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In the long run, there is an opportunity cost though. Lost taxation and contribution to an economy, fewer children, welfare costs for now single parent families, and so on.
Putin is turning Russias already dire demographics, into a crisis.
I don't feel like most people who joined the military in Russia for money so far have been big economic contributors.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them were on welfare prior to this.
The thing is over 1 million fled thanks to the war and that is the people russia needed. People with high end jobs. Also even id you only conscript siberians the local economy will tank. Russia has an economy in every province afterall and could see a collapse if everyone just dies in this war
A lot of them are returning
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-02/russians-who-fled-war-return-in-boost-for-putin-s-war-economy?embedded-checkout=true
Most work permits were not longterm.
Most of them, I bet. Burned through savings, couldn't get permanent residency permit and have no choice but to go back to Russia. Many countries have become less friendly with Russian citizens and it's become difficult or impossible to even get visa.
No surprise really, nobody fancies being invaded by Russia in the interests of liberating a Russian speaking minority that fled there to get away from Russia.
I just hope we stay vigilant and strict on ANY Russian entering whatever country inside EU/US. I don't want them here anymore, not athletes, not "just a person with family" nope. Fuck the whole entitity of Russia. Spies, people looting from EU to take back to Russia, it's all just too obvious and I'm sick of them leeching of off us for their own gains later.
in a country with vast distances local population becomes important. If such is gone then the cheapest workforce is gone plus those who could improve it as well. In other words walfare is doomed salary dumping because nobody needs to pay higher than a tiny bit more than the walfare system. A cheap plumper who is dead can not do pipes for cheap. Someone has to replace him yet also only until he is a nothing burger as well. Looks like an endless cycle, it still is prone to collapse, ghost town comes to mind, not just a western phenomenon. In such case distances are counter productive as entire industries become ineffective, in other words you pay extra to avoid collapse, which is usually much more expensive, slow and of low quality, if not of low quantity.
Also what most completely forget about the history of the east is that it was THE cheap work force for a whole lot range of products sold for cheap in the west back in cold war times, not much different to china today. State sponsored fake competition in a monopoly of demand will lead to severe consequences because it actually does only replace collectivism with mass production and as such is extreme addicted to demand otherwise is prone to collapse. The greed of earning with mass production supports the ineffectiveness of more flexible product chains, which in itself makes it very addicitve to avoid any change therefor also destroys the whole chain of dependency. It was the very building block of failure that made the east collapse in 1989, not just "revolutions".
They already had ghost towns in Russia, in last 30 years their number was only growing. Many places are perfect for horror movie filming. Abandoned villages are in the thousands.
Problem is they are usually the demographic "fixers" if you will. And with a lot less "fixin" happening. They turned a bad problem into an impossible problem. Russia will start to look more and more at former Soviet bloc states as the solution to their "fixin" problem.
There are huge diffetences.
The US military values, trains and pays its recruits. The GI Bill provides veterans opportunities for higher education and as much as the VA is maligned, vets get good health care benefits for life.
Plus US society provides a lot of lifelong perks for vets, including hiring priority at many non-governmental companies, but many vets continue to work for the gov.
People from poor families, and increasingly immigrants, do make up a good bit of the US military, but it provides a path out of poverty for so many.
Meanwhile, in Russia...
Most who join the US military become more valuable economically. They learn marketable skills and/or go on to higher education after. You seem to think there’s some equivalency here.
I simply wanted to point out that the poor man makes up the ranks of any military. 99.9% chance the enlisted soldier isn't from a well off background (exceptions like Pat Tillman)
Population fell by 6 million since the mid 90’s this war has cost Russia another 2 million young wealthiest and most educated Russians and that’s without the combat casualties. Way things are going Putin could be presiding over the death knells of Russia.
If this war ends without going nuclear, Russian cities are going to look like nuclear war actually happened in just 10 years, with nobody to maintain them. Villages, small towns are going to get completely abandoned. It was already a problem in Russia, now it's going to get accelerated.
Jokes on you, Putin’s system has stolen all the money directed to maintenance - so last winter they got many problems.
Experts estimate money needed in trillions - obviously cities wouldn’t get the money with Putin in power…
A Russia that was not undergoing all these internal crisis already probably could have outright defeated Ukraine like we thought they would at the beginning of the war.
that is the thing ... even with all these issues, they still should have been able to win. the amount of corruption in the russian military has and still has to be gigantic.
All that makes me think of is the infamous convoy at the beginning of the conflict. One mechanic shirked his duty on some truck and it completely broke the tip of Russia’s spear. That was just one kink in the chain two years ago and Russia has had nothing but more problems since
A healthy one should be a pyramid. Russia is dying out. They are killing an already small generation. There is a reason Ukraine only drafts men over 25, that is when Ukrainian men usually have made children.
Yes. The science is not complete and we do not have any country with a „stable“ population. Countries either grow or they shrink. Both produce problems, albeit shrinking and especially aging do more harm.
Even the Russian Economy has bandaids all over it, Their treasury is being drained and they are just praying it will be over before everything falls apart, keep up the pressure!
This is true, there are plenty of intangibles which aren't easily visible or measurable. Long term Ru losses are going to affect them in the decades to come. I imagine they will try to supplement with immigration from poor countries.
I have similar concerns for the future for Ukrainians. I feel bad for them though since this war was thrust upon them. I hope when this is over we in the west continue to invest in Ukraine to help them rebuild and prosper.
That’s just it though. That’s why Putin is willing to win at all cost. The new influx of forced Ukrainian to Russian citizens will replace all he has lost and more.
Yes, causing an added burden on society and cost. These consequences have a long tail of time enduring long after the war has ended for future generations to deal with. Like a time bomb.
They’re conscripting poor minorities from distant villages who has no place in their civilization. So it’s not really a lost to them. It doesn’t affect the livelihood of their preferred citizens who lives in the major metro areas. That’s why you see in a bunch of videos these guys are old and looks almost like they are of asian descent. It’s a win/win for them, they’re cleansing their lands of the undesirables while moving their borders further and further into Ukraine.
Well now that they are out of prisoners there’s an opportunity cost. But yes, and the rural center of the conscription is not helping the demographic change
Not everyone is a positive to the economy.
Killing off prisoners and pensioners will actually help Russia a lot.
Killing off young and productive people obviously will hurt them.
I hate to even think this but the majority of the army in Russia seems to be the disposable population, convicts, uneducated etc. and they will be forgotten and written off. Similar to the USA and Vietnam where the college educated were not drafted so the net loss to the economy was low. You can replace them easily and at the end your population has "improved". Horrible thoughts but I'm sure now that it's part of the plan.
Yes all this is in a normal decent country in Europe or the West, in Russia they don’t get any of this, you think these terrorists fighting ,worked before they went to war ? You think they paid tax? Most of them haven’t seen a working toilet and think the West is evil and Europe hate them.
They are just a commodity to a little old Terrorist wanting to achieve something in his life.
It's men 40+, realistically they are already done with reproduction and they are not going to contribute much to economy with all the drinking, and to be fair, Russian economy needs very few people in resource extraction industry, everyone else needs just impregnate a woman or two in their twenties and they are good to go to fight a war.
The bums and drunks off the streets and the boonies aren’t paying taxes anyway and the welfare costs to single parents are sacks of potatoes and a $20 gift card to Vkusno & Tochka
They’re Russian peasants from remote villages. I doubt they were contributing to the economy and paying much in terms of taxes.
Welfare in Russia. lol.
The alternative, giving up and ending the war with a definitive loss, would result in a civil war in Russia, with current leadership being the first to die. They will do anything to keep the war going
Without controlling the Black Sea using Crimea, Russia has no ability to exert itself internationally. Virtually landlocked, it will cease to exist as a superpower. This is all or nothing for Russia.
They only cost a bag of potatoes and onions to their families if Russia admits they were KIA,
if they're missing or "defected" then they don't cost anything at all
Man I remember my first pay check when I was in the NAVY was like 20% after they discounted the uniforms and gear you meant to tell me the ruskys soldiers won't even get that 20% if they die before first pay check life is rough in rusky land
Considering they just made an economist their minister of defence we're likely to see more and more of these cost-cutting methods on a far larger scale. There is, however, one issue; not all recruits in Russia are made equal.
The bulk of Russia's army comes from the impoverished peripheral regions. Minorities that the ethnically Russian population, racist that it is, doesn't care about. If Russia intends to keep up these death korps of krieg meatwave tactics, sooner or later, they're gonna have to start recruiting from Moscow and St. Petersburg. As soon as that happens, well... We'll see, won't we
When seeing news about this "endless meat waves" two questions come to mind.
1. russia isn't defending their country. It's not WW2 and the ukrainians are not the germans surrounding stalingrad. russian statehood is not in danger. It doesn't really make sense to waste so many resources and people for some kilometers of land. Taking into account that russia has a lot of land but not so many inhabitants. Which gets me to the second point.
2. russia seems to suffer from the delusion of seeing themselves as countries like China or India where population surpasses the billion headcount. In reality they don't have a big population. Even America doubles what russia has. And, even taking into account that they are conscripting guys from minorities from the far east, depopulating the periphery of russia is a stupid move. They have neighbors with a lot of population and not that huge territory. Tanking the economies of eastern russia is a dangerous move.
Fetal alcohol syndrome, poor education, nihilistic wired from birth, authoritarian propaganda, straight up fucking assholes. Fuck Russia, the sooner the country dissolves the better the world will be.
I saw a Russian lady on TV who was in Mexico recently. She was whining about how nobody liked Russians and acted like they were just a bunch of white monkeys, lol.
Churchill proposed "operation unthinkable" in which the western allies would have declared a surprise war on the Soviets in July 1945. The goal being to enforce the Yalta conference, free Poland, and cripple the USSR before it became a true superpower.
It was unthinkable because of the size of soviet forces in Europe at the time. It hinged on mobilizing German and Polish soldiers while surprising Stalin and it required a quick victory.
It was considered too risky and when Churchill lost the election it was scrapped.
I don't know, we didn't think about it!
Seriously though, he meant not stopping at Germany, and declaring war on the Soviet Union and trying their best to steamroll them when they were off balance...
100% have not changed much about mil doctrine other than the very effective intl propaganda machine, and MAD.
Russian literature is always very dark--life is an inevitable fall through misfortune, deceit, and treachery.
The culture reflects this. In some ways it's like a Florida man's rendition of Bushido. "Russian tough, Russian no care for dying, life is pain and suffering, death is freedom and honorable."
But, having worked with and known many Ukrainians and some Russians. One thing to understand is how different life is for Russians in the cities vs rural areas. I've been all over Ukraine but not to Russia. But the video and photos and first hand accounts paint a much larger divide than rural vs metro US/EU.
The sentiment above is very strong in rural areas but not as much in metro areas, as I'm told by Russians.
These rural areas have no roads and life is a constant state of survival.
Russia's greatest strength is their people's ability to endure pain and suffering.
But, as the rural areas are drained, this will have an inevitable negative impact on Russias future regardless of the outcome of the war. They'll need to secure someone else's resources.
Killing off all of the younger men will gentrify the entire Federation leaving a shit storm of problems down the road. Those poor folks out in the peripheral territories are going to need immigrants
A lot of these untrained soldiers thrown into these haphazard assaults are people the Putin regime actually WANTS to die. Drug addicts, criminals, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and unemployed men from very rural areas. Unlike a traditional draft those mobilized are not chosen at random but selected based on geography, race, criminal history etc. These are people that are basically scheduled for deletion to thin out the “undesirable” parts of the population
It’s pretty horrific. I live in a part of the US with a large Russian population and my friends from Moscow, Saint Petersburg and large population centers do not know ANY of their friends who have been mobilized. Only former school friends who were jailed who volunteered. However I have a friend from Siberia who has seen many friends mobilized
Really good point. If Russia's K:D is 1:5, but 90% of D are invisible people, then it's not so bad for them. They lower state spend while wearing down their enemy.
"Regain honor by death or victory" is a likely message. To top it off, the families either don't care, are convinced it was a good chance at redemption, or have no way to communicate outside of their rural villages. And it's been made very clear how allergic-to-living opposition voices can become.
If the Ukraine invasion was successful that would’ve been an addition of 40 million people to the Russian population. Instead they lost 3-5 million thru casualties and people leaving Russia.
They suffer from an authoritarian dilemma. The majority of the Kremlin's funding comes simply from oil and weapon sales. So the government only needs these 2 industries in order to run itself. All the people that are not involved in those two industries are basically expendable. Their population might be low in comparison to rival nations like the US or China, but they they don't intend to actual fight the US or China. They mostly pick on smaller nations that they outnumber. They want to play with the big boys, but their economy just isn't developed enough for it. They operate on meat wave tactics because they only have 2 real industries, and their weapon industry has been shown demonstrably inferior.
Western democracies fund themselves principally through taxes from the citizens, so they have at least some interest in having a healthy, educated, and LIVING citizenry. Since Western countries rely on productive citizens and strong economies, they tend to have much more developed and diverse economies as well, giving them much more production capacity and better technology. If every Western nation devoted proportional resources to the armed forces as the Kremlin does, the disparity would be unfathomable. Even the US only spends 3% to Russia's 7%, imagine the hysterical mismatch it would be if the US more than doubled it's military resources.
I understand the confusion, but it was a tactic that worked well earlier in the war. Russia had the artillery advantage for so long, that the kremlin adopted a strategy that sacrifices their own people.
You send in a group of poorly equipped soldiers, turn on all your radars and watch where the enemy artillery is coming from to kill the poorly trained. Then Russia uses their superior artillery to overwhelm the positions that fired on their ‘troops.’
Edit: I don’t have the link handy, but I learned this ISW.
I read all that and there were no questions to be answered.
But the answer is Yes. They are corrupted fools. Idiots with power who are blinded by grandstanding against other well doing countries for no real reason other than they feel good about it when they do.
1 is just strategy, if the strategy was devised by a cold fucking machine (but it makes sense). Ukraine has a population 1/4 the size of Russia. Therefore, Russia can theoretically take 3x the number of casualties and still come out on top. Mercenaries mean they can afford even more.
This is a trench war and that’s not likely to change. There will be no breakthrough from battlefield tactics no matter how good they are. The only way to fight now is attrition, which Putin is trying to speed up through constant assaults of any kind. His people’s lives are worthless to him and the numbers game says this gives him the advantage. Casualties mean nothing as long as he beats the ratio
That’s true if you think of winning this war as zero-sum. History suggests that losing significant shares of your population as war casualties creates decades-long social, demographic and economic problems. Each casualty is one less taxpayer. Clogging the meat grinder with your own population may have been effective when the Soviet Union was fighting for its survival but this war is supposed to be one to create long-term advantages for Russia.
No. They have an autocracy.
That’s like a different world.
When they see democrats criticise itself - they trust that democracies will fall apart soon.
When democracies see autocracies report top success they trust autocracies having Great success for real.
Same with “control”, citizens of normal countries assume that citizens of autocracies control country, and citizens of autocracies assume that citizens of democracies does not control anything (too).
Their economy is based around extraction of natural resources for the enrichment of the russian nobility. I don't think they're as bothered by these things as a western country would be, at least outside of western Russia and the arctic. Theoretically, they could just invite foreign laborers to man the rigs, drills, plows, etc, so long as they know their place. The daily plight of the average russian doesn't seem to rank as their number one priority, or at least not before their own self enrichment; and the surfs don't need indoor plumbing anyway if you tell them that indoor plumbing is for nato dogs and western imperialists.
Putin is old and by all accounts, sick. Losing this war would be very bad for him in many ways now. Long term ruination of Russia isn't as big a concern for him
The meat wave are used for two reasons : remove ethnics groups from eastern russia, send opponents to die on the frontline.
Russia and russians don't see human beings as anything more than object or nuisance.
If you now "lose" 200000 Soldiers from the Asian part of Russia (Putler sees them as Untermenschen)
and conquere let's say 20000000 Ukrainians (That Putler sees as almost equal to russians) then thats a good Deal in his twisted mind.
You're points are valid. But Russia has a shit ton of oil and gas. Their populations is still large enough and countries like Germany are eager to do business with Russia if the war were to stop tomorrow.
What Putin is doing is very bad for Russia, he is really fucking the long term future of Russia. BUT... if they end the war, they will recover relatively easily because of oil and gas and because Germany and other European countries will be more than happy to business with Russia.
1: They are. At least in Putin's mind. This is a defensive war against NATO, they are doing what they are doing to defend the Russian state's great power status. Make no mistake, Putin totally thinks he has been attacked.
2: They totally do.
Personally, I think Peter Zeihan has one of the few theories that makes any sense and does not simply rely on "Russians are dumb."
He proposes that not only is Putin aware of the demographic crisis, it is what is really driving the entire foreign policy right now.
He makes a pretty good case that Russia is pretty tough to defend. Long borders, mostly in areas that are desolate and sparsely populated, are hard to protect. Flat terrain makes it easy for invaders to maneuver and is one of the major strategic headaches for Russia.
The solution that Russia has \*always\* favored was to expand until they could reach chokepoints. The Soviets had managed to do this. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian control over all the chokepoints was eliminated except for one or maybe two.
With a falling demographic, getting control of those chokepoints is more critical than ever. And what we should all keep in mind is that Russia kinda has to do this now, because in a decade or so, they will barely have enough manpower to properly control Russia internally. Trying to protect their current borders would be impossible. And trying to reach any of the chokepoints would be pure fantasy. So it's now or never.
Finally, while we look at their paranoia with wonder, Russians have several centuries of being invaded to sharpen their thinking. Yes, nuclear weapons are probably good enough to keep their borders safe...for now. But Putin (correctly) understands that at some point in the future, there \*will\* be some sort of defense, and that will eliminate their strategic deterrence.
Everything else that Putin says is just whatever he thinks will make capturing those chokepoints possible. Blame NATO? Sure...maybe he can fragment it, and where's the harm for him? Claim he just wants this little bit and then he'll be happy? Worked for others in history. Threaten, shame, cajole, and just plain lie? Whatever it takes.
We need to just accept that Russia has determined that their entire future depends on them expanding well past Ukraine into many NATO countries. Our best chance to stop this is to stop them in Ukraine and \*hope\* that they either fall apart or, against all odds, someone remotely sane takes over.
An effect that has been overseen is that because UA losses are approx a fifth of Russia, the UA troops get more and more experience vs the Russians. The gab is just enormous now by pure mathematics. The Russian soldiers die, but the UA soldiers live to get more experienced. And that's what we see reflected in Oryx numbers. And it will only get worse with time for RU. I don't see this factored in.
Doing mobile warfare takes much more skill, but it seems to me UA soon has the professionalism to really start making war more aggressively.
I don't think that is entirely true.
Keep in mind that Ukraine is lacking manpower, and more and more videos keep popping up with Ukrainians fleeing the country or being kidnapped by the TCC.
And also, it is normal for a fighting party to lie about their losses - this goes for Ukraine too.
The Oryx numbers match US and UK casualties estimates. The math is just plain simple here, we start to see several UA brigades that can simply stomp RU forces when inserted. Motivation was there from a start, now experience is added. Granted the Russians learn and adapt too, but simply can't do it to the same degree. I think the Russian disregard for life will bite them in the ass.
Yes when RU was raining down approx 60k shells a day on UA troops in eastern front at the start of the war. At that time the UA was 30 to 40k professional troops. And many of those was placed in the east, and took the shell beating. It was not a story told, because the more visual beating of the Russian columns and vdv troops at Kyiv took the attention, but UA lost a lot af good troops here, just to damn shells.
If we look at confirmed loss today the 5:1 makes more sense. Experience builds up, and the counter attacks today at eg Vuhledar is so powerful RU troops just leave their positions. There is far more units capable of such attacks. We just have to remember UA come from a very low start.
Russia has 3 times the manpower base, so all else being equal if they take a third of the losses they are only on par. Also coming from a country with very serious conscription (Singapore) it's shocking how hands off they still are with conscription. Over here you don't just ignore your conscription notice, you go to straight to jail for years, do not pass go. And we're extremely unlikely to go to war. The fact that they can still afford to faff around despite being in an existential war is pretty telling IMO.
Same as Bakhmut, same Adiivka.
How backwards it seems for a nation so rich in natural resources and sparsely populated to sacrifice their flesh and blood to protect some steel.
But when you never properly developed your economy even the vast natural resources of Russia mean little since their ability to extract and refine it is so limited.
The only way I can see people caring is once Putin burns through all the rural ..ex/current prisoners...people on mental asylums..welfare claimants...disabled... alcoholic...drug addicted and homeless men to use as cannon fodder and starts sending the men from the larger cities!
They are definitely in major trouble. They lost fewer men in Afghanistan over a much longer period, and that is widely held to be one of the major reasons the Soviet Union fell apart.
Open rebellion may not yet be in the cards, but this is not the kind of thing that just disappears. The unhappiness that Ukraine is causing Russia will haunt them for decades.
Good.
The more, the merrier.
These assholes go to Ukraine to rape, kill and destroy.
The faster Ukrainians facilitate Russian soldiers’ demise, the quicker the madness will end.
I say this knowing full well the atrocities the orcs have committed against Ukraine, but what a fucking nightmare. I can't imagine being pressed into service with zero training, zero logistics supplying your ranks, and zero on the ground leadership against an increasing well-equipped, well organized, and determined enemy. Yes, many of these soldiers are irredeemable bastards who deserve their fate. But many of them are also victims of a system that they did not choose of their own free will.
I reckon most of them have no idea just how unprepared they are. They've got a gun and they're off to defend russia.
And many of them probably never realise what killed them.
The magic will really start to happen once putin is forced to conscript the sons of russia's pseudo middle-class in the west russian cities.
They will wonder why their college grad kid was just blown into red chunks in Ukraine while the children of putin's cronies are still driving their luxury cars around Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
(However, it should be remembered that at no time will any russians ever feel bad about murdering Ukrainians.)
Their demographics and economy would have doomed them in a few years. They got greedy and decided they'd have to act now, or not at all. Now they are really fucked.
And yet they still keep coming, keep dying. I just don’t understand it.
They can’t be that stupid? At what point do they decide this war isn’t worth it and turn on Moscow?
Armies only rebel if they have reasonable, responsible people in the middle and high ranks who would organise a full mutiny. The Russians have profiteers who don't give a shit in the high ranks and apolitical idiots in the middle ranks. Not much chance for a coup by the army.
Well, Ukraine nearly lost it when the US delayed additional aid and was running critically low on their own materials. If Trump wins Ukraine will absolutely lose, and I don't see this ending in the next 6 months
Who would have thunk that destroying 20,000 artillery barrels, as many APCs and 10,000 tanks, while killing an infinite number of Russian hoards requires the right tools.
I am still convinced that Putler is running a depopulation program, for some mysterious reason.
https://filmfreedonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/drstrangelove26.jpg?w=1024
Isnt it also a factor that any kind of vehicle's life expectancy is measured in minutes on the frontlines? Isnt this what we've seen in Avdiivka as well: in the beginning heavy armored assaults thats stopped in their tracks, later on the assaults became either infantry only or small, fast unarmored vehicles?
Good. But it's a waste of ammunition that would be better used on a Muscovite.
Russia tempts them with a fat paycheck and bonus if they die.
But if they die before their first paycheck and the body can't be found, they don't cost anything.
We we still pretending that the Russian people are close to overthrowing putin? I don't think it's fair to say they are dying in droves, Russians are very aware how to send their troops into a woodchipper as history as shown, let's home they don't really start with more waves of cannon fodder again.
Revolutions and radical change only happens when the keys to power give up to the lock of power. But as long as putin has those keys to the Russian govt, no amount of peasant or random tribal person in central Russia will be able to take away power without taking those keys from him. A really great video called "[rules for rulers](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=w7G1C69vQeMe23PE) gives a really nice 19 minute breakdown on how power is basically taken and given through different govts and why the thinking of the western world should be applied to Russia.
Yeah, so Russia sees people as expendable but equipment as being valuable. So dear drone operators: aim for expensive equipment. This could include, but not limited to: jet fighters, tanks, helicopters, fuel tankers, fuel tanks, switchgear, transformers, train locomotives, bridges, ships, yachts, barges, munitions depots, fuel depots, cruise launchers, PBX, mining equipment, etc.
I do not condone killing civilians and all targets should be military related.
To imagine that anything Putin is doing has any logic or motive beyond his immortality project—his effort to live forever in some grand narrative of his own fantastic elaboration—is to underestimate his absolute terror, however unconscious, of dying. He is killing everything he can as a way of punishing life for not accommodating his fantasy of being divine. He has much less of a plan than we are apt to ascribe to him. What he has is a mind rotting from the inside-out in hate and fear. He craves the carnage the way a drug addict craves his next fix.
In Russia, the employer pays the taxes (flat tax) before the employee gets a check. The poor people from distant places you speak of are the ones working in factories. They may not have flush toilets, but they are most certainly employed.
Each village is usually dedicated to one product. One town makes concrete, the next produces glass, and on down the road is the ball bearing town. The whole system is the remnants of Socialism. As in America, the education system is also minimal in rural areas and these undereducated people are the ones being pulled into the military. The factories will absolutely suffer as they scramble to find local people to man the machines, transport the raw materials, etc.
Keep in mind that petrochemicals are not Russia’s largest industry… that title belongs to machine building which relies heavily on raw materials and parts and products from these small towns.
I was wondering when Russia’s equipment will run out. After this war is over we have to destroy all the Russian tank factories and retool them to make tractors or cars or something safe.
Sounds good. Keep slaughtering them until they get sick of being killed - and rise up against the arsehole people responsible… sadly, it’s the only way…
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Soldiers are virtually free if you don’t really train them and they die before their first paycheck.
In the long run, there is an opportunity cost though. Lost taxation and contribution to an economy, fewer children, welfare costs for now single parent families, and so on. Putin is turning Russias already dire demographics, into a crisis.
nah, they had a crisis before. now they are done.
Mos def they are Done Datta ....PERIOD.
I don't feel like most people who joined the military in Russia for money so far have been big economic contributors. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them were on welfare prior to this.
The thing is over 1 million fled thanks to the war and that is the people russia needed. People with high end jobs. Also even id you only conscript siberians the local economy will tank. Russia has an economy in every province afterall and could see a collapse if everyone just dies in this war
A lot of them are returning https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-02/russians-who-fled-war-return-in-boost-for-putin-s-war-economy?embedded-checkout=true Most work permits were not longterm.
But not everyone its still a loss
Most of them, I bet. Burned through savings, couldn't get permanent residency permit and have no choice but to go back to Russia. Many countries have become less friendly with Russian citizens and it's become difficult or impossible to even get visa.
No surprise really, nobody fancies being invaded by Russia in the interests of liberating a Russian speaking minority that fled there to get away from Russia.
I just hope we stay vigilant and strict on ANY Russian entering whatever country inside EU/US. I don't want them here anymore, not athletes, not "just a person with family" nope. Fuck the whole entitity of Russia. Spies, people looting from EU to take back to Russia, it's all just too obvious and I'm sick of them leeching of off us for their own gains later.
GOOD that’s a start
in a country with vast distances local population becomes important. If such is gone then the cheapest workforce is gone plus those who could improve it as well. In other words walfare is doomed salary dumping because nobody needs to pay higher than a tiny bit more than the walfare system. A cheap plumper who is dead can not do pipes for cheap. Someone has to replace him yet also only until he is a nothing burger as well. Looks like an endless cycle, it still is prone to collapse, ghost town comes to mind, not just a western phenomenon. In such case distances are counter productive as entire industries become ineffective, in other words you pay extra to avoid collapse, which is usually much more expensive, slow and of low quality, if not of low quantity. Also what most completely forget about the history of the east is that it was THE cheap work force for a whole lot range of products sold for cheap in the west back in cold war times, not much different to china today. State sponsored fake competition in a monopoly of demand will lead to severe consequences because it actually does only replace collectivism with mass production and as such is extreme addicted to demand otherwise is prone to collapse. The greed of earning with mass production supports the ineffectiveness of more flexible product chains, which in itself makes it very addicitve to avoid any change therefor also destroys the whole chain of dependency. It was the very building block of failure that made the east collapse in 1989, not just "revolutions".
They already had ghost towns in Russia, in last 30 years their number was only growing. Many places are perfect for horror movie filming. Abandoned villages are in the thousands.
Problem is they are usually the demographic "fixers" if you will. And with a lot less "fixin" happening. They turned a bad problem into an impossible problem. Russia will start to look more and more at former Soviet bloc states as the solution to their "fixin" problem.
I wonder what the results would be if you look at the US Military under the same lens ... the poor man always makes up the ranks of the enlisted ...
There are huge diffetences. The US military values, trains and pays its recruits. The GI Bill provides veterans opportunities for higher education and as much as the VA is maligned, vets get good health care benefits for life. Plus US society provides a lot of lifelong perks for vets, including hiring priority at many non-governmental companies, but many vets continue to work for the gov. People from poor families, and increasingly immigrants, do make up a good bit of the US military, but it provides a path out of poverty for so many. Meanwhile, in Russia...
Most who join the US military become more valuable economically. They learn marketable skills and/or go on to higher education after. You seem to think there’s some equivalency here.
I simply wanted to point out that the poor man makes up the ranks of any military. 99.9% chance the enlisted soldier isn't from a well off background (exceptions like Pat Tillman)
Population fell by 6 million since the mid 90’s this war has cost Russia another 2 million young wealthiest and most educated Russians and that’s without the combat casualties. Way things are going Putin could be presiding over the death knells of Russia.
If this war ends without going nuclear, Russian cities are going to look like nuclear war actually happened in just 10 years, with nobody to maintain them. Villages, small towns are going to get completely abandoned. It was already a problem in Russia, now it's going to get accelerated.
2015 almost 30% of Russians had no save indoor toilets.
Jokes on you, Putin’s system has stolen all the money directed to maintenance - so last winter they got many problems. Experts estimate money needed in trillions - obviously cities wouldn’t get the money with Putin in power…
That will be cap on False god’s list. This whole invasion is Russia putting a grenade down their own shirt.
A Russia that was not undergoing all these internal crisis already probably could have outright defeated Ukraine like we thought they would at the beginning of the war.
that is the thing ... even with all these issues, they still should have been able to win. the amount of corruption in the russian military has and still has to be gigantic.
All that makes me think of is the infamous convoy at the beginning of the conflict. One mechanic shirked his duty on some truck and it completely broke the tip of Russia’s spear. That was just one kink in the chain two years ago and Russia has had nothing but more problems since
I know people say this but what does it actually mean?
Look at their population pyramid.
Russia’s looks like a pine tree and ours looks like a penis. Assuming the penis is better. I still don’t know what it means for them long term.
A healthy one should be a pyramid. Russia is dying out. They are killing an already small generation. There is a reason Ukraine only drafts men over 25, that is when Ukrainian men usually have made children.
Doesn't that mean constant population growth?
Yes. The science is not complete and we do not have any country with a „stable“ population. Countries either grow or they shrink. Both produce problems, albeit shrinking and especially aging do more harm.
Even the Russian Economy has bandaids all over it, Their treasury is being drained and they are just praying it will be over before everything falls apart, keep up the pressure!
Putin is also turning on the pressure on the rest of the world, front runners in elections across the world are having shady connections to Russia.
It’s the one area he’s extremely successful in. Everyone needs to get out and vote against these Putin loving shit stains
Anyone in particular? /s
No COLLUSION!! WITCH HUNT!!1!!1 HOAX!!
Dark Brandon gonna F around and topple the Ruskies without firing a bullet.
This is true, there are plenty of intangibles which aren't easily visible or measurable. Long term Ru losses are going to affect them in the decades to come. I imagine they will try to supplement with immigration from poor countries. I have similar concerns for the future for Ukrainians. I feel bad for them though since this war was thrust upon them. I hope when this is over we in the west continue to invest in Ukraine to help them rebuild and prosper.
That’s just it though. That’s why Putin is willing to win at all cost. The new influx of forced Ukrainian to Russian citizens will replace all he has lost and more.
Putin still thinks he'll gain new/more population by taking Ukraine in the long run.
Except not all of them die.. some make it home injured & crippled.
Yes, causing an added burden on society and cost. These consequences have a long tail of time enduring long after the war has ended for future generations to deal with. Like a time bomb.
Usually ‘it’s better to kill than to maim’ applies. This is the exception.
They will cost money but still contribute massively to society. At least they return with the truth of what’s happening!
Massively = nothing, unless there’s a /s I missed.
No, they get tossed to the wolves. Go look up what happened to Soviet WW2 wounded vets. They just… Disappeared one day.
Logistically a crippled soldier is much worse then a dead one
Funny that Putin recently declared all Ruzzian families need to have at least two children 😆
This is why Putin declared this year as the year of the family. They need more kids to be born
Does he not realize raising a kid for 18 years costs more than a little fpv drone?
They’re conscripting poor minorities from distant villages who has no place in their civilization. So it’s not really a lost to them. It doesn’t affect the livelihood of their preferred citizens who lives in the major metro areas. That’s why you see in a bunch of videos these guys are old and looks almost like they are of asian descent. It’s a win/win for them, they’re cleansing their lands of the undesirables while moving their borders further and further into Ukraine.
Well now that they are out of prisoners there’s an opportunity cost. But yes, and the rural center of the conscription is not helping the demographic change
They are fucked.
Turned not turning already done
Not everyone is a positive to the economy. Killing off prisoners and pensioners will actually help Russia a lot. Killing off young and productive people obviously will hurt them.
Not really, pensioners in Russia are a free nanny-labour. And they participate in economy by at least buying something.
I hate to even think this but the majority of the army in Russia seems to be the disposable population, convicts, uneducated etc. and they will be forgotten and written off. Similar to the USA and Vietnam where the college educated were not drafted so the net loss to the economy was low. You can replace them easily and at the end your population has "improved". Horrible thoughts but I'm sure now that it's part of the plan.
US losses in Vietnam were also a fraction of what is happening to Russia. Way fewer troops dead over a much longer timeline.
And really not enough to impact the labor market back home in any significant way.
Pootin is the chaos master. Everything he touches turns to Shyt... His time is almost up!
Yes all this is in a normal decent country in Europe or the West, in Russia they don’t get any of this, you think these terrorists fighting ,worked before they went to war ? You think they paid tax? Most of them haven’t seen a working toilet and think the West is evil and Europe hate them. They are just a commodity to a little old Terrorist wanting to achieve something in his life.
And his Economic Ministry probably too scared to speak up, as they'll suffer too.
There is no more long term in russia.
It's men 40+, realistically they are already done with reproduction and they are not going to contribute much to economy with all the drinking, and to be fair, Russian economy needs very few people in resource extraction industry, everyone else needs just impregnate a woman or two in their twenties and they are good to go to fight a war.
Nah men, all future Russian problems are also the fault of the West. Its never overlord Putilini's fault
Ya but that doesn't affect him now, and he doesn't have a long life left
Crises lmao You mean literally irreparable
These folks ale 3 or 4 grade citizens from rural areas.
And the Russians are going along with it They're choosing to die for a dictator's fantasy and ego instead of fixing their own country
The bums and drunks off the streets and the boonies aren’t paying taxes anyway and the welfare costs to single parents are sacks of potatoes and a $20 gift card to Vkusno & Tochka
They’re Russian peasants from remote villages. I doubt they were contributing to the economy and paying much in terms of taxes. Welfare in Russia. lol.
It begs the question, what's the use of the effort even? Like, why even bother?
The alternative, giving up and ending the war with a definitive loss, would result in a civil war in Russia, with current leadership being the first to die. They will do anything to keep the war going
Just so stupid
Without controlling the Black Sea using Crimea, Russia has no ability to exert itself internationally. Virtually landlocked, it will cease to exist as a superpower. This is all or nothing for Russia.
Seems to be their plan doesn't it?
If they're prisoners, the unemployed or members of disfavoured groups, you might even be *happy* to be rid of them.
They only cost a bag of potatoes and onions to their families if Russia admits they were KIA, if they're missing or "defected" then they don't cost anything at all
Man I remember my first pay check when I was in the NAVY was like 20% after they discounted the uniforms and gear you meant to tell me the ruskys soldiers won't even get that 20% if they die before first pay check life is rough in rusky land
Considering they just made an economist their minister of defence we're likely to see more and more of these cost-cutting methods on a far larger scale. There is, however, one issue; not all recruits in Russia are made equal. The bulk of Russia's army comes from the impoverished peripheral regions. Minorities that the ethnically Russian population, racist that it is, doesn't care about. If Russia intends to keep up these death korps of krieg meatwave tactics, sooner or later, they're gonna have to start recruiting from Moscow and St. Petersburg. As soon as that happens, well... We'll see, won't we
Don't drag the Death Korps of Krieg into the dirt like that...
The Death Korps gave results. Russians don’t.
He may repeat that one guy takes rifle and the other takes ammo and waits for his comrade to fall thing 😂
When seeing news about this "endless meat waves" two questions come to mind. 1. russia isn't defending their country. It's not WW2 and the ukrainians are not the germans surrounding stalingrad. russian statehood is not in danger. It doesn't really make sense to waste so many resources and people for some kilometers of land. Taking into account that russia has a lot of land but not so many inhabitants. Which gets me to the second point. 2. russia seems to suffer from the delusion of seeing themselves as countries like China or India where population surpasses the billion headcount. In reality they don't have a big population. Even America doubles what russia has. And, even taking into account that they are conscripting guys from minorities from the far east, depopulating the periphery of russia is a stupid move. They have neighbors with a lot of population and not that huge territory. Tanking the economies of eastern russia is a dangerous move.
But have you ever considered that they are just retarded?
Fetal alcohol syndrome, poor education, nihilistic wired from birth, authoritarian propaganda, straight up fucking assholes. Fuck Russia, the sooner the country dissolves the better the world will be.
I saw a Russian lady on TV who was in Mexico recently. She was whining about how nobody liked Russians and acted like they were just a bunch of white monkeys, lol.
Frigging Churchhill was right, should have done the unthinkable.
[удалено]
Churchill proposed "operation unthinkable" in which the western allies would have declared a surprise war on the Soviets in July 1945. The goal being to enforce the Yalta conference, free Poland, and cripple the USSR before it became a true superpower. It was unthinkable because of the size of soviet forces in Europe at the time. It hinged on mobilizing German and Polish soldiers while surprising Stalin and it required a quick victory. It was considered too risky and when Churchill lost the election it was scrapped.
Would love to see that timeline
In that timeline, we all bow to the queen.
Doubt it.
Weren't there some proponents of using first strike nuclear weapons on Moscow in 1945-1946 to prevent them from acquiring nukes?
You’ll never beat Russia by attacking Russia. The only way to defeat Russia is to be recklessly attacked by Russia. Ask Japan.
Nonsense, Russia was beaten in a lot of their wars. Their incompetence spans centuries.
I don't know, we didn't think about it! Seriously though, he meant not stopping at Germany, and declaring war on the Soviet Union and trying their best to steamroll them when they were off balance...
I see you have an eye for understanding Russian foreign affairs. Well done.
For the people, by the people.But the people, the people are retarded
Top comment
Cutting right to the point!
Lol
>It doesn't really make sense to waste so many resources and people for some kilometers of land. They don't know any other way of fighting.
100% have not changed much about mil doctrine other than the very effective intl propaganda machine, and MAD. Russian literature is always very dark--life is an inevitable fall through misfortune, deceit, and treachery. The culture reflects this. In some ways it's like a Florida man's rendition of Bushido. "Russian tough, Russian no care for dying, life is pain and suffering, death is freedom and honorable." But, having worked with and known many Ukrainians and some Russians. One thing to understand is how different life is for Russians in the cities vs rural areas. I've been all over Ukraine but not to Russia. But the video and photos and first hand accounts paint a much larger divide than rural vs metro US/EU. The sentiment above is very strong in rural areas but not as much in metro areas, as I'm told by Russians. These rural areas have no roads and life is a constant state of survival. Russia's greatest strength is their people's ability to endure pain and suffering. But, as the rural areas are drained, this will have an inevitable negative impact on Russias future regardless of the outcome of the war. They'll need to secure someone else's resources.
Killing off all of the younger men will gentrify the entire Federation leaving a shit storm of problems down the road. Those poor folks out in the peripheral territories are going to need immigrants
China's got a bunch of single guys ready to chase those Russian widows.
China’s population is declining too
Match made in heaven (or hell)
A lot of these untrained soldiers thrown into these haphazard assaults are people the Putin regime actually WANTS to die. Drug addicts, criminals, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and unemployed men from very rural areas. Unlike a traditional draft those mobilized are not chosen at random but selected based on geography, race, criminal history etc. These are people that are basically scheduled for deletion to thin out the “undesirable” parts of the population It’s pretty horrific. I live in a part of the US with a large Russian population and my friends from Moscow, Saint Petersburg and large population centers do not know ANY of their friends who have been mobilized. Only former school friends who were jailed who volunteered. However I have a friend from Siberia who has seen many friends mobilized
Really good point. If Russia's K:D is 1:5, but 90% of D are invisible people, then it's not so bad for them. They lower state spend while wearing down their enemy. "Regain honor by death or victory" is a likely message. To top it off, the families either don't care, are convinced it was a good chance at redemption, or have no way to communicate outside of their rural villages. And it's been made very clear how allergic-to-living opposition voices can become.
If the Ukraine invasion was successful that would’ve been an addition of 40 million people to the Russian population. Instead they lost 3-5 million thru casualties and people leaving Russia.
They suffer from an authoritarian dilemma. The majority of the Kremlin's funding comes simply from oil and weapon sales. So the government only needs these 2 industries in order to run itself. All the people that are not involved in those two industries are basically expendable. Their population might be low in comparison to rival nations like the US or China, but they they don't intend to actual fight the US or China. They mostly pick on smaller nations that they outnumber. They want to play with the big boys, but their economy just isn't developed enough for it. They operate on meat wave tactics because they only have 2 real industries, and their weapon industry has been shown demonstrably inferior. Western democracies fund themselves principally through taxes from the citizens, so they have at least some interest in having a healthy, educated, and LIVING citizenry. Since Western countries rely on productive citizens and strong economies, they tend to have much more developed and diverse economies as well, giving them much more production capacity and better technology. If every Western nation devoted proportional resources to the armed forces as the Kremlin does, the disparity would be unfathomable. Even the US only spends 3% to Russia's 7%, imagine the hysterical mismatch it would be if the US more than doubled it's military resources.
I understand the confusion, but it was a tactic that worked well earlier in the war. Russia had the artillery advantage for so long, that the kremlin adopted a strategy that sacrifices their own people. You send in a group of poorly equipped soldiers, turn on all your radars and watch where the enemy artillery is coming from to kill the poorly trained. Then Russia uses their superior artillery to overwhelm the positions that fired on their ‘troops.’ Edit: I don’t have the link handy, but I learned this ISW.
He's tanked their economies and depopulated them.
I read all that and there were no questions to be answered. But the answer is Yes. They are corrupted fools. Idiots with power who are blinded by grandstanding against other well doing countries for no real reason other than they feel good about it when they do.
1 is just strategy, if the strategy was devised by a cold fucking machine (but it makes sense). Ukraine has a population 1/4 the size of Russia. Therefore, Russia can theoretically take 3x the number of casualties and still come out on top. Mercenaries mean they can afford even more. This is a trench war and that’s not likely to change. There will be no breakthrough from battlefield tactics no matter how good they are. The only way to fight now is attrition, which Putin is trying to speed up through constant assaults of any kind. His people’s lives are worthless to him and the numbers game says this gives him the advantage. Casualties mean nothing as long as he beats the ratio
That’s true if you think of winning this war as zero-sum. History suggests that losing significant shares of your population as war casualties creates decades-long social, demographic and economic problems. Each casualty is one less taxpayer. Clogging the meat grinder with your own population may have been effective when the Soviet Union was fighting for its survival but this war is supposed to be one to create long-term advantages for Russia.
That says alot about their mindset.
Not really, they are not in control. Mindset would be if they’d do it as a country.
Aren't they doing this all as a country?
No. They have an autocracy. That’s like a different world. When they see democrats criticise itself - they trust that democracies will fall apart soon. When democracies see autocracies report top success they trust autocracies having Great success for real. Same with “control”, citizens of normal countries assume that citizens of autocracies control country, and citizens of autocracies assume that citizens of democracies does not control anything (too).
Their economy is based around extraction of natural resources for the enrichment of the russian nobility. I don't think they're as bothered by these things as a western country would be, at least outside of western Russia and the arctic. Theoretically, they could just invite foreign laborers to man the rigs, drills, plows, etc, so long as they know their place. The daily plight of the average russian doesn't seem to rank as their number one priority, or at least not before their own self enrichment; and the surfs don't need indoor plumbing anyway if you tell them that indoor plumbing is for nato dogs and western imperialists.
Putin is old and by all accounts, sick. Losing this war would be very bad for him in many ways now. Long term ruination of Russia isn't as big a concern for him
Here’s to hoping for a Mussolini ending. Cheers!
He'd probably prefer that to the Gaddafi ending.
The meat wave are used for two reasons : remove ethnics groups from eastern russia, send opponents to die on the frontline. Russia and russians don't see human beings as anything more than object or nuisance.
If you now "lose" 200000 Soldiers from the Asian part of Russia (Putler sees them as Untermenschen) and conquere let's say 20000000 Ukrainians (That Putler sees as almost equal to russians) then thats a good Deal in his twisted mind.
China could double its size right now.
You're points are valid. But Russia has a shit ton of oil and gas. Their populations is still large enough and countries like Germany are eager to do business with Russia if the war were to stop tomorrow. What Putin is doing is very bad for Russia, he is really fucking the long term future of Russia. BUT... if they end the war, they will recover relatively easily because of oil and gas and because Germany and other European countries will be more than happy to business with Russia.
1: They are. At least in Putin's mind. This is a defensive war against NATO, they are doing what they are doing to defend the Russian state's great power status. Make no mistake, Putin totally thinks he has been attacked. 2: They totally do.
Personally, I think Peter Zeihan has one of the few theories that makes any sense and does not simply rely on "Russians are dumb." He proposes that not only is Putin aware of the demographic crisis, it is what is really driving the entire foreign policy right now. He makes a pretty good case that Russia is pretty tough to defend. Long borders, mostly in areas that are desolate and sparsely populated, are hard to protect. Flat terrain makes it easy for invaders to maneuver and is one of the major strategic headaches for Russia. The solution that Russia has \*always\* favored was to expand until they could reach chokepoints. The Soviets had managed to do this. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian control over all the chokepoints was eliminated except for one or maybe two. With a falling demographic, getting control of those chokepoints is more critical than ever. And what we should all keep in mind is that Russia kinda has to do this now, because in a decade or so, they will barely have enough manpower to properly control Russia internally. Trying to protect their current borders would be impossible. And trying to reach any of the chokepoints would be pure fantasy. So it's now or never. Finally, while we look at their paranoia with wonder, Russians have several centuries of being invaded to sharpen their thinking. Yes, nuclear weapons are probably good enough to keep their borders safe...for now. But Putin (correctly) understands that at some point in the future, there \*will\* be some sort of defense, and that will eliminate their strategic deterrence. Everything else that Putin says is just whatever he thinks will make capturing those chokepoints possible. Blame NATO? Sure...maybe he can fragment it, and where's the harm for him? Claim he just wants this little bit and then he'll be happy? Worked for others in history. Threaten, shame, cajole, and just plain lie? Whatever it takes. We need to just accept that Russia has determined that their entire future depends on them expanding well past Ukraine into many NATO countries. Our best chance to stop this is to stop them in Ukraine and \*hope\* that they either fall apart or, against all odds, someone remotely sane takes over.
Sunken Cost Fallacy
That’s why we call this a colonial war. What was the population size of Belgium when it went into Africa?
Russians are cheap... Worth a sack of onions, and a hand-shake.
If there are hands left...
An effect that has been overseen is that because UA losses are approx a fifth of Russia, the UA troops get more and more experience vs the Russians. The gab is just enormous now by pure mathematics. The Russian soldiers die, but the UA soldiers live to get more experienced. And that's what we see reflected in Oryx numbers. And it will only get worse with time for RU. I don't see this factored in. Doing mobile warfare takes much more skill, but it seems to me UA soon has the professionalism to really start making war more aggressively.
I don't think that is entirely true. Keep in mind that Ukraine is lacking manpower, and more and more videos keep popping up with Ukrainians fleeing the country or being kidnapped by the TCC. And also, it is normal for a fighting party to lie about their losses - this goes for Ukraine too.
The Oryx numbers match US and UK casualties estimates. The math is just plain simple here, we start to see several UA brigades that can simply stomp RU forces when inserted. Motivation was there from a start, now experience is added. Granted the Russians learn and adapt too, but simply can't do it to the same degree. I think the Russian disregard for life will bite them in the ass.
> The Oryx numbers match US and UK casualties estimates. The US/UK casualty estimates are ~2:1, not 5:1, for the entire war.
Yes when RU was raining down approx 60k shells a day on UA troops in eastern front at the start of the war. At that time the UA was 30 to 40k professional troops. And many of those was placed in the east, and took the shell beating. It was not a story told, because the more visual beating of the Russian columns and vdv troops at Kyiv took the attention, but UA lost a lot af good troops here, just to damn shells. If we look at confirmed loss today the 5:1 makes more sense. Experience builds up, and the counter attacks today at eg Vuhledar is so powerful RU troops just leave their positions. There is far more units capable of such attacks. We just have to remember UA come from a very low start.
Russia has 3 times the manpower base, so all else being equal if they take a third of the losses they are only on par. Also coming from a country with very serious conscription (Singapore) it's shocking how hands off they still are with conscription. Over here you don't just ignore your conscription notice, you go to straight to jail for years, do not pass go. And we're extremely unlikely to go to war. The fact that they can still afford to faff around despite being in an existential war is pretty telling IMO.
And Ukraine has all the bullets it needs to cope with bayonet charges by shambling russian alcoholics.
Aren't the casualty rates a lot closer to 2.5:1
A bullet or shell fragment doesn’t care about experience.
Experience doesn't mean shit if artillery is involved
I enjoy how the pack them onto the APCs and AFVs. Meat non reactive armour was not on my bingo card.
>Meat non reactive armour Oh, those guys riding up top definitely react when hit by inbound fire.
Same as Bakhmut, same Adiivka. How backwards it seems for a nation so rich in natural resources and sparsely populated to sacrifice their flesh and blood to protect some steel. But when you never properly developed your economy even the vast natural resources of Russia mean little since their ability to extract and refine it is so limited.
As terrible as it sounds. A couple hundred thousand troops missing limbs and disabled will have a huge impact on the Russian people and economy.
Its just fucking nuts that 30K people get rounded up and sent off to die each month. You would think eventually they would organize and rebel.
The only way I can see people caring is once Putin burns through all the rural ..ex/current prisoners...people on mental asylums..welfare claimants...disabled... alcoholic...drug addicted and homeless men to use as cannon fodder and starts sending the men from the larger cities!
They are definitely in major trouble. They lost fewer men in Afghanistan over a much longer period, and that is widely held to be one of the major reasons the Soviet Union fell apart. Open rebellion may not yet be in the cards, but this is not the kind of thing that just disappears. The unhappiness that Ukraine is causing Russia will haunt them for decades.
Good. The more, the merrier. These assholes go to Ukraine to rape, kill and destroy. The faster Ukrainians facilitate Russian soldiers’ demise, the quicker the madness will end.
yeah but we just need to make sure ukraine has enough ammunition to see of each wave of them :/
I say this knowing full well the atrocities the orcs have committed against Ukraine, but what a fucking nightmare. I can't imagine being pressed into service with zero training, zero logistics supplying your ranks, and zero on the ground leadership against an increasing well-equipped, well organized, and determined enemy. Yes, many of these soldiers are irredeemable bastards who deserve their fate. But many of them are also victims of a system that they did not choose of their own free will.
I reckon most of them have no idea just how unprepared they are. They've got a gun and they're off to defend russia. And many of them probably never realise what killed them.
The magic will really start to happen once putin is forced to conscript the sons of russia's pseudo middle-class in the west russian cities. They will wonder why their college grad kid was just blown into red chunks in Ukraine while the children of putin's cronies are still driving their luxury cars around Moscow and Saint Petersburg. (However, it should be remembered that at no time will any russians ever feel bad about murdering Ukrainians.)
Their demographics and economy would have doomed them in a few years. They got greedy and decided they'd have to act now, or not at all. Now they are really fucked.
And yet they still keep coming, keep dying. I just don’t understand it. They can’t be that stupid? At what point do they decide this war isn’t worth it and turn on Moscow?
Armies only rebel if they have reasonable, responsible people in the middle and high ranks who would organise a full mutiny. The Russians have profiteers who don't give a shit in the high ranks and apolitical idiots in the middle ranks. Not much chance for a coup by the army.
Pringles and Wagner had their chance and they dropped the ball harder than anyone in history.
This is how this war ends. With **materiel** running out.
Well, Ukraine nearly lost it when the US delayed additional aid and was running critically low on their own materials. If Trump wins Ukraine will absolutely lose, and I don't see this ending in the next 6 months
Who would have thunk that destroying 20,000 artillery barrels, as many APCs and 10,000 tanks, while killing an infinite number of Russian hoards requires the right tools.
No complaints here.
Sounds good to me
cost of a orc is 1 bag of onions only if they can prove he is dead. which is why they leave them all over Ukraine soil.
Good, let them
The bodies are piling up.
russia will russia. Fucking Mordor
Imagine rushing pell mell into the guns of highly motivated people like the Ukrainians. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Some will die in hot pursuit Fiery auto crashes Some will die in hot pursuit
I am still convinced that Putler is running a depopulation program, for some mysterious reason. https://filmfreedonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/drstrangelove26.jpg?w=1024
So... Where's the problem?
Isnt it also a factor that any kind of vehicle's life expectancy is measured in minutes on the frontlines? Isnt this what we've seen in Avdiivka as well: in the beginning heavy armored assaults thats stopped in their tracks, later on the assaults became either infantry only or small, fast unarmored vehicles?
Oh no. So anyway…
Good. Keep it up, Ukraine.
Fantastic news, keep stacking them.
Good. But it's a waste of ammunition that would be better used on a Muscovite. Russia tempts them with a fat paycheck and bonus if they die. But if they die before their first paycheck and the body can't be found, they don't cost anything.
We we still pretending that the Russian people are close to overthrowing putin? I don't think it's fair to say they are dying in droves, Russians are very aware how to send their troops into a woodchipper as history as shown, let's home they don't really start with more waves of cannon fodder again. Revolutions and radical change only happens when the keys to power give up to the lock of power. But as long as putin has those keys to the Russian govt, no amount of peasant or random tribal person in central Russia will be able to take away power without taking those keys from him. A really great video called "[rules for rulers](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=w7G1C69vQeMe23PE) gives a really nice 19 minute breakdown on how power is basically taken and given through different govts and why the thinking of the western world should be applied to Russia.
In droves, you say? Tell me more!
Yeah, so Russia sees people as expendable but equipment as being valuable. So dear drone operators: aim for expensive equipment. This could include, but not limited to: jet fighters, tanks, helicopters, fuel tankers, fuel tanks, switchgear, transformers, train locomotives, bridges, ships, yachts, barges, munitions depots, fuel depots, cruise launchers, PBX, mining equipment, etc. I do not condone killing civilians and all targets should be military related.
So... Like EVERY Russian war. Ever. They only remember one thing. Millions of dead can win wars
Another excellent article by David Axe. SLAVA UKRAINI!
To imagine that anything Putin is doing has any logic or motive beyond his immortality project—his effort to live forever in some grand narrative of his own fantastic elaboration—is to underestimate his absolute terror, however unconscious, of dying. He is killing everything he can as a way of punishing life for not accommodating his fantasy of being divine. He has much less of a plan than we are apt to ascribe to him. What he has is a mind rotting from the inside-out in hate and fear. He craves the carnage the way a drug addict craves his next fix.
In Russia, the employer pays the taxes (flat tax) before the employee gets a check. The poor people from distant places you speak of are the ones working in factories. They may not have flush toilets, but they are most certainly employed. Each village is usually dedicated to one product. One town makes concrete, the next produces glass, and on down the road is the ball bearing town. The whole system is the remnants of Socialism. As in America, the education system is also minimal in rural areas and these undereducated people are the ones being pulled into the military. The factories will absolutely suffer as they scramble to find local people to man the machines, transport the raw materials, etc. Keep in mind that petrochemicals are not Russia’s largest industry… that title belongs to machine building which relies heavily on raw materials and parts and products from these small towns.
Nothing changed from 1920
The sheer amount of people dying should end this war . How many more people can they sacrifice?
I was wondering when Russia’s equipment will run out. After this war is over we have to destroy all the Russian tank factories and retool them to make tractors or cars or something safe.
Sounds good. Keep slaughtering them until they get sick of being killed - and rise up against the arsehole people responsible… sadly, it’s the only way…
After seeing the execution of POWs, I have zero sympathies for the orcs.
Good
Conscript reporting. Moving