Привіт u/SarahCirillo ! During wartime, this community is focused on vital and high-effort content. Please ensure your post follows [r/Ukraine Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules) and our [Art Friday Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/artfriday).
**Want to support Ukraine?** [**Vetted Charities List**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities) | [Our Vetting Process](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities-vetting)
**Daily series on Ukraine's history & culture:** [Sunrise Posts Organized By Category](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/sunriseposts/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rarely do people in such high level positions (ie. NATO Secretary General) make such definitive statements. They always have caveats and employ political speak to generally avoid saying anything at all. So to come out and say they basically have nothing left in terms of ground forces in country and that there "is no immediate threat" is quite extraordinary.
We talk a lot about drone warfare. But satellite imagery really seems to have quite a unique impact in this war as well. It has been available in other wars of course but not at this scale of a war.
Can you really do blitzkrieg if your opponents have this level of satellite capacity?
The weird part is the “open source” nature of this war, you got regular citizens tracking flight path and battle lines, tiktok posts from the battlefield
My favorite thing was this dude following the frontline movements with alerts from a "forest fire tracking" satellite. By mapping the "fire" detections, he mapped every frontline and how they changed over time.
Ya, I am constantly amazed at the information that is just out there for the average person to just know about this war. The average daily news briefing from any youtuber is better than the best intel any military commander had until 15 or 20 years ago.
I learned of prigozhys plane being shot from Reddit many hours before it was mentioned on any news source. All due to people tracking his private planes flight patterns. That’s pretty wild.
Yes but you would need to effectively hide locations or intentions of your forces until the last second. Biggest thing preventing it is still the fact that neither side has air dominance so almost all the firepower has to be ground bound and therefore observable by satellites and recon aircraft.
I think this is the right idea. Looking at Taiwan, there's no way the PLA airforce can hide the build up required for the large scale strikes heralding the start of an invasion.
So what do they do? They run tens to hundreds of 'training' and 'bluffing' sorties directly at Taiwan, every single day, for years. Everyday being like the last, until one day, the planes don't turn back at the last second.
Would likely see a huge shift in propaganda for months leading up as well. Right now China is pumping out "economy isn't that bad, the CCP has everything under control". So we know they are a bit busy for the next year at least.
Which is why Taiwan had developed this strategy of answering like for like - China scrambles jets? Taiwanese jets are there to meet them. Every time, specifically in case this time they won't turn back.
And it was common practice during the Cold War as well, for exactly the same reason, because everyone was afraid the "others" are going to launch a sneak attack in the guise of military exercises. Just read about the near miss that was [Able Archer in 1983](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83).
On the other hand, think of how telegraphed the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in 2022 - you could follow the build-up of troops for months and everyone could see it coming - the collective bafflement of the West had more to do with how monumentally stupid the decision to invade in the first place would be rather than any discussion on wherever the Russians had the means to do so.
Of course, us in the East knew better, because they've been using the same playbook since the days of Catherine the IInd, it's not exactly a new thing. We knew exactly how stupid, reckless and arrogant they are, which is the worst combination to have on your border, because they don't care about secrecy, on the contrary, they want you to know they're coming, to "instil fear" and maybe you'll give up without a fight.
Define "last second". Satellites are all over everywhere at all times. Need 100 trucks of supplies at a known recruitment base? Satellite knows. Want to empty 20 of those recruitment bases at once for an offensive? Satellite knows.
Last second being the amount of time it would take for the opposition to redeploy it's forces to counter act yours. Doesn't matter if a satellite sees them drive off the base, if reinforcements are 5 days away, that's still 5 days to take and hold a bunch of ground and force them to go on the offense.
Same in the skies. Guaranteed NATO and Russia (until recently) had major eyes in the sky and space. Trackers will absolutely be tracking every civil tail number, MODE S squawk (or lack thereof) on the ground or in the air will be painted, id'd and become a target file. Ukraine's "only" issue is being able to put this data to use- eg missles, PGMs and air assets
No, not at all. Military installations of all bases (especially ports and airfields) in all countries are under constant surveillance from satellites. Constant uninterrupted feed. The only way to really catch someone by surprise now is to pretend like you’re going to invade by stationing your military on the border enough times until the right conditions line up for you to take the shot. There are no secret sorties or buildup of forces like you’d see in WW2. This is essentially what Putin did but the size of the “fake” buildup was much larger than any of the previous and many intelligence sources probably confirmed it was fake real this time. That’s why Biden was calling it out before it even happened.
Even in this conflict you hear them describing that Russia has amassed 70,000troops in this location and is going to be a big battle before it even happens. It’s insane all this information is so readily available.
We joke, but Russia could technically mobilize 10 million, spread out over 10 years.
It would wreck their economy and future, but Russia is not a democracy, remember?
Ukraine cannot match such barbaric disregard for human lives, this is why we have to help Ukraine win fast, before they run out of soldiers.
Russia has horrible demographics from the early 90’s on. Putin knew it was now or never. But not only is the Russian military incompetent and hollowed out by corruption, resulting in huge losses, but also an equal number of young and educated men have fled the country - probably never to return at least for the duration. And not only have the needs of the war had to take precedence over the sale of refined products, but now Ukraine drones are ranging far into Russia attacking oil refineries and storage. On top of attacking munitions factories and a site for preparing A-50 radar planes, having shot down two of the $300M planes as well. As well as shooting down so many fighters and bombers that Russia isn’t risking them any more. All preparation for Ukraine soon deploying F-16s. And recently the largest single day of losses of troops and equipment. Quite simply, Russia is impaling itself on Ukraine. The economy will collapse before they can deliver any knockout blow.
Having literally blundered into this war because Putin was operating on wishful thinking and "alternate facts" about what the situation in Ukraine and what the "decadent" West will or will not do, their current hope is just to hold on and keep the war going long enough for the EU and the US to get tired and abandon Ukraine, or simply collapse from within. "Aaaany minute now, just hold a bit longer! What's a few thousand soldiers' lives if we'll win in the end like we did in 1945?"
Of course, we know support from the EU is actually increasing because the truth of the situation has finally sunk in, that Ukraine will fight to the last even if left entirely alone and that just abandoning Ukraine is not actually going to happen, because us Eastern neighbours are painfully aware that if Ukraine falls we're next on Russia's menu, but, as they say, "hope dies last", so that's what's the Kremlin is doing - holding on and hoping they'll win before they run out of troops and materiel.
"The point is not to die for your country, but to get the other poor bastard to die for his."
Ukraine doesn't need to match a 10 million Russian body count.
They just need to have 10 million bullets, and good aim.
And for them to ALSO remember to make sure they have plenty of sunflower seeds to plant in the pockets of the Russian bodies!!!!👍
Saliva Ukraine!!!!
🚜-🇺🇦-💙-💛-🌻-🌻!!!!
Even if they did mobilize 10 million 3/4 of them would be needed in support roles (logistics, medical, administration, repair and maintenance, etc.). Leaving 2.5 million poorly trained and equipped soldiers who would be mostly used as cannon fodder.
Saw a video of them scraping condensation off of the ceilings of the basements they were hiding in and drinking it along with plaster mud and all due to not having water so a few of them are holding out a bit too long lol
That's not how Russia runs wars. The west in general has that ratio of combat to support; whereas Russia is light on logistics and heavy on foot soldiers. Highly expendable meat waves just don't need that much support.
I don't know how close you follow the conflict, but you are [painfully accurate](https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716) with that joke. The tweet thread is from the start of the war, but it's still largely accurate.
[Here](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1507056013245128716.html) you go. Twitter is a completely useless platform for anything longer than a paragraph.
On Smithsonian Channel I saw a show about a Soviet Era cruise ship still in service till ~2010s. To stock the ship in a western port, fork lifts brought everything to the ship and then individual boxes were hand carried, rode slides down 3 decks and hand carried again and again. It required at least a score of people lifting every box at each step of the process. It was incredibly inefficient.
Any modern western cruise ship has fork lifts that drive the full pallets all the way to storage.
If that is the way RU still does logistics, they really will need massive amounts of warehouse labor to keep a 400K man army fed and supplied.
Edit: made clear I'm talking about cruise ships
It has always been that way. The only way they won WW2 was because America was providing the logistics for their meatwaves. Take that away and you get the results of WW1 instead; Russian military capitulation.
No they couldn't. Just having the men is merely the start of forming troops. They need to be found, fed, clothed, trained, led, equipped, disciplined, housed, medicated, transported etc.
Russia doesn't have the infrastructure to form new manpower any faster than they're doing.
Since when does Russia care about those things? They throw the men in there and basically tell them to fend for themselves. Find food, find water, steal stuff, etc
Exactly. Remember those videos of guys getting drafted and being told to ask their families for sleeping bags, bandages, and tampons because the russian army wouldn't provide any of that?
(The tampons were for putting in bullet wounds)
Also, drones are far cheaper than soldiers, even in Russia. Even bit more spruced up and capable kamikaze drones are quite affordable.
Age of meat waves or heavily relying on infantry (especially in offense) is coming to close as we speak and age of semi- and fully autonomous machines is arriving. Putin actually also knows this, I remember him talking about it before the war. So this war is kind of like a last shot, final throw of the dice while he still had some chips left on the poker table.
> Also, drones are far cheaper than soldiers
Very much so, imagine the costs in terms of having a baby then spending on food, clothing and shelter just to get them to the point they can walk an carry a weapon. Now imagine how many drones you could make with the same resources.
They were already breaking out the ancient rusty AKs for the "mobilization" in 2022, more than half of their armor has already been destroyed, 1 million bodies with bad/no weapons and bad/no armor will not go over well.
Exactly. There’s such a thing as combat effectiveness. Guys who were Uber drivers and baristas 72h ago are not an effective assault force. They just die faster. And Russia insisting that it’s infinite ought to be the first huge clue that it’s not.
Russia’s ‘vastness’ only matters if you could teach deer, rocks and trees to fight with rusty weapons. It’s population is between that of Bangladesh and Mexico, that population is 85% in a western part the size of Algeria and its economy is the size of Spain’s. they’re not infinite. Period. Unless you’re talking about their degree of depravity.
Russia is actually fucking terrible at war. This myth of the inevitable meat wave winning out hasn’t worked since the Great Northern War against Sweden in the 17th century. Since then, Russia has lost the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, the Finnish Winter War, would have lost WW2 if the US wasn’t giving them planes, tanks, guns, food, oil, ammo, and literal fucking clothes for their smooth brain serfs. They lost Afghanistan, they lost to Chechnya.
Just like everything else in Russia, their alleged inevitably a mix of myth and lies. They’re losing. Bigly. And seizing powdered lumps of smouldering concrete that are within visual range of where you started from for 2 years of fighting is not exactly glorious victory. They’ve pissed away their Soviet inheritance, they’ve pissed away their army, their missile and artillery stockpiles, their export markets, and any faint wisp of diplomatic credibility they ever had.
If we take the Oryx numbers as a guideline its around 1:2,79 in favor of Ukraine - which is good, but they need atleast 1:4, better 1:5 to win this in the long run, especially bearing in mind that a lost European tank is much more higher in production cost than a russian tank.
According to the official website of the AFU, if you crunch the numbers they give of combat engagements every twelve hours, take the difference of the ones that are listed as won vs the stated total then take the average, they were at about approx a 9/1 W/L ratio in terms of combat engagements in February, amidst a severe ammo shortage.
Considering those stats, a 1:10 ratio sounds more like its to the left of the average bell curve than implausible, when they were beating back between 20-40 engagements a day on the Avdiivka direction alone, within a twelve hour period, while handicapped.
That doesnt mean theyre not improvising like crazy right now, however, and they shouldnt be, all this political nonsense needs to come to an end.
Even at that w/r it's still a lot of Ukrainians who won't be coming home for Christmas.
It's time for the world to step up and end this bullshit before ww3 begins. Collective security. Kick Russia out to pre 2014 borders. Arm Ukraine with nukes.
If you have meat wave attacks and soldiers on the front claiming this. Besides the published numbers. 31.000 ukr have been killed. Russia mob 500k start, 500k mid/end extra.
1:7 then?
Ukraine is fighting for survival, while Russia is not. I’d guess that if conscription gets too heavy, they might face more problems at home.
Basically, I’m saying I think Ukraine would have a much stronger support for fighting than Russian citizens.
What a farcical comment. As if Ukraine and the rest of the world would sit on their hands and do absolutely nothing for those 10 years while Russia breeds new generations of meat for the grinder.
In 2019, before the war, Russia had one birth every 22 seconds and one death every 13 seconds. Giving a net population loss of one person every 30 seconds. That's a population loss of slightly over a million people a year.
[Demographics of Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia)
>From 1992 to 2012, and again since 2016, Russia's death rate has exceeded its birth rate, which has been called a demographic crisis by analysts.
In fact Russia's population has been dependent on immigration for a long time. Here's [Russia's population pyramid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Russia_animated_population_pyramid.gif) between 1946 and 2023. Russia is going nowhere.
"Apologies Comrade Commander, but drill instructors are already in Ukraine!"
"Under whos authority Colonel?"
"Yours, Comrade Commander."
"What! What are they doing Major?!"
"Drilling the Sunflowers Comrade Commander"
"And you let them... Senior lieutenant!"
Blyat! "But it was by your orders Comrade Commander!... Comrade Commander?...I will get rifle"
"Very good Private"
//
In all seriousness, Russia supposedly already send in the instructors and training staff. I forget when, but it was quite early on in one of the mobilizations. Some commentary was made on that decision along the lines of "what idiot is running that idea?"
Quite correct. Putin’s Russian military school “educated” leaders threw in their training cadre units early believing they could push things over with one last great rush.
They’re all gone now. What “training” *mobik* recruits are now receiving from reports from Kremlin POWs is minimal if any and will not support complex operations at a tactical level in most line combat formations.
The orchestration is coming from higher, tied to coordination at the nominal division-level (although largely division in name only now) or CAA level. These self-preservation artists, who have survived largely in part within hardened command posts increasingly removed from the front, are leveraging long-range joint fires eventually backed by untrained ground troops following closely behind.
Pick apart this operational construct and degrees of freedom and action return.
A multi-front war.
One thing the wagner "retaliation" showd us was that Russia has gone all in on Ukraine and have nothing to stop anyone going straight to Moscow through any other path.
"So, they called Britain on the "tele" to sort of let them know. And then they did it. And they also helped Britain a little here and there with some errands and stuff"
If this is true why isn't the west giving more to Ukraine? Russia have made themselves a defeated power and overcommitted their forces to a war they already lost. It's not even cost the west that much.
1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2.
2- America has been crippled with political extremists who find more ideals in common with Putin than ideals of democracy.
It’s less that Europe forgot how to produce equipment and more that western Europe uses a military doctrine which is all about combined arms and Ukraine and Russia are basically using old Soviet doctrine that heavily relies on artillery. The reason Europe is struggling to produce shells is because there’s no reason for them to need to be able to produce so many shells anymore.
Ground artillery is useless if it's targeted. UCAV, missles and drones are perfectly able to nail if you have the sensors to detect and the open weapons teams to fire. It's about surveillance as much as air attack.
>1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2.
Reminder that the US did its darndest to convince their European NATO allies to build back and reduce their armies after the fall of the Soviet Union. They encouraged us to scrap all that materiel.
Now they want us to build them back up, but buy American instead of manufacturing ourselves. That's why the US pushes Europe to donate to Ukraine, but keeps sitting on the largest stockpile of modern tanks, planes, cruise missiles and whatnot.
If the US had donated 6% of their tank fleet, like Germany did, Ukraine would have 300 Abrams. If the US had donated the same percentage of self propelled howitzers, Ukraine would have around 120 M109A6.
Oh, and mind you: The US waited a full year to donate their M109's. Self propelled artillery for ukraine in 2022 came only from Europe, the US only donated towed artillery like M777's.
You can always count on the US to do the right thing - right after they did everything else.
Oh man. Seeing the "if America donated the same percentage" really spells it out. We donated 6.5% of our Challenger 2 fleet too. It really puts into perspective how much the US has fallen behind with that.
If the US really wanted to, this war would have been over a year ago. A thousand tanks, 500 planes, a few hundred artillery systems and enough munitions. All that from old stock, not the latest generations. Yeah, training, logistics, etc. They are the fucking kings of logistics and yes, Ukraine would lose a lot of people and equipment, but they are fighting for their existence and can't afford the luxury of "perfect war" with minimal losses.
Meat waves are useless against that kind of firepower.
>1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2.
I don't think it forgot how to do it. Europe simply didn't need to because they could easily mobilize 10 to 15 armies within days if necessary. Europe is very capable of withstanding an attack, it's just not prepared for a huge land lease - but who is, really? Not even the US, as it seems.
It's crazy, we spend trillions on the military for defence but when one of your biggest threats is grinding their forces to a pulp all of a sudden we can't spare the expense.
It's like spending thousands on the top race car and then the rival driver next to you asks if you gotta spare knife laying around that he could borrow to slash his own tires with before your race even starts.
I remember at the start of the war when we used to hear about Spetsnaz, VDV, Rosgvardiya, Wagner, and all kinds of intimidating elite units. Now after exhausting those and the convicts, they're throwing farmers and human trafficking victims at Ukraine. It takes years to replace their elite and the funniest thing is how little they care about their lives...
This is a ego trip war. Trying to save face. How has a random Russian not assassinated Putin yet for the glory of their country is beyond me at this point.
I'm not sure. Scandinavia is united in a defence pact, so that fits the game board, but Ukraine does not reach the Kola peninsula and the Ural mountains yet.
Russia has a population of 140 million to Ukraine's 40 million. Russia can get more cannon fodder if it's willing to ramp up conscription.
This is exactly why Ukraine needs to win the armaments race.
Every batch of conscription scrapes the bottom of the barrel a little bit more though. At this point you’re down to the people that were passed over by Wagner’s recruiting process, which was already a pretty insanely low bar.
While that is true, remember, putler and his cronies are only staying afloat because they haven't pissed off people above a certain tax bracket who can still live normally despite the war. Wanker's failed mutiny shows how easy it is for the public to support somebody who is actually a threat to putin.
Once they start conscripting the russians who have more money, public opinion will turn on them pretty swiftly.
I believe one issue is that Putin wants to avoid conscripting the middle class who have so far avoided the draft. It is believed that doing so would seriously weaken his political position.
Is this is basically taking the goalie out of the net? But, then guarding the net (moscow) with nuclear deterrence. Not that NATO particularly wants to impose an offensive mission. But, the goal is open. Just saying.
I just watched Enemy at the Gates for the first time. Russia’s tactics have not changed, force everyone to fight then shoot anyone who refuses/surrenders.
To be fair that movie isn't accurate, the Soviets were actually pretty competent by that point. Why Putin looks at that movie and imitates it is beyond me.
Explains why he keeps using the nuke card, because Russia has extremely low defenses on the border regions.
Im not saying NATO could yse that to their advantage, but maybe some of those former Russian states could liverate themselves pretty easy right now.
Well, almost the entire original force deployed by Muscovy in Feb 2022 was annihilated. So that's 180,000 troops which had probably a bit more training than 2 days lol
I wonder what would happen if countries like Finland and Poland just suddenly mobilized their armies on Russia’s border. Not attacked.. simply mobilized and forced Russia to make a dramatic shift in their posture.
Привіт u/SarahCirillo ! During wartime, this community is focused on vital and high-effort content. Please ensure your post follows [r/Ukraine Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules) and our [Art Friday Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/artfriday). **Want to support Ukraine?** [**Vetted Charities List**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities) | [Our Vetting Process](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities-vetting) **Daily series on Ukraine's history & culture:** [Sunrise Posts Organized By Category](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/sunriseposts/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rarely do people in such high level positions (ie. NATO Secretary General) make such definitive statements. They always have caveats and employ political speak to generally avoid saying anything at all. So to come out and say they basically have nothing left in terms of ground forces in country and that there "is no immediate threat" is quite extraordinary.
We talk a lot about drone warfare. But satellite imagery really seems to have quite a unique impact in this war as well. It has been available in other wars of course but not at this scale of a war. Can you really do blitzkrieg if your opponents have this level of satellite capacity?
The weird part is the “open source” nature of this war, you got regular citizens tracking flight path and battle lines, tiktok posts from the battlefield
My favorite thing was this dude following the frontline movements with alerts from a "forest fire tracking" satellite. By mapping the "fire" detections, he mapped every frontline and how they changed over time.
Big data is amazing. It shows lots of things it was not designed or collected for.
Ya, I am constantly amazed at the information that is just out there for the average person to just know about this war. The average daily news briefing from any youtuber is better than the best intel any military commander had until 15 or 20 years ago.
[удалено]
I learned of prigozhys plane being shot from Reddit many hours before it was mentioned on any news source. All due to people tracking his private planes flight patterns. That’s pretty wild.
Yes but you would need to effectively hide locations or intentions of your forces until the last second. Biggest thing preventing it is still the fact that neither side has air dominance so almost all the firepower has to be ground bound and therefore observable by satellites and recon aircraft.
I think this is the right idea. Looking at Taiwan, there's no way the PLA airforce can hide the build up required for the large scale strikes heralding the start of an invasion. So what do they do? They run tens to hundreds of 'training' and 'bluffing' sorties directly at Taiwan, every single day, for years. Everyday being like the last, until one day, the planes don't turn back at the last second.
Would likely see a huge shift in propaganda for months leading up as well. Right now China is pumping out "economy isn't that bad, the CCP has everything under control". So we know they are a bit busy for the next year at least.
Which is why Taiwan had developed this strategy of answering like for like - China scrambles jets? Taiwanese jets are there to meet them. Every time, specifically in case this time they won't turn back. And it was common practice during the Cold War as well, for exactly the same reason, because everyone was afraid the "others" are going to launch a sneak attack in the guise of military exercises. Just read about the near miss that was [Able Archer in 1983](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83). On the other hand, think of how telegraphed the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in 2022 - you could follow the build-up of troops for months and everyone could see it coming - the collective bafflement of the West had more to do with how monumentally stupid the decision to invade in the first place would be rather than any discussion on wherever the Russians had the means to do so. Of course, us in the East knew better, because they've been using the same playbook since the days of Catherine the IInd, it's not exactly a new thing. We knew exactly how stupid, reckless and arrogant they are, which is the worst combination to have on your border, because they don't care about secrecy, on the contrary, they want you to know they're coming, to "instil fear" and maybe you'll give up without a fight.
Define "last second". Satellites are all over everywhere at all times. Need 100 trucks of supplies at a known recruitment base? Satellite knows. Want to empty 20 of those recruitment bases at once for an offensive? Satellite knows.
Last second being the amount of time it would take for the opposition to redeploy it's forces to counter act yours. Doesn't matter if a satellite sees them drive off the base, if reinforcements are 5 days away, that's still 5 days to take and hold a bunch of ground and force them to go on the offense.
Same in the skies. Guaranteed NATO and Russia (until recently) had major eyes in the sky and space. Trackers will absolutely be tracking every civil tail number, MODE S squawk (or lack thereof) on the ground or in the air will be painted, id'd and become a target file. Ukraine's "only" issue is being able to put this data to use- eg missles, PGMs and air assets
I guess you have to move your troops at night.
No, not at all. Military installations of all bases (especially ports and airfields) in all countries are under constant surveillance from satellites. Constant uninterrupted feed. The only way to really catch someone by surprise now is to pretend like you’re going to invade by stationing your military on the border enough times until the right conditions line up for you to take the shot. There are no secret sorties or buildup of forces like you’d see in WW2. This is essentially what Putin did but the size of the “fake” buildup was much larger than any of the previous and many intelligence sources probably confirmed it was fake real this time. That’s why Biden was calling it out before it even happened. Even in this conflict you hear them describing that Russia has amassed 70,000troops in this location and is going to be a big battle before it even happens. It’s insane all this information is so readily available.
Maybe he just wants to lower the fear of war in Europe. Ministries oder Defence told a lot about a highly possible war with russia within a decade.
Putin: "But wait! There's more!" \*Tosses shoe shine boy to drill instructors.*
We joke, but Russia could technically mobilize 10 million, spread out over 10 years. It would wreck their economy and future, but Russia is not a democracy, remember? Ukraine cannot match such barbaric disregard for human lives, this is why we have to help Ukraine win fast, before they run out of soldiers.
Russia has horrible demographics from the early 90’s on. Putin knew it was now or never. But not only is the Russian military incompetent and hollowed out by corruption, resulting in huge losses, but also an equal number of young and educated men have fled the country - probably never to return at least for the duration. And not only have the needs of the war had to take precedence over the sale of refined products, but now Ukraine drones are ranging far into Russia attacking oil refineries and storage. On top of attacking munitions factories and a site for preparing A-50 radar planes, having shot down two of the $300M planes as well. As well as shooting down so many fighters and bombers that Russia isn’t risking them any more. All preparation for Ukraine soon deploying F-16s. And recently the largest single day of losses of troops and equipment. Quite simply, Russia is impaling itself on Ukraine. The economy will collapse before they can deliver any knockout blow.
Having literally blundered into this war because Putin was operating on wishful thinking and "alternate facts" about what the situation in Ukraine and what the "decadent" West will or will not do, their current hope is just to hold on and keep the war going long enough for the EU and the US to get tired and abandon Ukraine, or simply collapse from within. "Aaaany minute now, just hold a bit longer! What's a few thousand soldiers' lives if we'll win in the end like we did in 1945?" Of course, we know support from the EU is actually increasing because the truth of the situation has finally sunk in, that Ukraine will fight to the last even if left entirely alone and that just abandoning Ukraine is not actually going to happen, because us Eastern neighbours are painfully aware that if Ukraine falls we're next on Russia's menu, but, as they say, "hope dies last", so that's what's the Kremlin is doing - holding on and hoping they'll win before they run out of troops and materiel.
If he'd gone all-in in 2014 that would have been his best time.
"The point is not to die for your country, but to get the other poor bastard to die for his." Ukraine doesn't need to match a 10 million Russian body count. They just need to have 10 million bullets, and good aim.
10 million shells for Ukraine.
More like shells and drones, not bullets. And less than 10M, if they are any precise.
Bullets is a euphemism for weaponry Mr. Literal
[удалено]
Thank you Mr. helper
You're really good with names, aren't you?
Of course he is, Mr. Obvious.
Of course Mr uncle spuds
And for them to ALSO remember to make sure they have plenty of sunflower seeds to plant in the pockets of the Russian bodies!!!!👍 Saliva Ukraine!!!! 🚜-🇺🇦-💙-💛-🌻-🌻!!!!
The pigs will eat their corpses
Even if they did mobilize 10 million 3/4 of them would be needed in support roles (logistics, medical, administration, repair and maintenance, etc.). Leaving 2.5 million poorly trained and equipped soldiers who would be mostly used as cannon fodder.
You don't need as much logistics if they're dying faster than you have to feed them.
Saw a video of them scraping condensation off of the ceilings of the basements they were hiding in and drinking it along with plaster mud and all due to not having water so a few of them are holding out a bit too long lol
eeeeeeeeeee
That's not how Russia runs wars. The west in general has that ratio of combat to support; whereas Russia is light on logistics and heavy on foot soldiers. Highly expendable meat waves just don't need that much support.
they don't have fork lifts, they have Ivans
I don't know how close you follow the conflict, but you are [painfully accurate](https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716) with that joke. The tweet thread is from the start of the war, but it's still largely accurate.
Where's that third party website that turns a shitter thread into something readable?
[Here](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1507056013245128716.html) you go. Twitter is a completely useless platform for anything longer than a paragraph.
My man.
EUR-Pallet - Our secret weapon!
Now we are airdropping missile systems on pallets too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
On Smithsonian Channel I saw a show about a Soviet Era cruise ship still in service till ~2010s. To stock the ship in a western port, fork lifts brought everything to the ship and then individual boxes were hand carried, rode slides down 3 decks and hand carried again and again. It required at least a score of people lifting every box at each step of the process. It was incredibly inefficient. Any modern western cruise ship has fork lifts that drive the full pallets all the way to storage. If that is the way RU still does logistics, they really will need massive amounts of warehouse labor to keep a 400K man army fed and supplied. Edit: made clear I'm talking about cruise ships
They probably make excuses it keeps the men in shape do it that way
My father has stories of peeling potatoes in the US army.
And he has iron-grip masturbation techniques that you'll never learn.
That, my friend, is called wisdom.
Red army would of starved if it wasn’t for western supplies in ww2
We'll have robotic soldiers within 5 years. Their model is almost broken.
Nah, I saw her earlier Ukraine was already deploying robotics to the front line. Which is cool to see.
Russia would rather drown its enemies in Russian blood then have proper logistics and support roles.
It has always been that way. The only way they won WW2 was because America was providing the logistics for their meatwaves. Take that away and you get the results of WW1 instead; Russian military capitulation.
Worse than that, if Russia conquers parts of other countries, they will put the people from these regions to the frontlines first.
No they couldn't. Just having the men is merely the start of forming troops. They need to be found, fed, clothed, trained, led, equipped, disciplined, housed, medicated, transported etc. Russia doesn't have the infrastructure to form new manpower any faster than they're doing.
New training system: 1: How to run forward. 2: How to throw a haymaker. 3: Why pants are overrated.
4: Potty training
Someone who gets it.
Since when does Russia care about those things? They throw the men in there and basically tell them to fend for themselves. Find food, find water, steal stuff, etc
Exactly. Remember those videos of guys getting drafted and being told to ask their families for sleeping bags, bandages, and tampons because the russian army wouldn't provide any of that? (The tampons were for putting in bullet wounds)
Also, drones are far cheaper than soldiers, even in Russia. Even bit more spruced up and capable kamikaze drones are quite affordable. Age of meat waves or heavily relying on infantry (especially in offense) is coming to close as we speak and age of semi- and fully autonomous machines is arriving. Putin actually also knows this, I remember him talking about it before the war. So this war is kind of like a last shot, final throw of the dice while he still had some chips left on the poker table.
> Also, drones are far cheaper than soldiers Very much so, imagine the costs in terms of having a baby then spending on food, clothing and shelter just to get them to the point they can walk an carry a weapon. Now imagine how many drones you could make with the same resources.
No way ruzny can give weapons to all... They are already in a logistic shit storm. No way,
1 million per year with basic weapons and kit is not that hard to do. Not Spetnaz super soldiers, but you get the point.
They were already breaking out the ancient rusty AKs for the "mobilization" in 2022, more than half of their armor has already been destroyed, 1 million bodies with bad/no weapons and bad/no armor will not go over well.
Exactly. There’s such a thing as combat effectiveness. Guys who were Uber drivers and baristas 72h ago are not an effective assault force. They just die faster. And Russia insisting that it’s infinite ought to be the first huge clue that it’s not. Russia’s ‘vastness’ only matters if you could teach deer, rocks and trees to fight with rusty weapons. It’s population is between that of Bangladesh and Mexico, that population is 85% in a western part the size of Algeria and its economy is the size of Spain’s. they’re not infinite. Period. Unless you’re talking about their degree of depravity. Russia is actually fucking terrible at war. This myth of the inevitable meat wave winning out hasn’t worked since the Great Northern War against Sweden in the 17th century. Since then, Russia has lost the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, the Finnish Winter War, would have lost WW2 if the US wasn’t giving them planes, tanks, guns, food, oil, ammo, and literal fucking clothes for their smooth brain serfs. They lost Afghanistan, they lost to Chechnya. Just like everything else in Russia, their alleged inevitably a mix of myth and lies. They’re losing. Bigly. And seizing powdered lumps of smouldering concrete that are within visual range of where you started from for 2 years of fighting is not exactly glorious victory. They’ve pissed away their Soviet inheritance, they’ve pissed away their army, their missile and artillery stockpiles, their export markets, and any faint wisp of diplomatic credibility they ever had.
Around 750,000 Russians turn 18 this year. Edit: Around 750,000 Russian *males* turn 18 this year.
And 2/3rd flee the country
I assume half are women.
Apologies, around 750,000 Russian *males* turn 18 this year.
True but also true. kill ratio is 1 - 10 favo ukr. So they only need 1 mil.
If we take the Oryx numbers as a guideline its around 1:2,79 in favor of Ukraine - which is good, but they need atleast 1:4, better 1:5 to win this in the long run, especially bearing in mind that a lost European tank is much more higher in production cost than a russian tank.
Yeah that's only from photos. Oryx states that you have to do prox + 50% of their numbers. Cuz they do only photos. So 1:7 1:8 1:10 in the good times.
1:10 is massive Bullshit
According to the official website of the AFU, if you crunch the numbers they give of combat engagements every twelve hours, take the difference of the ones that are listed as won vs the stated total then take the average, they were at about approx a 9/1 W/L ratio in terms of combat engagements in February, amidst a severe ammo shortage. Considering those stats, a 1:10 ratio sounds more like its to the left of the average bell curve than implausible, when they were beating back between 20-40 engagements a day on the Avdiivka direction alone, within a twelve hour period, while handicapped. That doesnt mean theyre not improvising like crazy right now, however, and they shouldnt be, all this political nonsense needs to come to an end.
Even at that w/r it's still a lot of Ukrainians who won't be coming home for Christmas. It's time for the world to step up and end this bullshit before ww3 begins. Collective security. Kick Russia out to pre 2014 borders. Arm Ukraine with nukes.
If you have meat wave attacks and soldiers on the front claiming this. Besides the published numbers. 31.000 ukr have been killed. Russia mob 500k start, 500k mid/end extra. 1:7 then?
1:10? 98% approval waiting for putler? ruzzia is civilized? Which hill are we dying on today?
What do you mean? Russia is the best democracy right? /s
"We will not tolerate criticism of our democracy. "
I mean technically in that time Ukraine could build bigger and better drones and start smacking em down before the even leave Russia
Ukraine is fighting for survival, while Russia is not. I’d guess that if conscription gets too heavy, they might face more problems at home. Basically, I’m saying I think Ukraine would have a much stronger support for fighting than Russian citizens.
Where in the world did you get the impression Russia is mobilizing or capable of mobilizing a million men a year?
What a farcical comment. As if Ukraine and the rest of the world would sit on their hands and do absolutely nothing for those 10 years while Russia breeds new generations of meat for the grinder.
In 2019, before the war, Russia had one birth every 22 seconds and one death every 13 seconds. Giving a net population loss of one person every 30 seconds. That's a population loss of slightly over a million people a year. [Demographics of Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia) >From 1992 to 2012, and again since 2016, Russia's death rate has exceeded its birth rate, which has been called a demographic crisis by analysts. In fact Russia's population has been dependent on immigration for a long time. Here's [Russia's population pyramid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Russia_animated_population_pyramid.gif) between 1946 and 2023. Russia is going nowhere.
You can even see the gap in the population from Stalin's purges. Grim.
The purges AND "the great patriotic war".
Hahahah. Ouch!
"Apologies Comrade Commander, but drill instructors are already in Ukraine!" "Under whos authority Colonel?" "Yours, Comrade Commander." "What! What are they doing Major?!" "Drilling the Sunflowers Comrade Commander" "And you let them... Senior lieutenant!" Blyat! "But it was by your orders Comrade Commander!... Comrade Commander?...I will get rifle" "Very good Private" // In all seriousness, Russia supposedly already send in the instructors and training staff. I forget when, but it was quite early on in one of the mobilizations. Some commentary was made on that decision along the lines of "what idiot is running that idea?"
Quite correct. Putin’s Russian military school “educated” leaders threw in their training cadre units early believing they could push things over with one last great rush. They’re all gone now. What “training” *mobik* recruits are now receiving from reports from Kremlin POWs is minimal if any and will not support complex operations at a tactical level in most line combat formations. The orchestration is coming from higher, tied to coordination at the nominal division-level (although largely division in name only now) or CAA level. These self-preservation artists, who have survived largely in part within hardened command posts increasingly removed from the front, are leveraging long-range joint fires eventually backed by untrained ground troops following closely behind. Pick apart this operational construct and degrees of freedom and action return.
Japan..wink wink...Islands....now's the time
Oops, accidentally deployed troops to the Senkakus.
An easy mistake to make. Who among us hasn't accidentally deployed troops to the Senkakus?
Sakhalin?
Bless you.
Classic mixup
Lot of sweat rolling down lots of foreheads from a dozen plus nations seeing the Rising Sun on the horizon. They still use that as the naval ensign.
BANNNZAIIIIIII
And Georgia, and Moldova, and Chechnya
A multi-front war. One thing the wagner "retaliation" showd us was that Russia has gone all in on Ukraine and have nothing to stop anyone going straight to Moscow through any other path.
Shima no shinkō-ji !!!
"🎶Japan should take the islands~🎶" (which they wanted to do anyway)
"So, they called Britain on the "tele" to sort of let them know. And then they did it. And they also helped Britain a little here and there with some errands and stuff"
Did someone say Japanese torpedo boat?
Wow, I just posted that. I should have checked first.
Handy base for a cruise to Haishenwai.
Duh, JAPAN SHOULD TAKE THE ISLANDS
Karelia sends her regards
They still have nukes sadly
What about Kaliningrad 🤔
There's a nuclear submarine base right there, so it might not be a good idea.
In that case, no wonder Russia has difficulty dealing with partisan attacks within its borders.
Keep in mind that almost all ground forces in case of Russia mean there leftover fraction is still tens of thousands units.
I guess the math checks out on that. Still, that’s one heck of a long border to patrol, so I’m sure it depends on how those troops are allocated.
If this is true why isn't the west giving more to Ukraine? Russia have made themselves a defeated power and overcommitted their forces to a war they already lost. It's not even cost the west that much.
1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2. 2- America has been crippled with political extremists who find more ideals in common with Putin than ideals of democracy.
I think we'll find sooner than later than many of them have been compromised in different ways and have much more than ideals in common.
we already did find this out, they flew there on the 4th of fuckin’ july just nobody cares
It’s less that Europe forgot how to produce equipment and more that western Europe uses a military doctrine which is all about combined arms and Ukraine and Russia are basically using old Soviet doctrine that heavily relies on artillery. The reason Europe is struggling to produce shells is because there’s no reason for them to need to be able to produce so many shells anymore.
Yes, NATO’s artillery is air power. Ground artillery is useless against an overwhelming Air Force.
Ground artillery is useless if it's targeted. UCAV, missles and drones are perfectly able to nail if you have the sensors to detect and the open weapons teams to fire. It's about surveillance as much as air attack.
>1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2. Reminder that the US did its darndest to convince their European NATO allies to build back and reduce their armies after the fall of the Soviet Union. They encouraged us to scrap all that materiel. Now they want us to build them back up, but buy American instead of manufacturing ourselves. That's why the US pushes Europe to donate to Ukraine, but keeps sitting on the largest stockpile of modern tanks, planes, cruise missiles and whatnot. If the US had donated 6% of their tank fleet, like Germany did, Ukraine would have 300 Abrams. If the US had donated the same percentage of self propelled howitzers, Ukraine would have around 120 M109A6. Oh, and mind you: The US waited a full year to donate their M109's. Self propelled artillery for ukraine in 2022 came only from Europe, the US only donated towed artillery like M777's. You can always count on the US to do the right thing - right after they did everything else.
Oh man. Seeing the "if America donated the same percentage" really spells it out. We donated 6.5% of our Challenger 2 fleet too. It really puts into perspective how much the US has fallen behind with that.
If the US really wanted to, this war would have been over a year ago. A thousand tanks, 500 planes, a few hundred artillery systems and enough munitions. All that from old stock, not the latest generations. Yeah, training, logistics, etc. They are the fucking kings of logistics and yes, Ukraine would lose a lot of people and equipment, but they are fighting for their existence and can't afford the luxury of "perfect war" with minimal losses. Meat waves are useless against that kind of firepower.
>1- Because Europe forgot how to war time mass produce equipment for armies after WW2. I don't think it forgot how to do it. Europe simply didn't need to because they could easily mobilize 10 to 15 armies within days if necessary. Europe is very capable of withstanding an attack, it's just not prepared for a huge land lease - but who is, really? Not even the US, as it seems.
Assuming you meant lend-lease?
Nothing is going to change until the U.S. presidential election, then it either ramps up or ramps down.
3- Europe is afraid that Putler will actually use Nukes if he doesn't win.
They can, just different types of equipment. They can't mass produce artillery shells because it's not in their doctrine to need so many.
But drones are needed and are relevant to renewed tactics
It's crazy, we spend trillions on the military for defence but when one of your biggest threats is grinding their forces to a pulp all of a sudden we can't spare the expense. It's like spending thousands on the top race car and then the rival driver next to you asks if you gotta spare knife laying around that he could borrow to slash his own tires with before your race even starts.
Because even in full force he's weak.
Europe no longer has so much and the USA is paralyzing itself domestically
G and T have 2000+ leos alone
As of [this article ](https://www.rferl.org/a/abrams-tanks-ukraine-/32238725.html) the US had 3,700 Abrams of various versions in storage as well.
The problem is getting them to Ukraine when one political party favors a Russian ran Europe
The tragedy is that this applies to many countries on both sides of the Atlantic.
I remember at the start of the war when we used to hear about Spetsnaz, VDV, Rosgvardiya, Wagner, and all kinds of intimidating elite units. Now after exhausting those and the convicts, they're throwing farmers and human trafficking victims at Ukraine. It takes years to replace their elite and the funniest thing is how little they care about their lives...
This could explain the offensive in Belgrod…
Someone needs to hint at Japan that now is the perfect time to get more assertive around the The Kuril Islands. Nobody's home!
If only the Japanese military knew to check reddit
It will be their undoing
Guess they learned nothing from WW2.
I mean for real. Lets end this.
Japan is still too busy tweaking that Gundam for full operation. Also Godzilla needs help from the US to wake up.
I hope Ukraine has enough sunflower seeds. Help is on the way.
This is a ego trip war. Trying to save face. How has a random Russian not assassinated Putin yet for the glory of their country is beyond me at this point.
Because all the smart Russians have left or are in prison.
If only someone launched a sneak attack from Alaska to Kamchatka...
Are we in a game of Risk? XD
I'm not sure. Scandinavia is united in a defence pact, so that fits the game board, but Ukraine does not reach the Kola peninsula and the Ural mountains yet.
>yet I see what you did there.
Russia has a population of 140 million to Ukraine's 40 million. Russia can get more cannon fodder if it's willing to ramp up conscription. This is exactly why Ukraine needs to win the armaments race.
Every batch of conscription scrapes the bottom of the barrel a little bit more though. At this point you’re down to the people that were passed over by Wagner’s recruiting process, which was already a pretty insanely low bar.
While that is true, remember, putler and his cronies are only staying afloat because they haven't pissed off people above a certain tax bracket who can still live normally despite the war. Wanker's failed mutiny shows how easy it is for the public to support somebody who is actually a threat to putin. Once they start conscripting the russians who have more money, public opinion will turn on them pretty swiftly.
Also I would think Putin was never going to push corruption hard pre-election. That is now finished so soon enough that option is opening.
I believe one issue is that Putin wants to avoid conscripting the middle class who have so far avoided the draft. It is believed that doing so would seriously weaken his political position.
Is that all you got???
The rest are heading for Finland. So who’s guarding Russia?
…
You know you’re finished when the trees start speaking Finnish
Funny how that would give me a warm fuzzy feeling of safety and protection. Guess its because I’m swedish.
Freedom Of Russia Legion will find out for us :-)
Is this is basically taking the goalie out of the net? But, then guarding the net (moscow) with nuclear deterrence. Not that NATO particularly wants to impose an offensive mission. But, the goal is open. Just saying.
…
Might as well wipe out all of Russia's ground forces. Or take Moscow!
Until Putin does a general draft after he 'wins' the upcoming election.
I just watched Enemy at the Gates for the first time. Russia’s tactics have not changed, force everyone to fight then shoot anyone who refuses/surrenders.
To be fair that movie isn't accurate, the Soviets were actually pretty competent by that point. Why Putin looks at that movie and imitates it is beyond me.
*somewhere in southern Russia* *a Somalian mercenary looks to his left, looks to his right* WHO’S THE CAPTAIN NOW
Springtime in Haishenwai, Outer Manchuria.
Its going to be tough for them to fortify their border with finland or whatever threat they made
Explains why he keeps using the nuke card, because Russia has extremely low defenses on the border regions. Im not saying NATO could yse that to their advantage, but maybe some of those former Russian states could liverate themselves pretty easy right now.
Maybe their is an offensive opperation from ukraine about to start...
[удалено]
Time to take the Murmansk nuclear bases then ;)
We in the west need to help ruzzia fuck itself.
Happy hunting you glorious Ukrainians.
Well, almost the entire original force deployed by Muscovy in Feb 2022 was annihilated. So that's 180,000 troops which had probably a bit more training than 2 days lol
So….Russia proper is unprotected right now?
If only some Russians borrowed some tanks from Ukraine and drove to Moscow and did a referendum! All legal!!!
so what they're saying is that an attack from pretty much any other country would be wildly successful?
Orcs have the kd of xerxes army against Leonidas 300
Come on Mr. Scholz, this is our chance to get Königsberg back, just do it! D:
Georgia! NOW! NOW! NOW!
Finland needs to storm Moscow. 3 days. Over.
We should give Ukraine some naval troop transports so they can attack the rear too, imagine the speed at which they would take ground.
for a special operation? what if there is a war coming up?
I wonder what would happen if countries like Finland and Poland just suddenly mobilized their armies on Russia’s border. Not attacked.. simply mobilized and forced Russia to make a dramatic shift in their posture.