Ukraine’s Top Military Leadership: We Are Starting to Win, Russia Is Starting to Lose
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Well the Ukrainians are at least trying to train their troops while Russia has been caught shoving raw recruits into the front line after literally no training. Those reports are obviously magnified by each side's information ops but we do know the Russians have a survivability problem. The two biggest things you learn in basic are what to do when someone starts shooting, and how to hit things with your rifle. Everything else is extra that's meant to make you able to use specialized equipment. The real learning environment has always been combat itself. And in this arena the Ukrainians are absolutely dominant.
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"Capable" in this context doesn't just refer to training alone.
As laid out in the video, Russian recruits are getting older and older (as in: have sometimes even fought in Soviet era conflicts) and recruitment standards are dropped more and more (apparently having Schizophrenia is OK for a Russian soldier) to keep a steady influx of warm bodies. Next, Russian recruits appear to be broadly separated into two groups: The meat shields who are rushed to the front with minimal training to plug the biggest holes in the units (stark examples include only multiple days between reported recruitment and death). The second group is going through a more traditional training regiment but also shortened. This shortening also applies to officer candidates.
In short: Recruits are getting less physically capable due to the average age increasing drastically over time, and militarily less capable due to shortened or basically nonexistent training.
As for the Ukrainians: I expect the video with analysis on their casualties and recruitment to drop this week.
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To add to this, Putin can recruit from the poorest regions for a while, but at some point he needs to get men from the larger cities. The last thing he wants is protests from Moskou etc. The average person from Moskou hadn't had that much negative effects from the war yet. But if you, your son or father is forced to the battlefield it's a different story.
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But... war never changes!
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Very credible
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I just tag them. For example the guy a few threads above arguing that the conflict is too far from the USA and they shouldn't involve themselves is tagged "stalin apologist".
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This is true to an extent. But in 1862 the US didn't have to worry about an invasion from Canada. If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai. Also ISIS is going to start infiltrating from Central Asia, again. Russia has real security concerns on it's borders that require a real military presence. They could not easily strip their border guard (a national paramilitary police that's commonly included in their military headcount) or border military units. They also cannot strip the major metro areas of their paramilitary units, such as the elite units guarding Moscow. Otherwise the next Prigozhin could succeed.
He already stripped what he could from the Far East at the start of the war so now he's largely left with units on NATO borders that haven't been called in yet. As much as it sucks, we all know NATO isn't going to attack Russia. And in fact this is where most of the reinforcing units are coming from for things like the Kursk Salient.
The next issue is battlefield saturation. In the American Civil War how many troops you could field was largely limited by control of water ways and rail lines. With modern vehicles and supply chains the limit is reached differently these days. Basically there's a point at which if you add another division to a line it starts to be detrimental instead of helpful. They will actually get into each other's way. This has remained largely unchanged since World War 2. And in fact the number of troops Russia has in Ukraine is reminiscent of World War 2, In June they reported they have 700,000 troops in Ukraine. This is likely the maximum amount of pressure they can put in the area.
So as long as Ukraine can deal with that number of troops efficiently, they could theoretically fight forever.
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I'm sorry but it's far more important to make sure the Russians don't get that ammo resupply. Combat sucks.
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As much as that made me laugh it's not true. I wish it was though.
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I hope you're right. Because in general the reaction of the Russian population to the war has been so meek, I'm starting to doubt it would be any different once recruitment starts hitting the biggest cities.
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If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai.
Are there any real pretensions on the territory on China's part? It sounds like it would just cause more problems than it's worth (though it's not like that fact prevented Putin from attacking Ukraine), and possibly kill off BRICS.
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You need a small automatized AD machine gun or similar for every group of soldiers. Can be done, but requirea a huge amount of those anti-drone guns. Basically the amount of soldiers on the front, divided by ten or so.
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Heroiam slava
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NATO has already been on Russia's borders - the Baltics and Poland were already NATO members that bordered Russia.
I think the invasion of Ukraine was indeed a conquest for land. John McCain over 10 years ago predicted that Putin wanted to grab a "land bridge" between mainland Russia and Crimea:
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What's dim is refusing to recognise that this war was started by Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, then increased their invasion in 2022. Ukraine asked the West for military help so the West provided military help.
Maybe Ukraine should have been allowed to join NATO years ago when they asked, and then they might not have been invaded.
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The Russia was able to barely retain the size of its forces when its losses were 800 to 1200 per day. Now they are 1300 to 1900 per day, and its ability to recruit new troops has not risen and it seems it may have even decreased.
That means, the size of the Russian armed forces is decreasing by 500 to 700 soldiers each day! In a year that makes 180 000 to 255 000 soldiers per year.
When their army shrinks in size with about 200 000 soldiers per year, they're going to have plenty of "fun" trying to defend all of their front. -
It's so meek because of the political stance of "I am not political" that permeats the whole society.
Its main idea is that "I make actively sure to not see or hear what is happening around me, and in return I can live my life reasonably carefree."
That's an unspoken contract between the junta leading the country and its populace. If one side breaks the contract, it's null and void.The funny thing is, the people have not noticed that the contract has been broken, because they are actively avoiding noticing anything that has to do with society!
And the word "actively" is of great significance. Because it's not passivity, it's a stance held up actively by each individual. The situation of the Russia is all the time deeper and deeper "in your face", and eventually it'll be so deep that there's nothing the individual can do to avoid noticing it.
And then they become active in... Well, some other manner.
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It's good to remember that a small subset of Ukrainian commanders do see soldiers as mere cannon fodder. Mere 11 years ago, the Ukrainian military was run almost precisely the same way as the Russian one. And many commanders are from before 2014. Many of them have converted to the new ways since 2014, but some haven't. That's a problem that severely hampers Ukraine's recruitment capacity. Still, Ukrainians are a nation that will flex when it needs to. If the Russia starts advancing faster than the 0.7 % of Ukraine's total area in year like they did in 2024, people get more afraid of what is going on and get motivated to join the armed forces.
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If their losses climb back to 1800 per day, meaning 700-ish dead per day, and their population is about 140 000 000, that makes a nice round number of 200 000 days. Or 547 years. However, because the Russia's population is decreasing for reasons anyway, the real number is more like 100-ish years.
BTW, Ukraine has lost on average 64 soldiers per day as dead during these three years. Counting with 40 000 000 inhabitants, that means the last Ukrainian will die on the front in 625 000 days from now. Or 1712 years.
Reading these numbers, keep in mind that they are about dead soldiers, not about losses in manpower. Most of manpower losses come in the form of severe inrecoverable wounds. For Ukraine it's 1:4 or 1:5, so per one dead you have four to five crippled, and for the Russia it's 1:2,5. The Russia has less wounded because so many of their wounded become dead some hours after being wounded. So, the manpower losses are higher in Ukraine, but most of the lost Ukrainian soldiers return to their families, while a huge share of the lost Russian soldiers turn into soil.
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USA has also quite sternly asked Europe to not become a superpower. Their offer has been "we'll handle this superpower stuff on your behalf, you guys keep to yourself."
It's been an agreement between USA and Europe that Europe will not start competing of power with USA. We have more population and a bigger economy than USA, so I'd guess that now that the agreement has ended, we'll have to become what we would already have been for decades if we hadn't been asked not to.
