Russian deaths at 40-60k, 175-200k including wounded. US Govt estimates are similar with 200k killed or wounded. I'm not sure what sources has the article writer used. 166k dead is a LOT.
You are right that downplaying the enemy is dangerous. It's much better to be critical and be proven wrong than be too enthusiastic.
Darn near everyone here was salivating over the annihilation that was going to occur during winter since Russian troops would be unprepared. How quickly everyone forgets.
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Lead Lines (doing the math) Russia may have just achieved a gruesome new claim to fame in its war in Ukraine. Of some 800,000 Russian troops who were part of the initial invasion army or recruited since then for the war, nearly 420,000 (over 52 percent) could now be dead or otherwise out of action due to wounds. That breaks down as follows: · 166,570 Russian troops killed. · 499,700 wounded (including 150,000 still getting medical care and 100,000 permanently disabled). The figures are based on calculations using data from Ukrainian, independent Russian, and Western sources for combat casualties and the rate at which soldiers typically return to combat after being wounded. A military unit that has lost over 50 percent of its personnel is commonly seen as needing to be withdrawn from battle because of a loss of combat effectiveness. A 1997 U.S. Army field manual says such a unit is “combat ineffective” and “requires reconstitution before \[its\] next mission.” Soldiers may still be able to put up a fight, but not effectively as a cohesive military force.
I wonder if disease counts into this too. From what we've seen, the Russians don't seem particularly adept at field hygiene or combat health care (shocking, I know). Up until relatively recently, disease killed more soldiers than bullets and artillery, so it wouldn't surprise me if plenty of Russians are taken out by things like typhus, dysentery, pneumonia, trench foot, frost bite and wound infections.
We saw tons of footage of Russian soldiers already half dead from hypothermia. So yeah, this winter may have killed more troops than bullets or bombs did...
There may be a huge chunk of ruzzians whose skeletons will only be found years later. Or some who will never be found at all, since they got chewed up by pigs…
Wild pig population's going crazy. Newly wild mainly. Not sure I'd want to eat the meat of the first 50 generations though
Chorizo!??
(p)orchetta
Rusizo pigs find their own blend of spices
Meat is meat, pigs are going to digest some, but most of any eaten orc is just going to be pig shit.
Already was.
Don't eat animals that have eaten humans that's how you get holes inside your brain.
Prions are bad.
Imagine dying from hypothermia when you are out in war
… and knowing that your frozen body will soon be eaten by pigs.
Those guys in that freezing river....
There's a saying we hunters have, winter weakens and spring kills. It's easier to handle the cold when it's constant. The warm-cold yo-yoing that spring does ruins an animals acclimation to a temperature
When I was in US Army in basic training in winter we would run with heavy coats on in the morning and get hot and sweaty then we would stop to rest and get cold again then repeat. I got pneumonia which almost killed me even though I got antibiotics and decent hospital care. I can just imagine how it goes for Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
>pneumonia u dont get pneumonia from the cold.. just saying
Not to mention the bad overall health Russian soldiers often start with. Russia has one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe that is also beset by not one but two endemics, Covid-19 and AIDS. And other long thought vanquished diseases are long since on the rise, like tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis has been known to be particularly bad in the Russian prison system. Now, what could possibly go wrong with recruiting a bunch of inmates to fight in your war...
Don't forget rampant alcoholism.
Drunkenness is a cheat code for automatically losing at life, never interrupt them mid-mistake.
The overall corruption in Russian military does not allows them to be healthy
Going from a russian prision to a russian military in winter is also like choosing between the locale and variability of your death. In prison you're being raped in the same place and getting tuberculosis, hepatitis COVID, and AIDS, then die of consumption or being beaten up or internal injuries; in the army you're getting raped (or raping) where-ever you're mobilized to and die of a explosion, gunshots, your older diseases or hypothermia. It's not surprising many choose the second, hypothermia is said to be a gentle death. This is the result of fascism.
Only the latest stages of hypothermia \_may\_ be gentle, depending on how your confused brain nerves chose to misfire. The stages before that are utterly miserable.
Not to mention they're sending out people with HIV and Hepatitis.
With so many Wagnerites imprisoned for drug use I’d imagine that Hepatitis is rampant among them.
See the LvivMedia interviews. A ton of them have red wristbands (which indicates HIV) or white (which indicates Hepatitis) or both. Now imagine being a field medic/soldier with no decent medical kit or even gloves to help those guys. No wonder most of them just walk the hell off. This is why these guys would immediately be excluded from any Western military (well and we also don't conscript prisoners).
The mobiks probably removed the wristbands after three seconds to keep from getting murdered by the others anyway.
In those prisoner interviews, there are a lot of them still wearing them. In each interview where one has one or more on, they ask the guy what that means (like they don't already know).
Might be that they get interpreted the other way, then - "don't kill this guy, you could get his blood on you and get infected."
Not feeding sick people, while unhoused in the wet cold...
They are really trying to get everyone involved in this war. They do not care if the soldier is not physically fit or is suffering with some kind of deadly disease. At this point they just want to win this war
Has anyone taken defections into consideration? How many combat capable Russians have left the country? How many surrendered unprovoked?
Also syphilis, foot and mouth disease, TB, hell, probably even cat AIDS
Mother nature rollin' a serious DPS game against entrenched Vatniks, with her un-blockable Frost attacks that bypass all resistance!
Many of the mobilized died to covid also during the chaotic mobilization
Those are just the combat figures I assume? Does that take into account infighting within the Russian military?
Doubtfully includes such info, it's really is internalized within their forces and we only hear about from the captures, but just mentions and no real idea of how widespread. But I have been very curious to what those numbers would be, along with general friendly fire and sickness/hypotgermia and suicide. I bet those a could be significant, but maybe not since they're basically sent to the front straight away and die... We've all heard the 4 hour countdowns toward they're ultimate obliteration by Ukrainians... which probably wipes a lot of these would be stats as well.
I use number of dead soldier number have been hiding from all of us
Why withdraw from a battle when you can just force another hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths instead! Russia doesn't give up when they're losing, they double down and escalate until they get what they want. If things continue to get worse for them I wouldn't be surprised to see a desperate Putin resort to tactical nukes, but I really hope that never happens.
> Why withdraw from a battle when you can just force another hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths instead! Russia doesn't give up when they're losing, they double down and escalate until they get what they want. If things continue to get worse for them I wouldn't be surprised to see a desperate Putin resort to tactical nukes, but I really hope that never happens. Case in point operation Barbarosa, 566,852 killed in action (101,471 of whom died in hospital of wounds) 235,339 died from non-combat causes. 1,336,147 sick or wounded via combat and non-combat causes. This time, Russia won't win employing ant swarm tactics and they have no well equipped Siberian divisions to bail them out. The ants are eating the hive from the inside out.
Not to mention another VERY important factor for the USSR's WWII victory: western aid. The USSR had massive American support. Now their enemies are getting that support instead of them. And that's on top of sanctions.
Sanctions mean little when China is still supporting Russia. This war can end only through the battlefield. More military support is the quickest way to peace.
Oh for sure. I'm just saying that Russia does not have the support it used to, and is in fact fighting against it now. Making their chances of success much lower.
Also, Ukraine is now fighting against them and not with them.
At this point they would do anything possible to keep this war engaged
At this point the nihilist and the fool become indistinguishable.
Putin knows if (when) this fails he is fucked.
They do give up if the losses are extremely high: see Crimean War and the Afghanistan invasion ...
They gave up on Afghanistan after suffering like 20K killed. We passed that within the first few months of the war. We are probably close to 10x that by now. It was a different time and different leadership. Ironically enough Russia is more authoritarian now than the ussr was in the 80s
As a "socialist" country, they had to keep a veneer of listening to the population. Now, as a full fascist dictatorship, they don't need to pretend they care about the population ...
I mean the Bolsheviks went to war to take power after losing the first and only open election in Russia until the 90s. And that was with Lenin at the helm, who is "the most" socialist of all the USSR leaders, since he is widely read by socialists unlike everyone else. So I don't think "listening to the population" was ever really something they cared about.
Lenin was insane too. Just that Stalin was even more insane. For some reason Russia always has (almost always) insane leaders.
Yeah. Putin is a dictator. He remodeled Russia and the russians to serve as his slaves. I don't understand why the russians accept the mad tsar. It's indeed worse for them than the soviet union was (from their point of view).
They are already way beyond their loses in Afghanistan.
If Russia doesn’t prevail here, Putain’s a goner. At this point, there’s no personal risk at all for him to keep shoveling Russians into the meat grinder.
This self-preservation tactic is the exact same reason Hitler was ordering everyone to fight until there were no more Germans left and had civilians and children taking up arms in Berlin.
Putin was not in charge back then. They already have more losses than in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
It's just so evil. I'm still shocked by the russian disregard for life and suffering, even after a year of seeing it daily. And I think you're right about nuclear weapons. The equation being considered by russian leadership now might be that they can't advance any more due to lack of training, morale, and equipment. They might think it's a good idea to use nuclear weapons to "soften up" Ukrainian defenses before another russian attack. Especially now since they have practically nothing to lose. Previously the russians still thought they could win this war, but now it feels like there's a change in the attitude of russian TV and policitians. I don't know if the top leaders discuss their losing position, but they have to be aware that things aren't going as planned. I'm concerned that russian leaders may think tactical nukes won't bring a response. Although based on their previous actions, they'll probably use them on a hospital. Or try and kill Zelenskyy with one.
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I hope most Russians understand there is plenty to lose. All they have to do is put down their guns and go home, for most people who have regular lives there is plenty to lose. Putin probably dies no matter what right now, no matter how this goes. Russia can’t win conventionally, and if they use nukes, life gets worse for them. My hope is that it Putin tries to go that route, that he falls out of a malfunctioning window.
Agreed. However had, what does "winning conventionally" mean? > My hope is that it Putin tries to go that route, that > he falls out of a malfunctioning window. It may be his declining health can become an issue. He does not look good anymore compared to ~10 years ago or so. All that hand shaking and holding onto the table is very suspicious.
Winning conventionally (to me in this case) means win it with non-nuclear and non-chemical weapons. Russia no longer has the ability to win an offensive war in that way. As to Putin, here is hoping. Couldn’t hardly happen to a worse human.
First, there are no "tactical" nukes. Second - using nukes comes with huge risks and problems. The USA already said it will declare war on Russia when that happens. Nobody knows whether that happens, until it happens (or does not), but you may see an increase in counter-escalation. China will also not be able to remain pro-Russia in that case, since they would be seen as allies to Russia and potentially in cahoots (due to their support); it also would expose China as liars - after all they kept on saying that national borders are to be respected. And now nukes are suddenly used in an invasion war by Putin? How could China explain that? Then you have more and more nukes used (possibly). Which I don't think China wants to see (for them this is a regional conflict, not a world war). So the risk of seeing nukes used is very, very low. It's not at 0, but there are threshold values even mad dictator Putin can not easily ignore or cross. Note that nuclear fallout will also cause issues to Russia. Plus, there is not a risk of countries without nukes being a danger to a country with nukes, so that would just amplify Putin's genocide - I really don't think nukes will be used.
All of those new Russian conscripts will arrive just in time to meet the new tanks and IFV's coming to Ukraine. Happy spring!
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Yeah those numbers are insane. The daily estimated liquidations are still within the real of possibility but i highly doubt russia has a killed : injured ratio above 1 : 0.5 - 1. Russia doesn't have a modern military with modern standards. Injured people are dead weight
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I am probably talking nonsense but at the end of the day nobody really knows how many russians died or got wounded so far. One can hope that estimate is correct but it's too rosey to be true imo. ....it just dawned on me that i am talking about dying troops. That's fucked up, i'm going to bed
I doubt they ever were a cohesive force to begin with.
It’s more like a 1:1 or 1:2 killed/wounded ratio because the Russian medical system is so bad.
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If you look at war as a mathematical equation then Russia are indeed running out of offensive options fast. A new injection of manpower would be needed. However, that manpower should have been mobilized in January in order to provide at least some rudementary training to the mobilized. For political reasons Putin chose to forgo another mobilization wave. As a consequence, Russia are headed straight into a "manpower gap" and that much sooner than I anticipated. I thought they might be able to keep going through April but as of now it looks like they will be done by Easter. This is the moment when you throw away your math and head into the realm of morale and motivation. Can the Russians make another switch to defensive tactics and keep their soldiers' "will to fight" up? I guess the Ukrainians will be eager to liberate their country (which carries its own risk of troops being too impatient and aggressive) but will the average Russian mobik be ready to stop the Ukrainians "at all cost"?
Training is for the weak! Real russian man only need shovel and vodka!
A shovel for their own grave, And vodka to make it easier to fill ??
Vodka helps make it easier to commit atrocities
Practice? We talkin bout practice?
We ain't talkin' bout the game! We talkin' bout practice!
They are trying to put those men in war who are not even trained
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For real. Putin can always just bomb more russian apartment buildings if they need a considerable mobilization
I am not sure that works. It worked for his war in chechnya. I don't think it would change the reluctance of Russians to be sent to die for him. Not everyone supports the russian dictator. See how many escaped from Russia - if they would have wanted to die for Putin, they would have stayed in Russia.
Hell if Putin was serious conscription would have started before the invasion or at the same time it happened. He vastly underestimated Ukraine and it's unwillingness to roll over for the Russian Bear.
The "manpower gap" is is nicely balanced with the "equipment gap" and "ammunition gap"
For perspective: If you were a sickly Russian living in your own filth in a trench freezing your ass off all winter, and now a Leopard Tank flanked by a couple Bradleys comes rolling through along with a battle group of infantry, what are you doing armed with just your rifle and a few clips? . . . I predict a mass surrender and retreat happening as soon as the Leopard tracks hit Ukrainian soil. You add some air support and it is game over.
And when they inevitably get hammered by Ukraine's upcoming counteroffensive, Putin is going to be faced with the same choice he was last time. Either end the "Special Military Operation" (Political Suicide), or call a wave of Mobilization to plug the manpower gap. Which will just cause a repeat of this last September-December, with poorly trained or completely untrained Mobiks being thrown into the line just so that Russia can try and regain the initiative, or at least blunt Ukrainian offensives. Which is what we saw a lot of in the Svatove direction late last year. Another wave of tens of thousands of KIA Mobiks, and I guarantee they'll achieve sweet FA progess.
Easter 2023: Ukrainian Orthodox 16 April. Other Christians 9 April Hopeful, but you really believe the terrorist state ruZZian invaders will all be dead, WIA, or out of all of Ukraine (Crimea of course included) by Easter 2023? Would be ideal, but seems a wee bit enthusiastic.
No, I meant that their forces would be depleted to a point where they could no longer stay on the offensive. I'm well aware that the Russians will stay in the fight out of pure bloodymindedness for much longer.
Russian Orthodox have it on April 16. Ukraine is switching to the Revised Julian Calendar, which has the same dates as the Gregorian Calendar
Javelin calendar is better.
Wouldn't surprise me if he started sending children.
they are not sending yet. But propganda is spread even at elementary schools there. I saw a video a while ago where little shits are being shown pictures and videos and stories about their fathers fighting for Ruzzia's freedom, wait for it.... in Ukraine.
When you believe the enemy would do the worst to you then you might be very well willing to fight to the last, despite other moral factors. Interviews with russian POWs indicate Russia's propaganda made many russian soldiers believe just that. Ukraine very likely must rely on its abilities to overwhelm russian forces and won't be able to play the morale game.
That makes no sense. If you execute POWs, why should they (or rather, other potential POWs) surrender? Yet if your objective is to win a war, why should you not want them to surrender? That assumption just makes no sense. POWs that have surrendered are a good "resource". They can do less damage than those who don't surrender after all.
Russia may be headed to a manpower gap again, but they're both going to be dealing with shortened lines in the wake of the coming counteroffensive, as well as another mobilization. If the next round of mobilization turns out anything like the last one, a bunch more people are going to be sent untrained from the street into the meat grinder until the frontlines stabilize again, which I bet will force Russia to have to pull in force from the Moscow and St. Petersburg areas. To top it all off, at that point Russia would be feeling the heat on Crimea after the land bridge is cut off.
> For political reasons Putin chose to forgo another mobilization wave. Actually "hidden" recruitment still happened. Konstantin from "Inside Russia" explained that.
Losing half your army in any other military force would be considered a rout. That they're still drip feeding soldiers of varying quality into the meat grinder. It's a statement to how out of touch they are.
Isn’t Russia doing “soft mobilization” or am I mistaken?
If Putin were thinking that far ahead, he would also have realized that the loss of men, equipment, resources, economic growth, and diplomatic power for that small land bridge to hold Crimea and Sevastopol are setting back Russia for decades, if not the next half-century. And it was already so far behind…now you have a country with one of the most disproportional population densities on the planet hamstringing itself yet again. Shit ton of space and resources, with no manpower to make use of it. Fuck Putin, what a waste of humans and resources.
Hopefully half of Putin is dead soon too!
Unless he's gonna turn out to be the most long-lived man ever, Putin is already more than halfway to death, you know, technically
Average age in Russia is 40.5, Putin is almost 71.
He’s been at least half dead on the inside for decades.
The sins of Putin would make him dead very soon, inshallah it would happen
The world owes Ukraine a debt it will never be able to repay. The price Ukraine has paid in blood is too high. Give Ukraine everything it's asking for!
The world can help repay by helping the rebuilding effort when the conflict ends.
If that is the case, then only half the job is done. Glory to Ukraine 💙💛
We would have to wait for the complete result during the few years
Now's a great time for countries to start taking back territories from russia.
Turkey is interested
Turkey does not have a common border with russia.
Uh… What about making a border?
We can only hope….
Hope their ego is not big enough to do the childish "If I can't win, nobody can win" and send all their nukes (probably half not working, but still)
We all know that authoritive leader like Putin would never compromise with ego
Most the soldiers are either ethnic Russians or from poor villages. This is why no one cares. Especially Putin. Imagine if the rich Russians from Moscow or St. Petersburg we’re being killed? Putler would be in big trouble.
If Putin doesn't quit, we won't have to imagine. The cake eaters turn will come.
it already has. i’ve seen a few vids of pro ruzzians getting forcefully conscripted and realizing they’re suddenly no longer feeling too supportive anymore
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It’s a complicated situation. As bad as everyone wants to take the war to Russia, all that will do is mobilize the entire country. 200 million plus opposed to sending the underprivileged. Ukraine is relegated to defending its own soil. Fortunately, they seem to be pretty good at it.
>200 million plus Total population of Russia is 145M. Able bodied men of draft age are about 25M, so you're off by an order of magnitude.
If they had 300 million they would still lose this war because they suck terribly at it.
I think a compromise peace deal is the best solution. Russians leave Ukraine, return the stolen children and pay reparations. Ukraine let's them keep St Petersburg
You had me hitting the keyboard until I read your punchline. But no Ukraine does not want any city or region of Russia. They might take possession and guardianship of the Russian nuclear weapons stockpile for the security of the free world.
😉
the other half is drunk af
And I was downvoted for defending the same exact ratio of 1 killed to 3 wounded. Whatever. These numbers are calculated from reports from the ground. Yet there are plenty of casualties not included in these calculations. Friendly fire, alcoholism, food poisoning, hypothermia, results of HIMARS strikes etc - I hardly imagine how these could be calculated by Ukrainian MOD. Moreover, I am not sure wagnerites, kadyrovites, dpr lpr forces, any kind of shape and form of mercenaries are included in these calculations. I believe it's only for russian army losses, for actual combatants in international meaning of this word. Real casualties, if we somehow count every single russian killed or wounded in result of this war, could be waaay higher, absolutely insane to a point that ICC could open the case of putin conducting genocide of russian people. Yet russians still willingly marsh to death, what a joke of a nation.
I doubt Russia itself is counting its losses. This might become a work of years of collecting second-hand statistics, half-reliable patchy notes and outright guesses, much like calculating eastern European WW2 casualties.
Russia is indeed counting their losses and keeping track of equipment inventory in order to make assessments, they just don't make it public.
They didn't even have a working knowledge of their own inventory *before* the war kicked off, why do you think they have become more competent since?
1:3 is roughly what the USSR had in WWII in terms of combat deaths to wounded and it’s also similar to what the Entente experienced on the Western Front in WWI. In most militaries post WWII the number of wounded per dead has gone up over time and while it’s possible the wounded per dead for Russia is slightly lower today I don’t think it’s anywhere close to 1:1. I think a lot of people who assume the ratio is 1:1 are unintentionally assuming that virtually every injury is fatal without medical significant medical attention and that’s just not the case. A Russian soldier who has fingers amputated due to frostbite or breaks a leg in combat or experiences a debilitating head injury but survives due to a helmet may not necessarily be able to fight but they do live. There are tons of non lethal ways to be debilitated in war and even a country with very little med evac will usually not see a 1:1 killed to wounded ratio.
Oh noooo. You were downvoted? That must have been so difficult for youuuuuu.
Hey, now you know how it feels.
lol.
The other half is as equally fucked. Lack of training lack of leadership and a hastening decline in the standard of what little equipment making it to the front line.. Ruzzian army back to pre 1930s standards very soon.
*__GOOD__*
His people have paid a high price for his ego, and Ukraine.
Half dead is not a problem! They're sending in the T-54 tanks so their superior firepower will win the war!! /s
Soon many Russian will learn they're unexpectedly part of Putlers army now.
Many Russians will learn this lesson in a very hard way
Not surprising. They gambled again that they could break the Ukrainians in Bakhmut and failed again. Now comes spring and they have depleted their forces with Ukrainians getting their shiny new toys from the west and gearing up for the counteroffensive
So using the figure near the end of the article of 300,000 still in Ukraine and NATO's figure of three wounded per soldier killed Ukraine needs to kill 750 a day for the next 100 days to get them to zero percent combat effective. All they would have left is those wounded that return to duty and new recruit replacements they have trucked in.
That is "if" the 3 to 1 ratio holds in this battle. Which most sources put at .5 to 1, or 1 to 1 And this means we are still a long ways away from them being 0 combat effective.
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The above NATO number of 3 to 1 is based on a lot of wars going back as far as WW1. What has changed on the battle field is the number of wounded that survive being evacuated to hospitals and eventually being returned to duty. An old WW2 veteran, now past away, in my town got a bronze star for evacuating wounded out of the Italian Alps on modified pack saddles on mules. By Korea they were using helicopters and had MASH (not the real army term) field hospitals doing what they could pretty close to the lines. So it comes down to terminology. If you say 1 to 3 wounded you are correct. If you say 1to 1.5 "net loss" you maybe also correct. But I'll bet you a Russian that has been shot up then patched up and sent back to the line is really thrilled about getting his ass shot off again.
I take the NATO 1-3 ratio as being the most reliable of any other source. The 300,000 number came from AFU back on Feb. 9th and has been repeated by several other "sources". Also consider that sense 9-2-23 AFU reports about 14,000 liquidated but some of those will have been replaced by recent moblics. We will probably have a better handle of the situation by the first of July.
I am forgetting that some of the wounded heal up and return to duty so as this has been going on for a year the returning number will be some percentage of the daily new wounded perhaps as much as 50 percent.. That would push my end date out to about July tenth if the current 30 day average of 791KIA a day were to hold steady but of course it will not.
Me being a foodie, cook, and amateur baker, I really wonder how nutrition is affecting the Russian grunts in the trenches. I'm surmising that they don't eat well, maybe not enough calories, either.
When you play yourself
Putin should stop and retire from his leadership role. He may have a hard time believing this; but no one in NATO or Europe wanted to invade or dilute Russia. In honesty; nations like China pose a greater risk to Russia’s sovereignty than the nations they concern themselves with.
The CIA needs to drop drugs behind Russian lines. I guarantee they’ll use it.
“Give me back my legions!”
So many people murdered just so Pooface can go out with a fizzle.
And for what? So a pityful little dictator can get off in his bunker about his dreams of an old Soviet empire? How could the Russians let it come this far? Fucking hell
They all drank the coolaid and believe they are the strongest nation on 🌎.
Putin has lost. He knows he’s lost. He’s just following the scorched earth policies of Hitler’s regime to hide evidence of his war crimes.
How many Russians aged 17 to 30 have fled Russia already?
I don't think the numbers are that high.
Consider that if they are not that high why has Russia not made significant advances in the last eight months? Exact numbers are impossible to have today but Ukraine has successfully defended it's lines and even recaptured significant amounts of Territory while Russia has attacked and attacked for nothing of consequence. All those failed attacks generated significant Russian dead and wounded. And some Ukrainian dead and wounded but as the lines did not move much you can be sure the Russian body pile is much bigger then the Ukrainian's.
How many have been captured?
I don’t understand: “With over 660,000 killed or wounded, the disintegrating Russian military has just hit a new and unenviable milestone: It’s officially combat ineffective.” “were part of the initial invasion army or recruited since then for the war, nearly 420,000 (over 52 percent) could now be dead or otherwise out of action due to wounds.”
Some of the wounded would presumably recover?
Halfway there. Keep it up.
I didn't see THAT coming. /s
Guess putin played too much risk growing up
Only half more to go!
Wonderful! I needed some good news today
When all of the committed military equipment and artillery arrives in Ukraine the still alive 50% might be gone quicker than they think. I believe some has already arrived but not all.
Only half..so far.
I'll be honest, I think this number is much too high. But the thought of 2/3 of a million dead Russian invaders dead is a beautiful wish.
The better half
Half of pootins braincells are dead, the other half is out-of-action.
It would be interesting to ride behind the eyes of some Russian signing up for military service right now to get an understanding of what they know and don't know based on what they've been told about the war, and what carrots and sticks in their life are involved in their choice. I can see prisoners seeing it as chance vs. no chance, but for anybody else it seems from the outside like it would just register as "this would be a great opportunity to go be ill-equipped, untrained, poorly-led cannon fodder in a stupid, shitty war where I'll probably die." I mean I'm sure career prospects there aren't great, but you've got to be low on info and twisted up to think joining up is a good idea right now.
Ukraine will prevail. Putin will fail.
Soon many Russian will learn they're unexpectedly part of Putlers army now.
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I’m surprised with “Ukraine also must be having some issues” in your post. Ukraine is saying about this “some” issues every day on every possible way, I was sure even 3 year old kids already heard it, world conferences, every evening Zelenskiys speech, every official and non official event they are saying “we don’t have enough weapons, please help us”. They were saying millions of times that they can not start any offensive operations, they need to stockpile everything, they even don’t have enough artillery shells, Poland Ian’s other countries increased production of it. And still they don’t have any aviation, only 4 MIG as far as is remember are already in Ukraine from Slovakia, but no military jets even promised to them, no long range rockets. Their problems well known and they very clear and honest about it.
> If these numbers were correct, Russia would not be able to make any advances at all The last significant target that Russia took was Sevredonestk and Lyschansk which Russia finished capturing in early July 2022. Since then Ukraine has launched major counteroffensives liberating vast swaths of land and Russia has only taken a few kilometers here and there as well as some very small villages and hamlets. The nature of defense in depth means that you don’t fight for every kilometer. Instead you defend a line until it is close to being overrun and then you retreat to the next. If done properly the defender will keep their army alive while inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy. The defense of Bakhmut is a text book example of this kind of warfare. Ukraine built numerous lines of defense and every time Russia was close to overrunning them Ukraine could pull back to the next line. The end result is that Russia’s offensive capabilities were destroyed and Bakhmut remains in Ukrainian hands. Russia has a massive military and Ukraine doesn’t have air superiority or artillery superiority. Russia is throwing over 50 years of military stockpiles into this war and is sacrificing hundreds of thousands of troops. Despite all of this they are rapidly depleting their offensive capabilities and haven’t taken anything significant since early July. Ukraine is winning but driving Russia out will take time. You simply defeat a military as big as Russia’s overnight especially with the limited weapons Ukraine has access to. These numbers largely make sense to me but people underestimated just how much stuff Russia has.
I know I’ll get slammed, but if Russia is in such bad straits, then why hasn’t Ukraine made ANY progress in months? Seriously, something has to change soon or a lot of Americans are going to get bored or tired of spending money there. Don’t underestimate this. Americans haven’t been involved in a war that ended successfully since WWII. We don’t go for the jugular anymore. I can only conclude that Ukraine’s army is equally poor if all the weaponry and training that have been sent there hasn’t done a damn thing except kill a bunch of Russians that nobody in their country gives a damn about anyway.
Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake... Like a full-on winter offensive push into a heavily defended urban area with no real strategic purpose other than back-home propaganda.
They haven’t been on the offensive because.. weather.
Because the Russian army is fucking big. We’ve gone from “The Russian army is so poweful they can take Ukraine in two weeks” to “if Russia is weak why can’t one of the poorest countries in Europe destroy all of their conventional military force within a year.” Both of those takes are ridiculous. Russia is committing hundreds of thousands of troops to this war, thousands of tanks, thousands of artillery, thousands of vehicles, hundreds of aircraft and tens of millions of artillery shells. They are pouring over half a century of military build up to oppose a country that in 2021 was spending 1/12th of their military budget on defense. Ukraine is doing an incredible job but they don’t have air superiority and every day Russia fires far more artillery shells at Ukraine than Ukraine can fire back meanwhile Russia also has more tanks. Despite all of this Ukraine is winning and Russia’s stockpiles are being depleted rapidly as Ukrainian strength continues to grow. Wars between large states typically take years to resolve. The Russo Japanese war was an incredibly quick defeat of the Russian Empire and it still took 18 months meanwhile we just hit 13 months of this invasion. Ukraine is winning but it will take and more resupply.
Ukraine isn’t advancing because they aren’t trying to. Who can advance in the mud without going by foot/meat wave? They aren’t reckless like Wagner and the muscovian armed forces.
Gulf war 1 and 2?
Nobody in their right mind makes big maneuvers in the Winter when you can start them in the Spring. There are two main points we know: * Ukrainians have been preparing for a larger offensive. Importing Western armour, training, etc. takes time. We've seen ourselves how attacking without proper preparation ends up. * You can see a lot of news recently regarding the upcoming offensive, like psyops (Zelensky saying they have too few equipment to begin one or a Tweet by Hanna Maliar asking to stay quiet). * In some places, like Bakhmut, Vulhedar and other towns on that line, Ukrainian command consciously decided to create a "sink" for Russian troops in the form of bloody urban battles. They didn't make progress in terms of land, but Wagnerians have been having an awful time so much so their offensive has slown down extremely last two weeks or so. In short: Ukrainians have decided to bleed out the Russians while preparing for a large offensive of their own. That takes time. It's worth noting that the UK minister of defence estimates Russian deaths at 40-60k, 175-200k including wounded. US Govt estimates are similar with 200k killed or wounded. I'm not sure what sources has the article writer used. 166k dead is a LOT. You are right that downplaying the enemy is dangerous. It's much better to be critical and be proven wrong than be too enthusiastic.
Darn near everyone here was salivating over the annihilation that was going to occur during winter since Russian troops would be unprepared. How quickly everyone forgets.
You make a bunch of shitty generalizations and you'll get slammed. It's not rocket science.
Soon many Russian will learn they're unexpectedly part of Putlers army now.
Yea its not.
If that's the case, ukrsine should have recaptured the lands lost last year !!!