Ukraine’s Top Military Leadership: We Are Starting to Win, Russia Is Starting to Lose
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*facet, lol, but I wouldn't put it past him!
Let that dink in!
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First, Rubio is parroting a wildly accepted fact. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/05/16/7455980/
They've run out of youthful soliders and are drafting older men now.
Second, I'd imagine the pace of losses would accelerate once Ukraine started drafting the elderly and children, but it won't come to that. Also a lot of Ukrainians have already left to dodge the draft.
Lastly, why are we even piddling about troop numbers? They seem insignificant given the larger problems Ukraine is facing. Let's circle back to my original points.
The main, possibly only, glimmer of hope in the article was "assets in and outside Russia had strong evidence that Russian arms production during 2025 has flatlined and is likely to contract, because of parts and labor shortages," and Russia is drafting 100,000 fewer men than last year. That seems well short of "starting to win," unfortunately. Ukraine also appears to be losing 1/3 of their military support if what Zelensky said in the article is true.
Russia is fighting a war of choice but is continuing on with callous disregard for it's own troops. Their arms production is slowing down but so are their drafting efforts. North Korea is providing artillary shells and rockets. Ukraine is losing 1/3 of its military support and its army is aging. Unless they figure out how to fight in a new way that restores their ability to maneuver, then all they can hope for is a negotiated settlement.
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Not true. Ukraine is the one with the manpower shortage.
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And I am, I'm just equally anti Russia.
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True, but air defense is also critical. If Russia gets total air supremacy that changes a lot.
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Finland has 5,6 million inhabitants and a wartime military strength of almost one million men, when the military trained reserve is counted in the number. Of course that would mean a huge deficit in workforce, and that would be devastating for the economy. But there are that many men ready to serve if needed. Each one has a specific position earmarked for them in case that a war erupts.
Ukraine has some 40 million inhabitants, so it will be able to gather an army of at least five million men if its population finds motivation for that.
It is quite surprising that they are able to be this uninterested in defending their country after all this time in war, but in the other hand: Until 2014 Ukraine's military was extremely similar to what Belarus's still is now in 2025. You could die in the army through being beaten up for fun by your own superiors. And because many military commanders have received their training before 2014, a noteworthy share of them still have very little respect for the individual soldier. The fear that you could end up serving under such a commander is an important factor, of course.But also: Whatever the reasons for the comparatively low motivation for self-defence, if the Russia was to begin seriously advancing, that motivation would rise. It's a problem that kind of solves itself. If it starts having serious consequences, the Russia will increase its pace. If the pace is increased too much, Ukrainians will start bothering to defend their country in larger masses than they now do. And then the size of the army will be recovered more and more, until the Russian advance will be halted. It's a self-correcting problem.
Ukraine's losses are proportionally smaller than those of the Russia, and the defending party in a war is able to muster soldiers more easily (or rather: less difficultly) than the aggressor.
Even if the size of Ukraine's army would shrink because of recruitment problems, it feels quite unrealistic to assume that it would shrink as fast as that of the Russia.It's super unfair towards the soldiers at the front that they need to serve year after year without being relieved. But the Ukrainian military is not in a danger of collapsing because of this.
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i have a script that runs in the background while i browse lemmy that automatically downvotes any post from a known tankie or tankie instance that appears on my screen, and upvotes literally everything else ahead of them.
it broke a while ago though. i should fix it
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I like how this reminds me of picking in stellaris between genocide and biological assimilation.
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Kharkiv and Kursk come to mind.
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Kharkiv? That was in 2022, wasn't it? And the incursion into the Kursk province has been a better success than expected. What had you thought it would result with? It became the most important part of the front.for Ukraine. I'd say it is a great success, but how is it a counterattack? And how does that show that something big was promised but failed? What had been promised, to your knowledge?
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I never said Ukraine would collapse, but they're not winning for the reasons I already mentioned
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The economy, while struggling, is far from collapsing and popular support is almost a non issue. Russia is not drafting. Without a draft, most soldiers joining do so voluntarily, so there is not as much resistance. They have to pay a lot of money to make people sign up to go fight a war and the extra competition for labor (army vs factories) is increasing wages in many categories. The ones most unhappy about the situation are the oligarchs who have to pay for all of it. So unfortunately, betting on Russia somehow collapsing anytime soon is probably a loosing bet.
The more likely bottleneck for Russia is equipment and volunteers for the Army. Their Soviets stockpiles are starting to run low. And, if Russia runs out of people willing to sign up for money, they may be forced to either end to war or start drafting with all the issues that brings.
I base this mostly on Perun YT channel, that has many videos doing in depth analysis of various aspects of the war.
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Russia has been slowly gaining territory back in Kursk.
In June 2024, Ukrainian forces began small-scale counterattacks in the Kharkiv region and recaptured a settlement. -
Ukraine is taking horrendous losses that we should be more concerned about. Stay focussed on Ukraine succeeding, not just Russia failing
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At a minimum we can say that Russia has transitioned pretty well into a war economy. It is an economic transition that is going very nice for the working class. For a long time OSINT has shown nearly depleted reserves of equipment, but they have gone very light infantry. I think it is concerning they might eek out a pyrrhic victory. It is hard to say how much longer they can stretch what is left.
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I'm talking about reality, better get used to it
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hahahaaaaaaa still ibelieve your fantasy news?
Any day now! -
defend US interests?
The kidnapping videos say enough about what ukranians want. -
oh yes the sanctions will force Russia to surrender.
Any day now!
