Ukraine’s Top Military Leadership: We Are Starting to Win, Russia Is Starting to Lose
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If it's a year later, then it is.
The Russia won't be able to recruit soldiers after its economy collapses. They are in for salary and death compensation that is defined in Rubles. Once the Ruble compensation loses its value, relatives get less motivated for letting their sons go to the front. And when the 2000$ salary becones a 100 $ salary, nobody goes to war for that money.Without soldiers the front cannot be kept.
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His point, I think, is the line of whataboutist thinking that got the conversation to this point, from the OP.
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I actually really don't care about Gaza.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support what they're doing over there.... But.... It's a bunch of religious people fighting over what they think is holy land... When holy Land is in contention they're always killing each other over it...
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Fair point.
Go Ukraine!
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As a person who lives in a place, I would be hard pressed to ever be unwilling to defend the place where I live. I can't even imagine giving up the fight so a foreign government can occupy the land I call home.
I would be surprised if Ukrainians would ever get tired of defending their home land.
I can, however, see Russians being unwilling to sign up to invade a country that clearly doesn't want them there.
All I'm trying to say is: I agree.
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Wow, what an incredible take with zero supporting information, either information I've seen published, ever, or information provided by you, the poster.
Thanks for this, DrDickHandler, it's really helping this conversation evolve into something better!
(/s for anyone too tired to see it)
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Right they should have peacefully be annexed to Soviet Union 2.0
I guess you would have gone with that
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I seriously considered it, but they specifically said they don't need buffoons.
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No, the bombs will once it's army is destroyed, and any attempts to rebuild are routed.
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Half a million Russian families had to get used to it already.
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I'm not aware of any major predictions he's gotten wrong. As near as I can tell, he's very focused on ex-post analysis.
Ukraine is still in the fight but it's clearly loosing. Ukraine is still rich in subjective resources like "spirit" and "determination". When it comes to hard metrics the picture is pretty bleak; casualties, ground gained, artillery production, depth of reserves...
The "we" wasn't a quote by Colonel Reisener. I did put it in quotation marks but I thought it would be clear from the vocabulary that I was paraphrasing him. I'm sure you already know that Austria is constitutionally obligated to remain neutral. While Austria is barred from providing military assistance it has participated in sanctions and provided humanitarian assistance. That's earned Austria a spot on Russia's official Unfriendly Countries List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfriendly_countries_list
I try to keep a more complete set of facts in mind when assessing the reliability of sources.
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Why do you think Russian security interests override the security interests of the countries neighboring Russia?
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Depends if you believe the ghost of Kiev and 'fighting with shovels side'.
Both sides are a tragedy.
Unfortunately for Russia it's a matter of survival.
The ukros could've just been OK with staying what they had after the coup and not terrorise and take the east that didn't want anything to do with them. -
Since when is mandatory conscription "kidnapping"?
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O my sweet summer child
You have a lot of imagination. -
Do better. It’s a very powerful country backed by the US who is invading many countries while committing numerous war crimes including genocide and ethnic cleansing. If you don’t care about Gaza don’t pretend to care about human rights and the rule of law.
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That was wrong too. Before my time though.
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It's roughly 1 death for 3-4 injured and out of combat
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In casualties as in military losses Ukraine is doing quite badly: Ukraine has lost some 300 000 as dead and wounded, while the Russia has lost around 800 000 as dead and wounded. The population difference is 1:3½, and the difference in total military losses is 1:2½. That means, Ukraine is losing a slightly larger share of its population as military casualties than the Russia is.
However... Neither side is going to run out of population anytime soon. Ukrainian soldiers go to the front, eventually maybe get wounded and return home one leg poorer. Their children will not have to live with their father, only without an organic right leg of the father. And for the Russian side, the deaths are a much bigger proportion of the population. There the ratio is around 1:4½, and that one favours Ukraine.
If a person is measuring ground gained in this war, he does not understand the war very much at all. Neither side is trying to gain ground. Both sides are trying to incur as much losses to the enemy as possible. The Russia because they need to keep the gore to the maximum in order to convince the west to stop supporting Ukraine, and Ukraine, because if the Russia's losses drop under 1000 per month, they will be able to start training their soldiers, which will make a huge difference in their dangerousness.
The Russia knows very well that it will never take over Ukraine with the current speed of advancing. Remember, in year 2024 the Russia was gaining ground faster than expected. And in year 2024 they managed to gain 0.7 % of Ukraine's total territory. Less, if you take the Kursk province's happenings into account. 0.7 % is strategically meaninglessly little.Artillery shell production is currently about twice as high in the Russia as it's in the west. But when you take into account that to hit a specific target, the very inaccurate Russian artillery needs to shoot about ten times as many rounds as western artillery, the numbers start looking different: For military use, you either should divide the Russia's artillery shell numbers by ten, or alternatively multiply ours by ten. Depth of reserves... Well, here we come back to casualties and motivations.
- As said, the population ratio is 1:3½.
- The total military casualty ratio is 1:2½, favouring the Russia.
- The military death ratio is 1:4½, favouring Ukraine.
Russian soldiers are in it for the money. The Russia will have useful amounts of money to give to the soldiers for another six to fifteen months, about. After that the motive is gone. Typically, it is easier for the defending party to find soldiers for a war than it is for the aggressor. This is the case in this war as well. This means, when interpreting the casualty ratios, you need to add a multiplier for taking into account that the defender can tap into a larger share of the population than the aggressor can.
Remember, Ukrainians are sending to the front less than a fifth of what they could, if we compare with Finland. Finland has a population of 5,6 million and we have about one million soldiers ready to serve within some months of the begin of a hypothetical war. Each one of them has received a top-class military training and each one has a specific place in a specific unit in the army should a war break. Ukraine has about the same size army as that, even though they have over 40 million people.
The unwillingness to join the front is a surprising feature, at least from a Finnish perspective, but also a result of a lack of motivation. If the scales were to tip in the favour of the Russia, Ukrainians would get scared and more would be ready to help their country. When looking at the very large difficulties Ukraine has with conscription, you need to take this into account. The problem is of a type that solves itself. It's extremely unfair towards the soldiers at the front that they never get relieved. And idiotic that people don't want to join the army because soldiers never get relieved from the front ... because there are not enough people ready to go to the front.
And, from my experience living in Ukraine, I would say that this won't change. They will remain understaffed as long as the war will go on, but always precisely at the limit where they can still keep scraping on.Ukraine's army won't be disappearing anytime soon, the west is effortlessly able to pay all of Ukraine's budget indefinitely if it so wishes and the Russia is not able to gain any ground. The Russia's goals are to cause Ukraine to collapse economically or its army to collapse from lack of manpower, and neither of those can happen.
At the same time, the Russian economy, and therefore military, have at max one year time left. After that they will have nothing to use for stopping Ukraine from reclaiming its territories. -
For the Russia it's about 1:2½, and getting worse, for Ukraine it is currently around 1:4 or 1:5.
