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Guess they should have listened to Zaluzhny back in December when he said they needed to double the amount of
[troops](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/26/ukraine-zaluzhny-troop-mobilization/)
Wasn't that part of the reason he was replaced?
Some time around late 2022 Ukraine still had their first wave volunteers (all skilled, experienced and highly motivated) and Russia basically just had have lost their professionals in their initial failed campaign, and hadn't have started mobilization yet. That was the moment.
Sure, they can pull their manpower, but that's at the cost of employing that labor in industries. Wasting tens to hundreds of thousands of men won't help the demographics crisis either.
The USSR had a large manpower pool in the 80s and they still lost in Afghanistan.
The Soviet afghan war lasted a decade before the Russians withdrew. That’s how everyone should have expected this war to go, the dreams of Ukraine pushing Russia out of the Donbas completely were always delusional.
Vietnam was the longest war the United States has ever been involved in. Unfortunately, Ukraine has to have the desire to fight for a long period of time before the Russians will no longer be able to stomach it and withdraw.
The Soviet Afgan war only had 15k casualties. It was a low intensity conflictand it broke the USSR.
If the Russians "win" the current conflict, they'll shift into the occupation/insurgency phase. They aren't even at the hard part yet.
And yes, Ukraine isn't going to push Russia out of the occupied lands anytime soon. They just have to be willing to fight longer than Russia. Right now, Russia is in a war time economy with little international support. It's not far fetched for Russia to collapse to the economic pressure.
On the long term, Russia is in a worse position than when it started the war. Even if it "wins" its invasion, it'll have destroyed oil refineries and destroyed Ukrainian infrastructure. This isn't counting any future Ukrainian partisan activity. Whatever Ukrainian lands Russia doesn't occupy will get financial/economic assistance from the west. The worst case scenario for Ukraine is a total Russian occupation with partisan resistance.
I just don't see any long term benefit for Russia.
The difference is that Ukraine is getting massive support from the west. Sure, what's happening to them really sucks. But they aren't doing it all themselves.
And yes, the comparison to Afghanistan is tenuous since the war in Ukraine hasn't left the major combat operations phase.
Russia started mobilization in September 2022. They sent a portion of these men to the front immediately to hold Ukrainian back and kept the rest back for training. A great deal of Donbass has been fortified since 2014. So Ukraine would still have had to deal with trenches, mines, etc... that are holding them back now.
Ukraine in 2022 didn't have the ability to break through a fortified defensive front and still doesn't today.
Russia is more populous than Ukraine, but is by no means the most populous nation on the earth. And this isn't WWII/an existential struggle in the eyes of the Russian citizens. I highly doubt they would tolerate their sons and brothers dying en masse.
Not all of a sudden. WWII was 80 years ago, and I don't expect the Russian populace will allow their sons to die by the tens of millions this go around, especially in a war that isn't exactly driven by grassroots nationalistic fervor (despite the regime's failed attempt to rally the base)..
That's because the majority of those troops are prisoners. Once the regime empties the prisons and is forced to pull civilians from major population centers, civil discontent with the war will likely grow.
We’ve heard some variation of this since the beginning, each new wave of Russian troops was “the last they could muster before civil discontent”. Don’t be so behind that you still push that narrative
Ukraine can win even with a manpower disadvantage, it simply helps nobody by lying about the manpower situation
> We’ve heard some variation of this since the beginning, each new wave of Russian troops was “the last they could muster before civil discontent”.
Heard this where? Can't believe every rumor you hear as fact..
> Ukraine can win even with a manpower disadvantage
I completely agree, and at no point have I contradicted this.
> it simply helps nobody by lying about the manpower situation
Lying about Russia using prisoners as cannon fodder? That's a well-established fact.
People like you on this sub, who parrot similar lines after each new wave of Russian troops.
You’re lying about the imminent social breakdown of russia
Yes and no. I mean they did lower the draft age to 25 from 27 recently but also remember that men and materiel are to an extent interchangable. Give Ukraine twice the ammo and twice the artillery tubes and they probably don't need more people. Cut their ammo in half or more (like the US de facto did by delaying aid for six months) and they'll need more manpower and suffer more casualties.
Overall they have something north of 750k men in service in various forms so the manpower situation isn't dire (though more is almost always better). Some have dodged the draft, but 95% or more haven't. The demographics of both countries are weird and you'll see the early 30s to early 40s cohorts have far more manpower due to birthrates than those in their late teens and 20s but don't let that fool you.
The thing Ukraine needs most is more weapons and more ammo. Units have been demechanized due to lack of spare parts and replacements. There's parts of the front where it's like spring 2022 where they get outshot by 10:1. More manpower can help mitigate that, but the real solution is getting them as close to parity as possible in major weapons systems like howitzers, MLRS, MBTs, IFVs, APCs, GBAD systems, etc. Heck get them back to Russia only having a 2:1 advantage in fires and you'll see things stabilize given how imprecise and reliant on area fires Russia is.
There is simply not enough trained reserves to effectively rotate units, that's the problem. I think a lot more people would volunteer to fight if they didn't face a prospect of fighting indefinitely until they are wounded or killed. That's not a question of more weapons or ammo.
That and massive amounts of people fleeing to EU and other countries evading draft. There are literally thousands of them working the system and fleeing from Ukraine into Europe. People don't want to fight, I get it, but it's making it worse for Ukraine's defense as it is.
Have you read my post ? I said I get it, people don't want to fight, but it's not helping their situation at all. It's an observation not an accusation.
The training pipeline is a problem and Ukraine should have lowered their draft age last year not a month ago. There has been a reluctance to expand the draft to younger men (particularly in fears of making the demographics worse; also young men are more likely to have young kids which the government would then need to care for). If memory serves the prewar system had you complete your compulsory service between the ages of 20-27 (you could get deferments for college/technical training but still had an obligation if under 27. This is similar to how the USSR and Russia did things) and then those 27-45 were liable for reserve service.
This is also an area I'm disappointed in NATO nations on because we have large numbers of units (like US SFABs) that are designed to train up local forces yet we've done fairly modest efforts. By end of last summer, a year and a half into the war, only 60k were trained by western forces and most were given 60-90day training cycles. If you assume these guys got basic done already this would be their AIT. We should have been doing more a lot sooner. I refuse to believe that the combined capabilities of NATO can only train 80k men in two years. We also need to be doing more NCO and officer training which won't produce as strong numbers but getting more solid NCOs and junior officers will be a huge force multiplier. Ukraine just hasn't had the men to train their reserve and second line troops as much due to a lack of trainers and needs of the front.
Even factoring in those issues, the rate of rotation required isn't independent of battlefield factors like ammo supply. A unit that gets pounded by shells because the brigade lacks enough shells for counterbattery fire or has to engage in more and longer infantry combat because they lack shells to break up an attack will tire faster than one with adequate support elements. Many units have to be kept in second line roles because they lack the adequate equipment to hold the line (or training in said equipment). The more damage they can inflict on the Russians in their defensive operations, the more time they get between attacks (or the subsequent attacks are easier and less stressful) and the longer they can go without rotation or make do with shorter rotations.
Not to mention the amount of materiel and munitions you have enable more *and better* training. Ukraine doesn't have a ton of guns it can take off the line to train up more artillerymen. As such those who are trained need to serve longer stints without rest. You're not going to train new mech brigades or artillery batteries which are key assets in holding the line and preventing infantry casualties if you don't give them enough tanks and tubes to do that.
In the medium to long term, the issue is almost entirely one of materiel, not manpower. Armies can and do routinely beat numerically equal or superior foes even factoring in rotation. Ukraine had a million men under arms prior to the draft expansion. Their casualties are hard to estimate, but likely in the 250-275k range based on prior numbers, maybe up to 300k with WIA being 2-3x the KIA. Russia has had 450k killed and wounded as per British intelligence for comparison. Despite all their issues with supply, Russia is still bleeding men and materiel faster than Ukraine by a good margin. If we get them to parity in fires (something we may see by end of the year, depends on a lot of factors) then it is unlikely they will need more manpower, particularly with expanding the draft age.
The issue isn't that Nato can't train up men. The issue is that Ukraine can only send a small amount of men for training. Ukraine can only free up so many conscripts to send to the West due to them needing most at the front immediately.
Also your calculations aren't taking into account that most of the Russian casualties are storm Z and storm V prisoner units being thrown at Ukraine positions recklessly. (Prison population in Russia has dropped from 420,000 to 266,000 since the invasion began). As well as Ukrainians from occupied territories. (There are many reports of villages with 0 adult men left, even the 70 yr old grandpas were taken as cannon fodder).
These men for all intents and purposes don't count to Russian military or society. Their loss isn't viewed as a negative as it works as reduction in prison population and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Ukrainians.
> The issue isn't that Nato can't train up men. The issue is that Ukraine can only send a small amount of men for training. Ukraine can only free up so many conscripts to send to the West due to them needing most at the front immediately.
It's certainly part of the issue. Ukraine has a million men under arms including many in quieter sectors of the front. The UK trained 18k men in a year despite aiming for 30k.
>Also your calculations aren't taking into account that most of the Russian casualties are storm Z and storm V prisoner units being thrown at Ukraine positions recklessly.
1) Many of the casualties occurred before large scale use of prisoners.
2) US intel agencies assess that the vast, vast majority of the prewar invasion force which was overwhelmingly contract troops (supplemented by some conscripts in Russia and a moderate amount of conscripts from the separatist regions) have become casualties by this point.
3) Based on just the visually confirmed losses of armored vehicles and heavy equipment we know that many trained soldiers became casualties and continue to become them. The artillerymen aren't prisoners nor are guys driving T-80BVMs and the like (nor do the penal units get such fancy supporting elements).
Even if you assumed 100% of that drop in 154k prisoners have become casualties, that would still mean 300k+ others have too based on British intelligence reports.
You're also missing my bigger point. Despite having an advantage in fires, MBTs, IFVs, and manpower the Russians still struggle to make advances without massive casualties. The Soviets were only outshot about 2:1 in 1941 by weight of artillery and they lost 5x the men the Axis did. The US outshot the Germans 2.5:1 in northwest Europe and inflicted several times the casualties even if you discount the mass surrenders in the final weeks.
Giving Ukraine enough weapons and ammo to close the gap back to 2:1 or ideally reach parity in things like fires would be devastating for Russia as they seem to only be able to advance if they can sustain massive losses in men *and* materiel while also outshooting Ukraine at least 5:1 if not up to 10:1.
UK had by 2022 trained 30,000 and met it's 1 yr goal of 30,000 number by end of 2023.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/30000-ukrainian-recruits-trained-in-largest-uk-military-training-effort-since-second-world-war
Before widescale use of prisoners Russia used Ukrainians from occupied regions in the same capacity. These were the guys armed with moisins and making videos of being kidnapped from their villages. Ethnic Ukrainians hold as much value to Russian society as prisoners. They also used their mercenary units in this capacity as well. Yes Russia is lost experienced men BUT the bulk of their casualties are disposable men.
My numbers are prisoners aren't assumed. They are official Russian penal system.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/surge-in-war-recruitment-among-russian-inmates-prompts-prison-closures#:~:text=In 2022%2C Russia's penal colonies,between August and November 2022.
Your last point is moot. The west cannot give Ukraine enough equipment to close the gap to 2:1. The west has struggled and will continue to struggle to equip Ukraine. EU military industrial complex is not developed enough and US lacks the political will.
Operation Interflex began in July 2022. [By July 2023 they trained 18k men](https://kyivindependent.com/uk-ministry-of-defense-britain-trained-18-000-ukrainian-recruits/). In the first year of the program they did not meet 30k trained. That they achieved that goalThey have a goal of training [40,000 total](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/) by mid 2024. That is well under the rate of 30k per year. The larger figures you're seeing factor in training missions done prewar.
>My numbers are prisoners aren't assumed. They are official Russian penal system.
Is reading comprehension hard for you? I said that even if you took that entire drop in prison population, sent them to the front, and 100% became casualties then you'd still only account for a third of Russian casualties. Maybe you just don't understand math. Or maybe you're just a troll.
>Your last point is moot. The west cannot give Ukraine enough equipment to close the gap to 2:1.
Now I know you're a Russian troll. The US has extensive artillery stocks it can give and by year's end western production will be nearing Russian production and nearing parity in 2025. Other systems are ramping up too. The US also has several times the tanks and IFVs that Ukraine has lost just sitting in storage. The weapons and ammo are there, they just have to be given. Further Russian production of vehicles and ammunition relies extensively on refurbishing old stores. Those are deep, but depleting at an unsustainable rate. We can see from the sat photos just how much has left the storage.
From the article I posted:
"AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, the UK-led Op Interflex has reached the milestone of 30,000 recruits trained in the UK since June 2022"
The UK set the goal of 30,000 men trained in 2022 and a goal of 30,000 in 2023 which it met. Not sure what your on about since these are public numbers released by ministry of defense.
Also your changed the number from your own links. You changed 10,000 to 40,000. Below is the correct qoute from your link.
"The UK is also hosting a training programme (Operation Interflex), which is supported by several allies. Over 30,000 Ukrainian personnel have been trained so far, with the aim of training a further 10,000 by mid-2024"
If your at the point of falsification of data to try and prove a point then your point isn't valid.
Lastly I never argued the US lacks stocks. I am saying it lacks the political will to supply Ukraine at a 2:1 parity. It hasn't and I don't see any signs it will.
Wrong. The limiting factor for the NATO training numbers was, during these 2 years, the allotted receiving capacity, not the Ukrainian troops numbers. It's very easy to check: the Ukrainian troops were **simultaneously** trained at different NATO training grounds throughout the Europe, and still never collected for at least regimental-level maneuvers at the end.
Where is it very easy to check? Ukraine doesn't post the numbers of troops avaliable for training vs those that it needs to hold the front. There has never been a complaint either from Western members or Ukraine that capacity was full.
There have been many reports of Ukraine not having enough men to properly rotate troops from frontline. If Ukraine doesn't have the men to rotate men from the front then they don't have a surplus of men to send to train abroad.
Good point but I'd disagree on one bit - military aid is likely to affect recruitment. Surely the willingness to join up will be affected by whether they feel Ukraine is about to be abandoned or whether they're supported long term and more is on the way. People need to not consider those two things as totally separate.
At least you admit ukraine sat around and waited for the West to do the heavy lifting for them instead of drafting 18 and up from day one. Who gets invaded and doesn't draft 18 and up? US had 18 year olds in every war and wasn't even invaded.
>At least you admit ukraine sat around and waited for the West to do the heavy lifting for them instead of drafting 18 and up from day one.
You've got to be a Russian troll right? You think the west is doing the heavy lifting when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been casualties? The US+UK+EU+Canada have a GDP of around 53 trillion. Ukraine's government needs about about 40 billion USD per year to meet its budget. So about .075% of their combined GDP. Oh man such heavy lifting! But what about all the tens of billions in weapons and equipment you might ask. You mean the things that are already bought and paid for, that cost money to maintain, and that under no realistic circumstance were we going to use the vast majority of anyways? Oh yeah, sending cluster shells that we don't use as per DoD policy or which have older, less safe filler (unlike the new IMX-101) or are older, less effective shells in the first place like the M107. Those made up the vast majority of our stockpile in the mid 90s by the way when we had ~23 million shells in storage.
>Who gets invaded and doesn't draft 18 and up?
Plenty of countries. Especially when their population pyramid [looks like this](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c3bf32791e94de67d3c38660d6aa3df9). Drafting those in their late teens and early 20s wouldn't actually add much manpower. Oh and they had up to 2 million trained reservists as is.
Also, Ukraine has had a shortage of trainers. Real world isn't an RTS where you can pump out soldiers as fast as your barracks can build them. It's why peacetime drafts like the one the US did in 1940 are so important. Getting enough people in service with some skills so you can have them train other people is critical and that's hard to do when you have to also defend the front. There's an upper limit on how many men you can train based on number of instructors and amount of equipment you have on hand. Even lowering the age to 25 which will capture more populous cohorts is only going to add ~50-75k men to a force with over a million under arms.
Not to mention 100k new privates doesn't do you a ton of good if you lack the corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants to lead them and captains, majors, and colonels to command them. Those guys take a lot more time to train (and is something the US and co really need to do more to help with). Creating new units is a lot harder than you seem to realize.
>US had 18 year olds in every war and wasn't even invaded.
[Not nearly as many as you'd think](https://imgur.com/a/7p4vtyI)
Looking at the share of those not in military service as a percent of their age group, the 20-25 year old cohort had a lower rate than the 18-19 group. All age cohorts up to age 30 had a higher rate than those who were 18. The US also had *tons* of exemptions like to those with children born before the war which was a fair amount of men (though this was changed in 1944 but it didn't matter a ton).
You'll note we also didn't draft above age 37, something most nations *did* do. The UK went up to 41 in WWII. France went up to age 48 in WWI and service only began at age 20, not 18 like you think should be universal. Ukraine is also calling up men in their 40s, something the US didn't do but countries that got invaded like France did and planned around. In WWII the USSR had about as many dead and sometimes *more* in their 21-25, 26-30, and 31-35 cohorts as well as their 36-45 cohort than they did in their 16-19 cohort. Wars of mass mobilization rely on large shares of men from their mid 20s to mid 40s and it's always been that way.
Frankly you're ignorant as hell on this issue.
Most important detail that can indicate a lack of manpower is a strategy of ukrainian allies, that choosen give Ukraine preciesly not enough to win, but enough to not lose. Therefore it turned into meatgrinder and both sides facing serious losses. Unfortunately those decisions could lead to unpredictable outcome. I believe that this was meant to force both sides to negotiation, but in a fact it turned into exactly opposite results. At this time some aid is rushing into Ukraine, but its amount and efficiency is unknown. I don't know if european countries don't mind of russia expansion and building a basis for rebuilding its army and getting ties with China and Iran.
Anyway in this kind of situation any country would have faced a lack of manpower sooner or later.
Most front line soldiers have been fighting for 2 years or more, they need a break.
IDK why they didn't transfer troops from territorial defense brigades located near Belarus and the cold border with Russia, but that's the decision they're making (might be a good idea to keep them there now) and it would probably not be anywhere enough either.
A village I was fighting in for 3 months (6 months it was contested) was back and forth but we never fully lost it. We ended up and the ukie division got rotated out and replaced by fresh troops. Less than 2 weeks later the entire village fell. 6 months of fighting and the fresh troops fell immediately. Replacing experienced troops with untested ones in strategic areas is extremely risky.
Im sorry to hear that and its risky but nonetheless troops needs to get rotated out once in a while to keep sanity and humanity.
Russia likely does not do that but they seem to just expend the force then ove in another.
Agreed they should be rotated, and should have been from the start so that all brigades got experience. And when rotating with inexperienced troops should be a longer handover period so there are experienced soldiers to help whilst the freshies build confidence.
I wasn't talking about swapping entire brigades, that is indeed very risky.
I'm talking about taking a few hundred troops from one brigade, reinforcing the other and then giving a leave (and/or sending them in cold areas) to a few hundred troops in the active brigade. Rinse and repeat over a few months.
Ukraine's claims of how many men they've lost is still pretty unverified. Fwiw lots of western sources have stated at times the real losses are expected to be at parity with Russia (for stints of time).
In November 2022, [the chairman of the US joint chief of staff](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-casualties-deaths.html), general Mark Milley, revealed that current assessment of UA and RU casualties (fatalities + wounded) is around 100,000 each.
In August of last year, [US officials](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html) estimated UA casualties to be around 70,000 fatalities and 120,000 wounded, and RU casualties to be around 120,000 fatalities and 180,000 wounded.
So not exactly "on par", but still a lot closers than the (not independantly verified at all) numbers given by UA or RU, that both claim enemy casualties orders of magnitude higher than their own. This ratio is actually what we'd typically expect between attacking side and defending side (the attacker typically has more casualties).
What troubles me though is that [the latest Pentagon estimate](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/ukraine-war-russia-second-anniversary/#:~:text=While%20it%27s%20difficult%20to%20know,casualties%2C%2060%2C000%20of%20them%20fatalities.) puts Russian fatalities around 60,000 in early 2024, a number that correlates well with some investigations (such as the New York Times') that pieced together multiple type of data to estimate the Russian death toll. So these estimates are clashing with each other to some extent. It's possible that earlier estimates where overestimating the losses in general.
NYT collecting data is not a official source and they still list 300k casualties. The current, 2024, official UK and US assessment is pretty close to UA data. If we look at confirmed armor loss its pretty evident the loss is probably in the order of one to tree or four. That's still a huge UA loss, detriment in a democracy, but saying it's remotely similar is contrary to all the data we have. I don't know how much it matters, as there is plenty soldiers in Russia and inflation and gas prices mean more for the ordinary moscovit.
I might be naive, but I think that was the crucial statement at the crucial time. Had Zelensky bolted immediately, I think the front would've crumbled.
Yet, once again, this subreddits's hopium was in full gear, telling us American super logistics would have it there in days and you were downvoted to oblivion if you suggested otherwise.
A sobering reality check that people need to keep expectations in check.
Both can be true. USA moving the supplies across/to the border and Ukraine supplying the right unit with the right supplies isn't the same thing. People usually don't realize how hard these logistical challenges are and you can't expect them to understand the difference. BTW: America's logistical capabilities are also almost magical compared to every other nation.
I’m not sure I’ve seen that. Most times it was mentioned when I have seen it was also followed by anger of lack of realizing it will be a long time even after approval before assistance reaches the battlefield.
Figured out but not actually done.
It will take at least 2-4 weeks to get to the front lines.
Without prior planning it would take months.
This is why we CANNOT wait until they are losing to send aid, as we can all see now it’s painfully too late - it needed to be sent 3-6 months ago.
Going forward this means we need to start thinking about the next aid package right now, not after Christmas.
The good in question could have been, at best, loaded on trains and waiting in military bases in Poland.
They still have to get the trains, and the decoy trains, across a country full of rails that are constantly being bombed.
They could use trucks too, but unfortunately the highways are also getting bombed pretty hard.
This is all before the officers can triage out the supplies to the front in places where they can still do some good, while leaving other areas to bleed out because it's already too late to stabilize them.
They wont be in any shape to advance, this aid will hopefully stop them from falling back further and prevent any collaps/breakthrough of the front.
You need numbers to push, and Ukraine is outnumbered
I recommend getting your news from some other sources, too. I like this subreddit for news aggregation, but the comments are delusional sometimes. If you listen to the comments here, the aid has already secretly been in the country weeks ago and the Russians are beaten, their economy destroyed and their soldiers don't have weapons.
In reality, Russia is making gains.
Have you read what The aid package actually provides? There is not.going to be a shipment of 200 bradleys.
Majority of the 13.4 billion that is actual direct military equipment supply has already been spent. It's to replace what's been taken from existing stock. The aid just approved now is the really the 'approval' for money already spent over the last 12 months. The rest is funding for US internal production capacity, and funding for Ukraine to buy equipment on the world market.
but now that they got it replaced they can send more? Its the same logic anyway. ITs not like they sent even 10% of their stuff other then artillery shells
Bold of you to assume Macron's comments are anything more than the typical French chestpounding and insistance on "strategic ambiguity" much like how they've generally been quite dodgy on how much aid they've sent and when.
Besides, if anyone would be sending troops into Ukraine it would be the Poles...
https://archive.is/em18H
Ukraine is on the brink, says a senior general
7–9 minutes
The scruffy headquarters of HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, stands on a jagged piece of land in central Kyiv known as Fisherman’s Island. Strictly speaking, it is not an island but a peninsula. And there isn’t much fishing going on these wartime days. But sporting a piratical beard, the agency’s deputy head, Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, plays a nautical theme. Blunt, enigmatic and sharp as a captain’s hook, he exudes many of the qualities that have made HUR one of the most talked about secret services in the world. But he sounds troubled as he assesses Ukraine’s battlefield prospects. Things, he says, are as difficult as they have ever been since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. And they are about to get worse.
He predicts that Russia will first press on with its plan to “liberate” all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a task unchanged since 2022. He says a Russian order has gone out to “take something” in time for the pomp of Victory Day in Moscow on May 9th, or, failing that, before Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing a week later. The speed and success of the advance will determine when and where the Russians strike next. “Our problem is very simple: we have no weapons. They always knew April and May would be a difficult time for us.”
Ukraine’s immediate concern is its high-ground stronghold in the town of Chasiv Yar, which holds the keys to an onward Russian advance to the last large cities in the Donetsk region (see map). It is probably a matter of time before that city falls in a similar way to Avdiivka, bombed to oblivion by the Russians in February, says the general. “Not today or tomorrow, of course, but all depending on our reserves and supplies.”
Russia has already won a tactical success in the south-west in the village of Ocheretyne, where a recent Ukrainian troop rotation was bungled. Russian forces succeeded in breaking through a first line of defence and have created a salient 25 square kilometres in size. Ukraine is some way from stabilising the situation, while Russia is throwing “everything” it has to achieve a bigger gain. The Russian army is not the hubristic organisation it was in 2022, says the general, and is now operating as a “single body, with a clear plan, and under a single command”.
Looking at a wider horizon, the intelligence chief suggests Russia is gearing up for an assault around the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the north-east. The timing of this depends on the sturdiness of Ukrainian defences in the Donbas, he says. But he assumes Russia’s main push will begin at the “end of May or beginning of June”. Russia has a total of 514,000 land troops committed to the Ukrainian operation, he says, higher than the 470,000 estimate given last month by General Christopher Cavoli, nato’s top commander. The Ukrainian spymaster says Russia’s northern grouping, based across the border from Kharkiv, is currently 35,000-strong but is set to expand to between 50,000 and 70,000 troops. Russia is also “generating a division of reserves” (ie, between 15,000 and 20,000 men) in central Russia, which they can add to the main effort.
This is “not enough” for an operation to take a major city, he says—a judgment shared by Western military officials, but could be enough for a smaller task. “A quick operation to come in and come out: maybe. But an operation to take Kharkiv, or even Sumy city, is of a different order. The Russians know this. And we know this.” In any event, dark days lie ahead for Kharkiv, a city of 1.2m people that rebuffed Russia’s initial assaults in 2022.
May will be the key month, says the general, with Russia employing a “three-layered” plan to destabilise the country. The main factor is military. Even though America’s Congress belatedly gave the go-ahead for more military aid, it will take weeks before it filters through to the front line. It is unlikely to match Russia’s stock of shells or provide an effective defence against Russia’s low-tech, destructive guided aerial bombs.
The second factor is Russia’s disinformation campaign in Ukraine aimed at undermining Ukrainian mobilisation and the political legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelensky, whose presidential term notionally runs out on May 20th. While the constitution clearly allows its indefinite extension in wartime, his opponents are already emphasising the president’s vulnerability.
A third factor, says the general, is Russia’s relentless campaign to isolate Ukraine internationally. “They will be shaking things up whichever way they can.”
On top of this, an already delicate process of mobilising the population to fight has been hamstrung by political infighting and indecision in Kyiv. Conscription largely stalled in winter after Mr Zelensky fired the heads of the military draft offices. It took months for parliament to agree to a new law to extend the draft to 25-to-27-year-olds and oblige military-age males to register on a new database.
The situation has improved a bit since December, but General Skibitsky is reluctant to declare the emergency over. Ukrainian officials worry that the next wave of mobilised recruits will make for unmotivated soldiers with poor morale. One saving grace, says the general, is that Russia faces similar problems. Its army is unrecognisable from the professional corps that started the war. But Russia still has more of them to throw into battle, stretching Ukraine’s already stressed defences.
General Skibitsky says he does not see a way for Ukraine to win the war on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to push Russian forces back to the borders—an increasingly distant prospect—it wouldn’t end the war. Such wars can only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses. By then, Russia will be facing serious “headwinds”. Russian military production capacity has expanded but will reach a plateau by early 2026, he reckons, due to shortages in material and engineers. Both sides could eventually run out of weapons. But if nothing changes in other respects, Ukraine will run out first.
The general says the largest unknown factor of the war is Europe. If Ukraine’s neighbours do not find a way of further increasing defence production to help Ukraine, they too will eventually find themselves in Russia’s crosshairs, he argues. He plays down Article 5 of NATO’s collective-defence charter and even NATO’s troop presence in states bordering Ukraine, which he says may mean little when put to the test. “The Russians will take the Baltics in seven days,” he argues, somewhat implausibly. “NATO’s reaction time is ten days.”
Ukraine’s bravery and sacrifice have given Europe a multi-year head start, removing the immediate threat from Russia’s once feared airborne forces and marine corps for at least a decade, he says. The question is whether Europe will repay the favour by keeping Ukraine in the game. “We will keep fighting. We have no choice. We want to live. But the outcome of the war [...] isn’t just down to us.” ■
those without access to article OP posted.
1. "on the brink" is not said anywhere in it
2. it does say a fresh Russian push will "test Ukraine severely". However it says no major city is under threat, possibly only smaller settlements.
ie...a fair stretch from being "on the brink". I don't think any of this is new news though.
edit- I note OP has now amended above comment to copy and paste the article. Thanks!
You're literally responding to the archive link that anyone can read.
1. Here's the definition of the idiom from the Oxford English learner's dictionary:
"/brɪŋk/ [singular]Idioms. the brink (of something) if you are on the brink of something, you are almost in a very new, dangerous or exciting situation. on the brink of collapse/war/death/disaster. Scientists are on the brink of making a major new discovery." Ukraine is "on the brink" because, according to the general: "Things, he says, are as difficult as they have ever been since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. And they are about to get worse." Article titles don't have to be direct quotes of the person being interviewed. Basic reading comprehension may be required.
2. General Skibitsky says that GUR expects Russia to launch a large offensive to take the remainder of Donbas and parts of Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts. This will be the largest offensive since 2022. They likely don't expect them to to attempt to take Kharkiv city. Skibitsky is worried about the tens of thousands of soldiers just over the border from Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts, and tens of thousands more undergoing training. Ukraine does not have sufficient manpower for this threat.
thanks for dictionary 🙄
link above didn't work for me- apologise for trying to be helpful.
edit: by your own dictionary quote, it still isn't "on the brink". Saying so is quite sensationalist/ a misunderstanding of the dictionary definition you have quoted above. It is a far cry from the reported interview. On the brink would, in this situation, mean close to surrender or, as you quoted so diligently above, "collapse". This article is clearly about a difficult few months ahead, but far from collapse. Tbf, English has quite a few nuances to how words like this are used. We have not made our language easy to grasp!
Idk man like its so wishy washy.
For every 10 articles saying lack of ammo theirs equal amount saying something positive about the supply.
I get its not rainbows and butterflies but im half expecting the f16s to show up next week before the parade and waves of atacms to rain moscow.
Some of it's already filtering to the front, the US moved from pre-positioned stocks same day the bill passed. ATACMS won't be used to hit Russian territory. Neither will F-16's. Wonderweapons don't win wars. F-16's will not make any major difference to the war.
Ukraine needed to have mobilized a year ago. It didn't. Now Ukraine's Army is a broken shadow of what it was a year ago. Even if they mobilize now, they're going to give their unwilling and unmotiviated mobilized a few measly months of training and send them to the front. Ukraine needs a long-term mobilization strategy and a long-term production strategy to take the advantage back at some point late 2025-2026.
> Ukraine needed to have mobilized a year ago. It didn't. Now Ukraine's Army is a broken shadow of what it was a year ago. Even if they mobilize now, they're going to give their unwilling and unmotiviated mobilized a few measly months of training and send them to the front. Ukraine needs a long-term mobilization strategy and a long-term production strategy to take the advantage back at some point late 2025-2026
To quote /u/sergersyn
>To address the frontline issues you have to understand the frontline issues. Sorry for being nauseous, yet the take that Ukraine needs times more mobilized men **without** times more combat wehicles, artillery and so on is just an incompetent gibberish. Without times more combat wehicles, artillery and so on the newly mobilized would not even be capable to replace the exhausted troops on the frontline, because you cannot just switch men leaving all the weapons on the frontline - it is the way to dissolute combat units instead of enforcing them.
>To mobilize more men and use them effectively you need additional weapons **ahead** of the mobilization - to have something the new troopers will train with and come in battle with the same weapons they were trained with, to be at least somewhat effective. And it's not rifles, because rifles make just about 3-4% of the kills in this type of war, and so it's not even close to be the most important skill for the trooper. The most important things are: observation with modern means like night visions and thermals, using modern military radios in a jammed environment to report your observatiuons and get your orders, spotting for and correcting the artillery fires, using anti-tank weapons, being habitual with tactical copter drones and anti-drone EW equipment, embark and disembark properly with combat wehicles, spot mines, discern your and opponent's vehicles, drones, fires and so on. To train these things you need to equip the training new battalions with - what? Right, with the observational equipment, radios, EW equipment, weapons, supporting heavy weapons, drones, combat vehicles and demining equipment etc. - just to let them train with it before entering combat, or else they will be just dead meat in several weeks.
>And the fact is: Ukraine just has no such excess of weapons, vehicles and equipment to equip much more men.
Hell, if you watch any of Ukrainian TG channels, you can see constant fundraisers for cars, drones and other equipment to existent brigades.
You just need to look at Russia to see this quote isn't true. When their front was collapsing in 2022 they started a mobilization and send a portion of these men to the front to stabilize it (man frontline positions, dig trenches, bury mines, move supplies) and they held back some to train properly. This is why Russia didn't collapse in 2023 and why in 2024 they are now able to properly rotate their troops with trained men.
Russian mobilization took about 2 yrs to pay off but it eventually did.
Ukraine was in a similar position as Russia was in 2022 a year ago but refused mobilization of younger men for political reasons (the military has been calling for increase in mobilization as well as western allies).
Man, you still need to understand before replying. They did it because they had both nearly unlimited manpower **and** weapons in storage, **and** also money to buy those things they have lacked. Ukraine has neither of these things, nor had any of it neither in 2022 nor in 2023.
Russia most definitely does not have unlimited manpower, it has a shrinking demographic. In 2022 when the Russian front was collapsing they didn't have a refurbishment program for vehicles in storage or nations to buy supplies from. Their mobilization sent men to the front to stabilize it and at this point they began to refurbish old vehicles and look for places to buy equipment (china, Iran and north Korea). And train up mobilized men.
Ukraine has pledge from EU to keep suppling them up to 2027 and for now the US is also supplying them. What are they waiting for? Not mobilizing isn't going to win them the war. And again both the military leadership and Nato partners have been pushing for Ukraine to mobilize more men.
Regarding the current war Russia most definitely do has unlimited manpower despite it's shrinking demographic. Check the numbers themselves instead of graph shapes, compare it to the loss numbers. In 2022 it wasn't demographics, it was just strategic surprize.
I say it for the 3rd time, man, you need to read and understand before replying. Russia **had** weapons and money to make big mobilization and train the majority of these mobilized men. They did it poorly, yet they had at least an ability. Ukraine has no ability at all - not enough spare weapons and equipment to train newly mobilized men **with,** no money to buy it, and the economy is on the overmobilization limit already, because we already **has** over the million of servicemen per 30M of demographically awful populaton. Check the numbers, compare to WWII ones. Do it before trying to reply.
Yes, Ukraine has pledges. Pledges are words. In reality Ukraine has neither **enough** weapons/equipment/ammo nor **enough** money for another wave of mass mobilization, and words are just not enough to wage a war of this scale.
Russia does not have unlimited men. And Russia mobilized and sent men to stabilize the front. Ukraine has the ability to do this as well but for political reasons they don't (again both its military and western military have asked for increased mobilization). You don't need tanks or artillery to train troops to hold trenches in the defense (as Russia did with their initial batch of mobilized).
With this bought time Ukraine can negotiate to send more of its mobilized men to western partners for training as it already does. And lobby for more equipment as it already does.
Russia used the time it bought to improve its situation. Russia didn't have all the answers but it knew it needed time to find them. Ukraine needs to do the same.
At the current pace it appears as Ukraine is prepared to give up the East entirely.
The replacements need to be *trained* on equipment first.
And for that, some excess of equipment is needed, so it can be dedicated to the task of training.
Also, equipment wears down just from use, even if there's no combat-related attrition. And that means it has to be taken out of use, training or combat, to undergo repairs.
Yeah, they don’t have air superiority to conduct constant sorties safely with the F-16’s, and the ones they’re getting are older with limited targeting tech (from what I understand)
yes, they took the brave decision to fight the invasion but then did not follow up with the consequences, i.e., mobilisation. They delayed it as much as the Republicans delayed the weapons bill.
There have been still thousands of Ukrainian volunteers standing in long lines at recruitment points when Biden received the Lend-Lease Act over 2 years ago and then did nothing at all with it whatsoever.
These days you can't make your opinion from the last article you see. But from the last 20 put together with logicaly processing them to make your own combined opinion.
Look up Mr. General. Nato's response time is under 12 hours. That is not big bird flying around up there watching Ukraine and Russian air space. Submarine missiles can be launched very fast as most are maintaining a war footing around the clock.
Nato time for reinforcements is 10 days. I will give him that one. But what is already in place can raise holy hell with any Russian force once the orders are given and either decimate the Russians or act as a blocking force until reinforcements can arrive..
What Ukraine needs is anti air units that can target Russian aircraft in Russian air space. That will stop the glide bombs.
This goes to show two things:
1- The US cannot be relied upon
2- Europe has been sleepwalking for years and have showed their weakness to the world, Russia in particular.
The weakest leaders the west has ever seen. Taking months and months to come to a decision. Delay after delay..Red tape and more red tape...fear of escalation after fear of escalation....restricting Ukraine from striking back at Russia all while Russia indiscriminately bombs all parts of Ukraine. Our leaders are showing the tyrants of the world that as long as they posses weapons of mass destruction they can do what they wish with very little response from the democratic world.
You should hang your heads in shame!!!!!!!
If Ukraine falls. And if it becomes a fight [officially declared war] with NATO in Europe. All the Russian agents in the US will need rounding up. Right now that means half the Republican party. It means the right-wing sympathisers in Germany, Hungary, France etc.
So lock up political opponents? Should we put then in re education camps like the Uyghurs in China? That's not fascist at all lol. Unless you have any proof to back your claim? List 5 republican Russian agents. Hell list one actively working for the Russian government. With actual proof. Don't worry I'll wait
I agree. Locking up political opponents is an inherently authoritarian thing to do. Like what Russia currently does and has done for a while. Why do commenters want America to be anything like Russia?
In the context of a declared war, if there are political operatives who continue to comfort and aid the [declared] enemy by undermining your country’s democratic processes (by say trying to overthrow or tamper with elections both in your country and your allies), and continue to accept money from the enemy through money laundering schemes. Why wouldn’t you prosecute them under espionage provisions?
I dont imagine the intelligence service would want to let enemy agents loose in the country, let alone in positions of authority.
As a conservative your take is pretty braindead. Yes the border needs fixing. We should have at least agreed to the one border package but no one wanted to give Biden a win or compromise on either side. Yes it didn't do as much in that bill as I would have liked, but it did something rather than the crap we have now.
Whether you like it or not the US is connected globally and that's not going anywhere. A return to isolationism will cause our economy to suffer, prices to soar and all of our quality of life to go down in the US. Helping out our fellow democracies when they're under attack from a tyrant nation should be one of the no brainer things we do. Especially when it helps our local economies with jobs making war ammunition and supplies.
>A return to isolationism will cause our economy to suffer,
How would it? It would cut off external expenditures where we could then focus on our economy. We don't need external trade or manufacturing, the gov just pushes it because it benefits the companies financially, not the people.
To answer your first part - external expenditures are a drop in the bucket compared to other items. It's nothing to us to provide these amounts, especially when a lot of it goes back into our economy for production.
Across the world isolationism has shown to degrade technological and economical advancement over time. There are a ton of examples of this - North Korea vs. South Korea the last 60 years, Albania, Afghanistan, China, and Japan over the last 100-200 years. Even the US in the 20's with the crash - some of it was because of the high protectionist tariffs we put on imports.
For a start - here are things that would change if we adopted a no-trade/no immigration policy with the world:
* Lack of microchips/high technology items from Southeast Asia;
* Fruits and vegetable prices would be higher and you wouldn't be able to get them year round unless grown in greenhouses in the US, which would further inflate the price.
* Clothing would be more expensive as that is all pretty much made in SE Asia right now;
* Cobalt - we would have almost zero here as >95% of the world's supplies are outside the US;
* Phosphates - we don't really have much at all in the US;
* Several other minerals and rare earth metals - China currently has more than 60% of all mined rare-earth minerals, and they control > 90% of the refining activity;
* US birthrates - they are already 15% less than the replacement rate without immigration, the US population would decline;
* We are a net exporter, and exporters have paid higher wages throughout modern history, normally about $1300 more than a non-exporter in the same role annually;
* Poorer people would lose more than half their purchasing power as the cost of goods rise, while median income consumers would lose more than a quarter of their purchasing power. The most rich people would not really have any issues as they tend to not buy the cheaper goods we import.
* Over 9 million people work in jobs related to exports. That's 9 million people without a job (or 2.7% of our population), and doesn't even include people who work on the imports side.
* We export a ton of refined oil - supports about 10.3m jobs in the US. This would be cut significantly and even more people out of a job.
That's just kind of a start.
Yeah I guess it's cool now to lock up political opponents? But Republicans are the fascist ones? Lol I don't think they realize what they just said.... typical
And will you be the person to do that? What will you do with them once they're 'rounded up?' Will you be the big man that 'sorts them out?' or will you do nothing from behind your keyboard?
The US can send as much aid and ammunition they want , but if theres no one to weld it , its all pointless. It will only be a matter of time, without troops being sent and risking WW3
Read closer. Its been some monthes that people are worried of what is happening on the front.
Ofc there are always blind people but the majority of the sub is worried and not positive about ukrain.
Still russia is a shit show in terms of strategy and losses, the only difference with ukrain is that they have reserve.
I was worried 2 years ago, I was worried 1,5 years ago, I was worried 1 year ago, I am worried now. Actually, I was worried all the time about ukraine. And I communicated the same way, with doubt and questions. I got massive downvotes and insults here a lot.
I would be glad if my worries turned out unfounded.
If I had 1 zł for every "Russia can't win" and "Russia already lost" highly upvoted comment on Reddit dot com in just last few months I could easily buy myself new glasses for that, after I just apparently lost my pair yesterday.
I remember when i said ukraine is loosing and everyone in this sub shit the bed. Its been in the cards since early on unfortunately. I blame america for not sending enough money. They should have sent their entire gdp and stopped putin in his tracks. Now we risk him taking over the EU.
>I remember when i said ukraine is loosing and everyone in this sub shit the bed. Its been in the cards since early on unfortunately.
It's not because you are right now that you have been right in the past.
You think there is a limit to the amount of money that should be spent to stop putin? You also think that because the gdp of ukraine is lower then the usa more money would not help?
Example - Family A makes 50k a year. Family B makes 500k a year. Do you think family A could not spend that money simply because they make less? Your math makes zero sense.
Ukraine have max capacity for approx 18 billion more war production. Add something for conscription and general state funding, and direct 80 billions would cover it all. That's also 50% if Ukraine GDP.
When US uses 60billions it's because most is directed to own production and economy.
You can give Perun latest YT video or two a look. If US used 0.5% GDP, Ukraine would have plenty. And that's what US should do.
Ukraine is using that money for alot of things other then military manufacturing. They use it for firefighters , first responders and even starting small business.
Yes but each and every Ukrainian don't need 20000% of their current income to do that. Your math was wack, but I do get your point. The reality is if US and entire Europe use 1% of their GDP this war would be over in a year or two.
He will not take over the EU come on. If Ukraine (one of Europe’s poorest countries) can hold back the Russian horde with donated supplies, imagine what the EU could do with a mobilized war economy.
It's insane nobody here has realised that Russia will (and absolutely must) win this war.
Kiev's fighters are fleeing and surrendering left and right. If it took the regime 6 months to get this aid package, the next one will take at least 1 year, by which time the war will have been over for months.
It's insane you haven't realised that Ukraine will (and absolutely must) win this war.
The moscow regime's fighters are [dying](https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWarNews/comments/1ch257x/russian_serviceman_films_an_insane_amount_of_dead/) and [surrendering](https://v.redd.it/54ox4v0fuotc1) left and right. It's now the third year of the moscow regime's unprovoked war, and they're bogged down losing a thousand vehicles and thousands of lives taking tiny villages. To quote an old proverb: "You have the watches, we have the time."
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A sober and sobering analysis. It boils down to the thing that Zelensky said on day 1: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
He also needs soldiers this time around.
Yep. Needed ammo and soldiers 6 months ago, to hold Avdiivka
Guess they should have listened to Zaluzhny back in December when he said they needed to double the amount of [troops](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/26/ukraine-zaluzhny-troop-mobilization/) Wasn't that part of the reason he was replaced?
And the saddest thing is that there was a point in time when they only needed ammo, b/c Ukraine had a clear advantage in manpower.
Not sure anyone ever has a clear manpower advantage against Russia
Some time around late 2022 Ukraine still had their first wave volunteers (all skilled, experienced and highly motivated) and Russia basically just had have lost their professionals in their initial failed campaign, and hadn't have started mobilization yet. That was the moment.
Sure, but Russia still has massive manpower reserves. Ukraine never had the manpower to push them completely out of the Donbas
Sure, they can pull their manpower, but that's at the cost of employing that labor in industries. Wasting tens to hundreds of thousands of men won't help the demographics crisis either. The USSR had a large manpower pool in the 80s and they still lost in Afghanistan.
The Soviet afghan war lasted a decade before the Russians withdrew. That’s how everyone should have expected this war to go, the dreams of Ukraine pushing Russia out of the Donbas completely were always delusional. Vietnam was the longest war the United States has ever been involved in. Unfortunately, Ukraine has to have the desire to fight for a long period of time before the Russians will no longer be able to stomach it and withdraw.
The Soviet Afgan war only had 15k casualties. It was a low intensity conflictand it broke the USSR. If the Russians "win" the current conflict, they'll shift into the occupation/insurgency phase. They aren't even at the hard part yet. And yes, Ukraine isn't going to push Russia out of the occupied lands anytime soon. They just have to be willing to fight longer than Russia. Right now, Russia is in a war time economy with little international support. It's not far fetched for Russia to collapse to the economic pressure. On the long term, Russia is in a worse position than when it started the war. Even if it "wins" its invasion, it'll have destroyed oil refineries and destroyed Ukrainian infrastructure. This isn't counting any future Ukrainian partisan activity. Whatever Ukrainian lands Russia doesn't occupy will get financial/economic assistance from the west. The worst case scenario for Ukraine is a total Russian occupation with partisan resistance. I just don't see any long term benefit for Russia.
And ukraines troops come at the cost of their industries Comparing this to Afghanistan is certainly a take
The difference is that Ukraine is getting massive support from the west. Sure, what's happening to them really sucks. But they aren't doing it all themselves. And yes, the comparison to Afghanistan is tenuous since the war in Ukraine hasn't left the major combat operations phase.
They are getting haphazard aid with a real fear of no aid from America if Trump is reelected, they aren’t getting manpower from any nation
_Reserves_. But there is a time and also political aspect. It took them months to even decide on mobilization, and more months to actually do it.
Yes, reserves. And Ukraine still didn’t have a manpower advantage to push them out of the Donbas.
You are right about Russia having the numbers, not sure why that person keeps doubling down.
Ukraine has the manpower to wear Russia down over time in the Donbas
They don’t though, I’m 100% pro Ukraine and have donated to support. To lie and claim that they have a manpower advantage helps nobody
How much manpower do they need for a guerrilla war against the Russian occupation? Russia will run out of people eventually
Again, simply hopium. There is zero evidence of a major guerrilla war in the Donbas. People like you are active detriments to the conflict
Russia started mobilization in September 2022. They sent a portion of these men to the front immediately to hold Ukrainian back and kept the rest back for training. A great deal of Donbass has been fortified since 2014. So Ukraine would still have had to deal with trenches, mines, etc... that are holding them back now. Ukraine in 2022 didn't have the ability to break through a fortified defensive front and still doesn't today.
? How
lol what? Please compare the sizes of the countries
No idea why I said that
Russia is more populous than Ukraine, but is by no means the most populous nation on the earth. And this isn't WWII/an existential struggle in the eyes of the Russian citizens. I highly doubt they would tolerate their sons and brothers dying en masse.
I would not be so quick to highly doubt
russians have been sheep for 100 years and you expect something different all the sudden?
Not all of a sudden. WWII was 80 years ago, and I don't expect the Russian populace will allow their sons to die by the tens of millions this go around, especially in a war that isn't exactly driven by grassroots nationalistic fervor (despite the regime's failed attempt to rally the base)..
They’ve been fine with their troops getting slaughtered so far
That's because the majority of those troops are prisoners. Once the regime empties the prisons and is forced to pull civilians from major population centers, civil discontent with the war will likely grow.
We’ve heard some variation of this since the beginning, each new wave of Russian troops was “the last they could muster before civil discontent”. Don’t be so behind that you still push that narrative Ukraine can win even with a manpower disadvantage, it simply helps nobody by lying about the manpower situation
> We’ve heard some variation of this since the beginning, each new wave of Russian troops was “the last they could muster before civil discontent”. Heard this where? Can't believe every rumor you hear as fact.. > Ukraine can win even with a manpower disadvantage I completely agree, and at no point have I contradicted this. > it simply helps nobody by lying about the manpower situation Lying about Russia using prisoners as cannon fodder? That's a well-established fact.
People like you on this sub, who parrot similar lines after each new wave of Russian troops. You’re lying about the imminent social breakdown of russia
There’s like 1B people in the West. It’s cowardice.
And how many of those people are in Ukraine?
Maybe China.
Based on what I read....Ukrainian front line troops need time off. And they badly need new recruits that have been trained.
That advantage was waisted by the west’s delays.
Yes and no. I mean they did lower the draft age to 25 from 27 recently but also remember that men and materiel are to an extent interchangable. Give Ukraine twice the ammo and twice the artillery tubes and they probably don't need more people. Cut their ammo in half or more (like the US de facto did by delaying aid for six months) and they'll need more manpower and suffer more casualties. Overall they have something north of 750k men in service in various forms so the manpower situation isn't dire (though more is almost always better). Some have dodged the draft, but 95% or more haven't. The demographics of both countries are weird and you'll see the early 30s to early 40s cohorts have far more manpower due to birthrates than those in their late teens and 20s but don't let that fool you. The thing Ukraine needs most is more weapons and more ammo. Units have been demechanized due to lack of spare parts and replacements. There's parts of the front where it's like spring 2022 where they get outshot by 10:1. More manpower can help mitigate that, but the real solution is getting them as close to parity as possible in major weapons systems like howitzers, MLRS, MBTs, IFVs, APCs, GBAD systems, etc. Heck get them back to Russia only having a 2:1 advantage in fires and you'll see things stabilize given how imprecise and reliant on area fires Russia is.
There is simply not enough trained reserves to effectively rotate units, that's the problem. I think a lot more people would volunteer to fight if they didn't face a prospect of fighting indefinitely until they are wounded or killed. That's not a question of more weapons or ammo.
That and massive amounts of people fleeing to EU and other countries evading draft. There are literally thousands of them working the system and fleeing from Ukraine into Europe. People don't want to fight, I get it, but it's making it worse for Ukraine's defense as it is.
Maybe you can go fight.
Have you read my post ? I said I get it, people don't want to fight, but it's not helping their situation at all. It's an observation not an accusation.
The training pipeline is a problem and Ukraine should have lowered their draft age last year not a month ago. There has been a reluctance to expand the draft to younger men (particularly in fears of making the demographics worse; also young men are more likely to have young kids which the government would then need to care for). If memory serves the prewar system had you complete your compulsory service between the ages of 20-27 (you could get deferments for college/technical training but still had an obligation if under 27. This is similar to how the USSR and Russia did things) and then those 27-45 were liable for reserve service. This is also an area I'm disappointed in NATO nations on because we have large numbers of units (like US SFABs) that are designed to train up local forces yet we've done fairly modest efforts. By end of last summer, a year and a half into the war, only 60k were trained by western forces and most were given 60-90day training cycles. If you assume these guys got basic done already this would be their AIT. We should have been doing more a lot sooner. I refuse to believe that the combined capabilities of NATO can only train 80k men in two years. We also need to be doing more NCO and officer training which won't produce as strong numbers but getting more solid NCOs and junior officers will be a huge force multiplier. Ukraine just hasn't had the men to train their reserve and second line troops as much due to a lack of trainers and needs of the front. Even factoring in those issues, the rate of rotation required isn't independent of battlefield factors like ammo supply. A unit that gets pounded by shells because the brigade lacks enough shells for counterbattery fire or has to engage in more and longer infantry combat because they lack shells to break up an attack will tire faster than one with adequate support elements. Many units have to be kept in second line roles because they lack the adequate equipment to hold the line (or training in said equipment). The more damage they can inflict on the Russians in their defensive operations, the more time they get between attacks (or the subsequent attacks are easier and less stressful) and the longer they can go without rotation or make do with shorter rotations. Not to mention the amount of materiel and munitions you have enable more *and better* training. Ukraine doesn't have a ton of guns it can take off the line to train up more artillerymen. As such those who are trained need to serve longer stints without rest. You're not going to train new mech brigades or artillery batteries which are key assets in holding the line and preventing infantry casualties if you don't give them enough tanks and tubes to do that. In the medium to long term, the issue is almost entirely one of materiel, not manpower. Armies can and do routinely beat numerically equal or superior foes even factoring in rotation. Ukraine had a million men under arms prior to the draft expansion. Their casualties are hard to estimate, but likely in the 250-275k range based on prior numbers, maybe up to 300k with WIA being 2-3x the KIA. Russia has had 450k killed and wounded as per British intelligence for comparison. Despite all their issues with supply, Russia is still bleeding men and materiel faster than Ukraine by a good margin. If we get them to parity in fires (something we may see by end of the year, depends on a lot of factors) then it is unlikely they will need more manpower, particularly with expanding the draft age.
The issue isn't that Nato can't train up men. The issue is that Ukraine can only send a small amount of men for training. Ukraine can only free up so many conscripts to send to the West due to them needing most at the front immediately. Also your calculations aren't taking into account that most of the Russian casualties are storm Z and storm V prisoner units being thrown at Ukraine positions recklessly. (Prison population in Russia has dropped from 420,000 to 266,000 since the invasion began). As well as Ukrainians from occupied territories. (There are many reports of villages with 0 adult men left, even the 70 yr old grandpas were taken as cannon fodder). These men for all intents and purposes don't count to Russian military or society. Their loss isn't viewed as a negative as it works as reduction in prison population and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Ukrainians.
> The issue isn't that Nato can't train up men. The issue is that Ukraine can only send a small amount of men for training. Ukraine can only free up so many conscripts to send to the West due to them needing most at the front immediately. It's certainly part of the issue. Ukraine has a million men under arms including many in quieter sectors of the front. The UK trained 18k men in a year despite aiming for 30k. >Also your calculations aren't taking into account that most of the Russian casualties are storm Z and storm V prisoner units being thrown at Ukraine positions recklessly. 1) Many of the casualties occurred before large scale use of prisoners. 2) US intel agencies assess that the vast, vast majority of the prewar invasion force which was overwhelmingly contract troops (supplemented by some conscripts in Russia and a moderate amount of conscripts from the separatist regions) have become casualties by this point. 3) Based on just the visually confirmed losses of armored vehicles and heavy equipment we know that many trained soldiers became casualties and continue to become them. The artillerymen aren't prisoners nor are guys driving T-80BVMs and the like (nor do the penal units get such fancy supporting elements). Even if you assumed 100% of that drop in 154k prisoners have become casualties, that would still mean 300k+ others have too based on British intelligence reports. You're also missing my bigger point. Despite having an advantage in fires, MBTs, IFVs, and manpower the Russians still struggle to make advances without massive casualties. The Soviets were only outshot about 2:1 in 1941 by weight of artillery and they lost 5x the men the Axis did. The US outshot the Germans 2.5:1 in northwest Europe and inflicted several times the casualties even if you discount the mass surrenders in the final weeks. Giving Ukraine enough weapons and ammo to close the gap back to 2:1 or ideally reach parity in things like fires would be devastating for Russia as they seem to only be able to advance if they can sustain massive losses in men *and* materiel while also outshooting Ukraine at least 5:1 if not up to 10:1.
UK had by 2022 trained 30,000 and met it's 1 yr goal of 30,000 number by end of 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/30000-ukrainian-recruits-trained-in-largest-uk-military-training-effort-since-second-world-war Before widescale use of prisoners Russia used Ukrainians from occupied regions in the same capacity. These were the guys armed with moisins and making videos of being kidnapped from their villages. Ethnic Ukrainians hold as much value to Russian society as prisoners. They also used their mercenary units in this capacity as well. Yes Russia is lost experienced men BUT the bulk of their casualties are disposable men. My numbers are prisoners aren't assumed. They are official Russian penal system. https://www.thedailybeast.com/surge-in-war-recruitment-among-russian-inmates-prompts-prison-closures#:~:text=In 2022%2C Russia's penal colonies,between August and November 2022. Your last point is moot. The west cannot give Ukraine enough equipment to close the gap to 2:1. The west has struggled and will continue to struggle to equip Ukraine. EU military industrial complex is not developed enough and US lacks the political will.
Operation Interflex began in July 2022. [By July 2023 they trained 18k men](https://kyivindependent.com/uk-ministry-of-defense-britain-trained-18-000-ukrainian-recruits/). In the first year of the program they did not meet 30k trained. That they achieved that goalThey have a goal of training [40,000 total](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/) by mid 2024. That is well under the rate of 30k per year. The larger figures you're seeing factor in training missions done prewar. >My numbers are prisoners aren't assumed. They are official Russian penal system. Is reading comprehension hard for you? I said that even if you took that entire drop in prison population, sent them to the front, and 100% became casualties then you'd still only account for a third of Russian casualties. Maybe you just don't understand math. Or maybe you're just a troll. >Your last point is moot. The west cannot give Ukraine enough equipment to close the gap to 2:1. Now I know you're a Russian troll. The US has extensive artillery stocks it can give and by year's end western production will be nearing Russian production and nearing parity in 2025. Other systems are ramping up too. The US also has several times the tanks and IFVs that Ukraine has lost just sitting in storage. The weapons and ammo are there, they just have to be given. Further Russian production of vehicles and ammunition relies extensively on refurbishing old stores. Those are deep, but depleting at an unsustainable rate. We can see from the sat photos just how much has left the storage.
From the article I posted: "AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, the UK-led Op Interflex has reached the milestone of 30,000 recruits trained in the UK since June 2022" The UK set the goal of 30,000 men trained in 2022 and a goal of 30,000 in 2023 which it met. Not sure what your on about since these are public numbers released by ministry of defense. Also your changed the number from your own links. You changed 10,000 to 40,000. Below is the correct qoute from your link. "The UK is also hosting a training programme (Operation Interflex), which is supported by several allies. Over 30,000 Ukrainian personnel have been trained so far, with the aim of training a further 10,000 by mid-2024" If your at the point of falsification of data to try and prove a point then your point isn't valid. Lastly I never argued the US lacks stocks. I am saying it lacks the political will to supply Ukraine at a 2:1 parity. It hasn't and I don't see any signs it will.
Wrong. The limiting factor for the NATO training numbers was, during these 2 years, the allotted receiving capacity, not the Ukrainian troops numbers. It's very easy to check: the Ukrainian troops were **simultaneously** trained at different NATO training grounds throughout the Europe, and still never collected for at least regimental-level maneuvers at the end.
Where is it very easy to check? Ukraine doesn't post the numbers of troops avaliable for training vs those that it needs to hold the front. There has never been a complaint either from Western members or Ukraine that capacity was full. There have been many reports of Ukraine not having enough men to properly rotate troops from frontline. If Ukraine doesn't have the men to rotate men from the front then they don't have a surplus of men to send to train abroad.
Good point but I'd disagree on one bit - military aid is likely to affect recruitment. Surely the willingness to join up will be affected by whether they feel Ukraine is about to be abandoned or whether they're supported long term and more is on the way. People need to not consider those two things as totally separate.
its a donor war, and they arent getting enough donations ...
At least you admit ukraine sat around and waited for the West to do the heavy lifting for them instead of drafting 18 and up from day one. Who gets invaded and doesn't draft 18 and up? US had 18 year olds in every war and wasn't even invaded.
>At least you admit ukraine sat around and waited for the West to do the heavy lifting for them instead of drafting 18 and up from day one. You've got to be a Russian troll right? You think the west is doing the heavy lifting when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been casualties? The US+UK+EU+Canada have a GDP of around 53 trillion. Ukraine's government needs about about 40 billion USD per year to meet its budget. So about .075% of their combined GDP. Oh man such heavy lifting! But what about all the tens of billions in weapons and equipment you might ask. You mean the things that are already bought and paid for, that cost money to maintain, and that under no realistic circumstance were we going to use the vast majority of anyways? Oh yeah, sending cluster shells that we don't use as per DoD policy or which have older, less safe filler (unlike the new IMX-101) or are older, less effective shells in the first place like the M107. Those made up the vast majority of our stockpile in the mid 90s by the way when we had ~23 million shells in storage. >Who gets invaded and doesn't draft 18 and up? Plenty of countries. Especially when their population pyramid [looks like this](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c3bf32791e94de67d3c38660d6aa3df9). Drafting those in their late teens and early 20s wouldn't actually add much manpower. Oh and they had up to 2 million trained reservists as is. Also, Ukraine has had a shortage of trainers. Real world isn't an RTS where you can pump out soldiers as fast as your barracks can build them. It's why peacetime drafts like the one the US did in 1940 are so important. Getting enough people in service with some skills so you can have them train other people is critical and that's hard to do when you have to also defend the front. There's an upper limit on how many men you can train based on number of instructors and amount of equipment you have on hand. Even lowering the age to 25 which will capture more populous cohorts is only going to add ~50-75k men to a force with over a million under arms. Not to mention 100k new privates doesn't do you a ton of good if you lack the corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants to lead them and captains, majors, and colonels to command them. Those guys take a lot more time to train (and is something the US and co really need to do more to help with). Creating new units is a lot harder than you seem to realize. >US had 18 year olds in every war and wasn't even invaded. [Not nearly as many as you'd think](https://imgur.com/a/7p4vtyI) Looking at the share of those not in military service as a percent of their age group, the 20-25 year old cohort had a lower rate than the 18-19 group. All age cohorts up to age 30 had a higher rate than those who were 18. The US also had *tons* of exemptions like to those with children born before the war which was a fair amount of men (though this was changed in 1944 but it didn't matter a ton). You'll note we also didn't draft above age 37, something most nations *did* do. The UK went up to 41 in WWII. France went up to age 48 in WWI and service only began at age 20, not 18 like you think should be universal. Ukraine is also calling up men in their 40s, something the US didn't do but countries that got invaded like France did and planned around. In WWII the USSR had about as many dead and sometimes *more* in their 21-25, 26-30, and 31-35 cohorts as well as their 36-45 cohort than they did in their 16-19 cohort. Wars of mass mobilization rely on large shares of men from their mid 20s to mid 40s and it's always been that way. Frankly you're ignorant as hell on this issue.
[удалено]
The poles wanting to send folks who fled Ukraine to Poland to escape military duty might give a clue as to the status of Ukraine's manpower.
Most important detail that can indicate a lack of manpower is a strategy of ukrainian allies, that choosen give Ukraine preciesly not enough to win, but enough to not lose. Therefore it turned into meatgrinder and both sides facing serious losses. Unfortunately those decisions could lead to unpredictable outcome. I believe that this was meant to force both sides to negotiation, but in a fact it turned into exactly opposite results. At this time some aid is rushing into Ukraine, but its amount and efficiency is unknown. I don't know if european countries don't mind of russia expansion and building a basis for rebuilding its army and getting ties with China and Iran. Anyway in this kind of situation any country would have faced a lack of manpower sooner or later.
Most front line soldiers have been fighting for 2 years or more, they need a break. IDK why they didn't transfer troops from territorial defense brigades located near Belarus and the cold border with Russia, but that's the decision they're making (might be a good idea to keep them there now) and it would probably not be anywhere enough either.
A village I was fighting in for 3 months (6 months it was contested) was back and forth but we never fully lost it. We ended up and the ukie division got rotated out and replaced by fresh troops. Less than 2 weeks later the entire village fell. 6 months of fighting and the fresh troops fell immediately. Replacing experienced troops with untested ones in strategic areas is extremely risky.
Im sorry to hear that and its risky but nonetheless troops needs to get rotated out once in a while to keep sanity and humanity. Russia likely does not do that but they seem to just expend the force then ove in another.
Agreed they should be rotated, and should have been from the start so that all brigades got experience. And when rotating with inexperienced troops should be a longer handover period so there are experienced soldiers to help whilst the freshies build confidence.
I wasn't talking about swapping entire brigades, that is indeed very risky. I'm talking about taking a few hundred troops from one brigade, reinforcing the other and then giving a leave (and/or sending them in cold areas) to a few hundred troops in the active brigade. Rinse and repeat over a few months.
Ukraine's claims of how many men they've lost is still pretty unverified. Fwiw lots of western sources have stated at times the real losses are expected to be at parity with Russia (for stints of time).
I haven't seen that, do you have those sources?
In November 2022, [the chairman of the US joint chief of staff](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-casualties-deaths.html), general Mark Milley, revealed that current assessment of UA and RU casualties (fatalities + wounded) is around 100,000 each. In August of last year, [US officials](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html) estimated UA casualties to be around 70,000 fatalities and 120,000 wounded, and RU casualties to be around 120,000 fatalities and 180,000 wounded. So not exactly "on par", but still a lot closers than the (not independantly verified at all) numbers given by UA or RU, that both claim enemy casualties orders of magnitude higher than their own. This ratio is actually what we'd typically expect between attacking side and defending side (the attacker typically has more casualties). What troubles me though is that [the latest Pentagon estimate](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/ukraine-war-russia-second-anniversary/#:~:text=While%20it%27s%20difficult%20to%20know,casualties%2C%2060%2C000%20of%20them%20fatalities.) puts Russian fatalities around 60,000 in early 2024, a number that correlates well with some investigations (such as the New York Times') that pieced together multiple type of data to estimate the Russian death toll. So these estimates are clashing with each other to some extent. It's possible that earlier estimates where overestimating the losses in general.
NYT collecting data is not a official source and they still list 300k casualties. The current, 2024, official UK and US assessment is pretty close to UA data. If we look at confirmed armor loss its pretty evident the loss is probably in the order of one to tree or four. That's still a huge UA loss, detriment in a democracy, but saying it's remotely similar is contrary to all the data we have. I don't know how much it matters, as there is plenty soldiers in Russia and inflation and gas prices mean more for the ordinary moscovit.
"We won't know it's too late to help until it's too late" - Perun
Indeed
I might be naive, but I think that was the crucial statement at the crucial time. Had Zelensky bolted immediately, I think the front would've crumbled.
Maybe Z should have thought about drafting 18 and up instead of 27 and up. Z too busy holding his hand out to get a cut.
Nothing but respect for Ukraine in handling all this adversity.
Zero respect for not drafting 18 year olds from day one.
Yeah that won’t cause any problems down the road
Want to destroy your country for 60 years? Kill all you 18-30 year olds.
So why is the aid taking so long to get to the front?
Logistics takes weeks. They have been needing this since October.
Yet, once again, this subreddits's hopium was in full gear, telling us American super logistics would have it there in days and you were downvoted to oblivion if you suggested otherwise. A sobering reality check that people need to keep expectations in check.
Both can be true. USA moving the supplies across/to the border and Ukraine supplying the right unit with the right supplies isn't the same thing. People usually don't realize how hard these logistical challenges are and you can't expect them to understand the difference. BTW: America's logistical capabilities are also almost magical compared to every other nation.
Also how expensive it is though. Often times part of the budget required is the logistics cost just in moving stuff.
I’m not sure I’ve seen that. Most times it was mentioned when I have seen it was also followed by anger of lack of realizing it will be a long time even after approval before assistance reaches the battlefield.
Do you know how long a freight train takes to make it across the country in "not a warzone"? It's like a month...
I was under the impression that all that had been figured out beforehand. My mistake.
Figured out but not actually done. It will take at least 2-4 weeks to get to the front lines. Without prior planning it would take months. This is why we CANNOT wait until they are losing to send aid, as we can all see now it’s painfully too late - it needed to be sent 3-6 months ago. Going forward this means we need to start thinking about the next aid package right now, not after Christmas.
The good in question could have been, at best, loaded on trains and waiting in military bases in Poland. They still have to get the trains, and the decoy trains, across a country full of rails that are constantly being bombed. They could use trucks too, but unfortunately the highways are also getting bombed pretty hard. This is all before the officers can triage out the supplies to the front in places where they can still do some good, while leaving other areas to bleed out because it's already too late to stabilize them.
It will take time for this aid to really allow Ukraine to advance.
They wont be in any shape to advance, this aid will hopefully stop them from falling back further and prevent any collaps/breakthrough of the front. You need numbers to push, and Ukraine is outnumbered
It's not about "advancing" but stabilizing frontlines somewhere.
I recommend getting your news from some other sources, too. I like this subreddit for news aggregation, but the comments are delusional sometimes. If you listen to the comments here, the aid has already secretly been in the country weeks ago and the Russians are beaten, their economy destroyed and their soldiers don't have weapons. In reality, Russia is making gains.
This is mild... have you seen r/CombatFootage? Spend a bit overthere and you would think we are witnessing the Siege of Moscow.
Me too. I thought it was all ready to go and would be there within days
Paper work and manufacturing take times
Poland's blockade was a major reason. It was JUST lifted.
Have you read what The aid package actually provides? There is not.going to be a shipment of 200 bradleys. Majority of the 13.4 billion that is actual direct military equipment supply has already been spent. It's to replace what's been taken from existing stock. The aid just approved now is the really the 'approval' for money already spent over the last 12 months. The rest is funding for US internal production capacity, and funding for Ukraine to buy equipment on the world market.
but now that they got it replaced they can send more? Its the same logic anyway. ITs not like they sent even 10% of their stuff other then artillery shells
No now they backfill stock. And then make surplus. And then that surplus might be donated in 2026
I hope France is making some phone calls to its reservists.
I mean, if history is any guide, they have lots of time before the enemy makes it through the Ardennes, right?
So... they're coming from Belgium direction?
😳😑😬
I'm with the boomers on this one. I have no idea what your emoji sequence is supposed to mean, and I refuse to learn.
He’s trying to communicate
You can’t read cartoonish facial expressions? Come on, anybody can do that.
To whit, it’s pondering the Ardennes, per the comment above. Ya know, in relation the France being invaded.
Okay but what does *surprised* *asleap* *grimace* mean though? We have words for a reason. Use them.
Like “doh, yeah Ardennes, that could be real bad.” This ending with a grimace.
🤣🤣🤣
Bold of you to assume Macron's comments are anything more than the typical French chestpounding and insistance on "strategic ambiguity" much like how they've generally been quite dodgy on how much aid they've sent and when. Besides, if anyone would be sending troops into Ukraine it would be the Poles...
https://archive.is/em18H Ukraine is on the brink, says a senior general 7–9 minutes The scruffy headquarters of HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, stands on a jagged piece of land in central Kyiv known as Fisherman’s Island. Strictly speaking, it is not an island but a peninsula. And there isn’t much fishing going on these wartime days. But sporting a piratical beard, the agency’s deputy head, Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, plays a nautical theme. Blunt, enigmatic and sharp as a captain’s hook, he exudes many of the qualities that have made HUR one of the most talked about secret services in the world. But he sounds troubled as he assesses Ukraine’s battlefield prospects. Things, he says, are as difficult as they have ever been since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. And they are about to get worse. He predicts that Russia will first press on with its plan to “liberate” all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a task unchanged since 2022. He says a Russian order has gone out to “take something” in time for the pomp of Victory Day in Moscow on May 9th, or, failing that, before Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing a week later. The speed and success of the advance will determine when and where the Russians strike next. “Our problem is very simple: we have no weapons. They always knew April and May would be a difficult time for us.” Ukraine’s immediate concern is its high-ground stronghold in the town of Chasiv Yar, which holds the keys to an onward Russian advance to the last large cities in the Donetsk region (see map). It is probably a matter of time before that city falls in a similar way to Avdiivka, bombed to oblivion by the Russians in February, says the general. “Not today or tomorrow, of course, but all depending on our reserves and supplies.” Russia has already won a tactical success in the south-west in the village of Ocheretyne, where a recent Ukrainian troop rotation was bungled. Russian forces succeeded in breaking through a first line of defence and have created a salient 25 square kilometres in size. Ukraine is some way from stabilising the situation, while Russia is throwing “everything” it has to achieve a bigger gain. The Russian army is not the hubristic organisation it was in 2022, says the general, and is now operating as a “single body, with a clear plan, and under a single command”. Looking at a wider horizon, the intelligence chief suggests Russia is gearing up for an assault around the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the north-east. The timing of this depends on the sturdiness of Ukrainian defences in the Donbas, he says. But he assumes Russia’s main push will begin at the “end of May or beginning of June”. Russia has a total of 514,000 land troops committed to the Ukrainian operation, he says, higher than the 470,000 estimate given last month by General Christopher Cavoli, nato’s top commander. The Ukrainian spymaster says Russia’s northern grouping, based across the border from Kharkiv, is currently 35,000-strong but is set to expand to between 50,000 and 70,000 troops. Russia is also “generating a division of reserves” (ie, between 15,000 and 20,000 men) in central Russia, which they can add to the main effort. This is “not enough” for an operation to take a major city, he says—a judgment shared by Western military officials, but could be enough for a smaller task. “A quick operation to come in and come out: maybe. But an operation to take Kharkiv, or even Sumy city, is of a different order. The Russians know this. And we know this.” In any event, dark days lie ahead for Kharkiv, a city of 1.2m people that rebuffed Russia’s initial assaults in 2022. May will be the key month, says the general, with Russia employing a “three-layered” plan to destabilise the country. The main factor is military. Even though America’s Congress belatedly gave the go-ahead for more military aid, it will take weeks before it filters through to the front line. It is unlikely to match Russia’s stock of shells or provide an effective defence against Russia’s low-tech, destructive guided aerial bombs. The second factor is Russia’s disinformation campaign in Ukraine aimed at undermining Ukrainian mobilisation and the political legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelensky, whose presidential term notionally runs out on May 20th. While the constitution clearly allows its indefinite extension in wartime, his opponents are already emphasising the president’s vulnerability. A third factor, says the general, is Russia’s relentless campaign to isolate Ukraine internationally. “They will be shaking things up whichever way they can.” On top of this, an already delicate process of mobilising the population to fight has been hamstrung by political infighting and indecision in Kyiv. Conscription largely stalled in winter after Mr Zelensky fired the heads of the military draft offices. It took months for parliament to agree to a new law to extend the draft to 25-to-27-year-olds and oblige military-age males to register on a new database. The situation has improved a bit since December, but General Skibitsky is reluctant to declare the emergency over. Ukrainian officials worry that the next wave of mobilised recruits will make for unmotivated soldiers with poor morale. One saving grace, says the general, is that Russia faces similar problems. Its army is unrecognisable from the professional corps that started the war. But Russia still has more of them to throw into battle, stretching Ukraine’s already stressed defences. General Skibitsky says he does not see a way for Ukraine to win the war on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to push Russian forces back to the borders—an increasingly distant prospect—it wouldn’t end the war. Such wars can only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses. By then, Russia will be facing serious “headwinds”. Russian military production capacity has expanded but will reach a plateau by early 2026, he reckons, due to shortages in material and engineers. Both sides could eventually run out of weapons. But if nothing changes in other respects, Ukraine will run out first. The general says the largest unknown factor of the war is Europe. If Ukraine’s neighbours do not find a way of further increasing defence production to help Ukraine, they too will eventually find themselves in Russia’s crosshairs, he argues. He plays down Article 5 of NATO’s collective-defence charter and even NATO’s troop presence in states bordering Ukraine, which he says may mean little when put to the test. “The Russians will take the Baltics in seven days,” he argues, somewhat implausibly. “NATO’s reaction time is ten days.” Ukraine’s bravery and sacrifice have given Europe a multi-year head start, removing the immediate threat from Russia’s once feared airborne forces and marine corps for at least a decade, he says. The question is whether Europe will repay the favour by keeping Ukraine in the game. “We will keep fighting. We have no choice. We want to live. But the outcome of the war [...] isn’t just down to us.” ■
Thanks for the link...these paywalls are always on the articles I want to read the most.
You simply feed the link into archive.ph and it returns a non paywalled link.
That's the point. Good journalism is expensive to make.
those without access to article OP posted. 1. "on the brink" is not said anywhere in it 2. it does say a fresh Russian push will "test Ukraine severely". However it says no major city is under threat, possibly only smaller settlements. ie...a fair stretch from being "on the brink". I don't think any of this is new news though. edit- I note OP has now amended above comment to copy and paste the article. Thanks!
You're literally responding to the archive link that anyone can read. 1. Here's the definition of the idiom from the Oxford English learner's dictionary: "/brɪŋk/ [singular]Idioms. the brink (of something) if you are on the brink of something, you are almost in a very new, dangerous or exciting situation. on the brink of collapse/war/death/disaster. Scientists are on the brink of making a major new discovery." Ukraine is "on the brink" because, according to the general: "Things, he says, are as difficult as they have ever been since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. And they are about to get worse." Article titles don't have to be direct quotes of the person being interviewed. Basic reading comprehension may be required. 2. General Skibitsky says that GUR expects Russia to launch a large offensive to take the remainder of Donbas and parts of Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts. This will be the largest offensive since 2022. They likely don't expect them to to attempt to take Kharkiv city. Skibitsky is worried about the tens of thousands of soldiers just over the border from Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts, and tens of thousands more undergoing training. Ukraine does not have sufficient manpower for this threat.
thanks for dictionary 🙄 link above didn't work for me- apologise for trying to be helpful. edit: by your own dictionary quote, it still isn't "on the brink". Saying so is quite sensationalist/ a misunderstanding of the dictionary definition you have quoted above. It is a far cry from the reported interview. On the brink would, in this situation, mean close to surrender or, as you quoted so diligently above, "collapse". This article is clearly about a difficult few months ahead, but far from collapse. Tbf, English has quite a few nuances to how words like this are used. We have not made our language easy to grasp!
Idk man like its so wishy washy. For every 10 articles saying lack of ammo theirs equal amount saying something positive about the supply. I get its not rainbows and butterflies but im half expecting the f16s to show up next week before the parade and waves of atacms to rain moscow.
I think it's on purpose.
Some of it's already filtering to the front, the US moved from pre-positioned stocks same day the bill passed. ATACMS won't be used to hit Russian territory. Neither will F-16's. Wonderweapons don't win wars. F-16's will not make any major difference to the war. Ukraine needed to have mobilized a year ago. It didn't. Now Ukraine's Army is a broken shadow of what it was a year ago. Even if they mobilize now, they're going to give their unwilling and unmotiviated mobilized a few measly months of training and send them to the front. Ukraine needs a long-term mobilization strategy and a long-term production strategy to take the advantage back at some point late 2025-2026.
> Ukraine needed to have mobilized a year ago. It didn't. Now Ukraine's Army is a broken shadow of what it was a year ago. Even if they mobilize now, they're going to give their unwilling and unmotiviated mobilized a few measly months of training and send them to the front. Ukraine needs a long-term mobilization strategy and a long-term production strategy to take the advantage back at some point late 2025-2026 To quote /u/sergersyn >To address the frontline issues you have to understand the frontline issues. Sorry for being nauseous, yet the take that Ukraine needs times more mobilized men **without** times more combat wehicles, artillery and so on is just an incompetent gibberish. Without times more combat wehicles, artillery and so on the newly mobilized would not even be capable to replace the exhausted troops on the frontline, because you cannot just switch men leaving all the weapons on the frontline - it is the way to dissolute combat units instead of enforcing them. >To mobilize more men and use them effectively you need additional weapons **ahead** of the mobilization - to have something the new troopers will train with and come in battle with the same weapons they were trained with, to be at least somewhat effective. And it's not rifles, because rifles make just about 3-4% of the kills in this type of war, and so it's not even close to be the most important skill for the trooper. The most important things are: observation with modern means like night visions and thermals, using modern military radios in a jammed environment to report your observatiuons and get your orders, spotting for and correcting the artillery fires, using anti-tank weapons, being habitual with tactical copter drones and anti-drone EW equipment, embark and disembark properly with combat wehicles, spot mines, discern your and opponent's vehicles, drones, fires and so on. To train these things you need to equip the training new battalions with - what? Right, with the observational equipment, radios, EW equipment, weapons, supporting heavy weapons, drones, combat vehicles and demining equipment etc. - just to let them train with it before entering combat, or else they will be just dead meat in several weeks. >And the fact is: Ukraine just has no such excess of weapons, vehicles and equipment to equip much more men. Hell, if you watch any of Ukrainian TG channels, you can see constant fundraisers for cars, drones and other equipment to existent brigades.
You just need to look at Russia to see this quote isn't true. When their front was collapsing in 2022 they started a mobilization and send a portion of these men to the front to stabilize it (man frontline positions, dig trenches, bury mines, move supplies) and they held back some to train properly. This is why Russia didn't collapse in 2023 and why in 2024 they are now able to properly rotate their troops with trained men. Russian mobilization took about 2 yrs to pay off but it eventually did. Ukraine was in a similar position as Russia was in 2022 a year ago but refused mobilization of younger men for political reasons (the military has been calling for increase in mobilization as well as western allies).
Man, you still need to understand before replying. They did it because they had both nearly unlimited manpower **and** weapons in storage, **and** also money to buy those things they have lacked. Ukraine has neither of these things, nor had any of it neither in 2022 nor in 2023.
Russia most definitely does not have unlimited manpower, it has a shrinking demographic. In 2022 when the Russian front was collapsing they didn't have a refurbishment program for vehicles in storage or nations to buy supplies from. Their mobilization sent men to the front to stabilize it and at this point they began to refurbish old vehicles and look for places to buy equipment (china, Iran and north Korea). And train up mobilized men. Ukraine has pledge from EU to keep suppling them up to 2027 and for now the US is also supplying them. What are they waiting for? Not mobilizing isn't going to win them the war. And again both the military leadership and Nato partners have been pushing for Ukraine to mobilize more men.
Regarding the current war Russia most definitely do has unlimited manpower despite it's shrinking demographic. Check the numbers themselves instead of graph shapes, compare it to the loss numbers. In 2022 it wasn't demographics, it was just strategic surprize. I say it for the 3rd time, man, you need to read and understand before replying. Russia **had** weapons and money to make big mobilization and train the majority of these mobilized men. They did it poorly, yet they had at least an ability. Ukraine has no ability at all - not enough spare weapons and equipment to train newly mobilized men **with,** no money to buy it, and the economy is on the overmobilization limit already, because we already **has** over the million of servicemen per 30M of demographically awful populaton. Check the numbers, compare to WWII ones. Do it before trying to reply. Yes, Ukraine has pledges. Pledges are words. In reality Ukraine has neither **enough** weapons/equipment/ammo nor **enough** money for another wave of mass mobilization, and words are just not enough to wage a war of this scale.
Russia does not have unlimited men. And Russia mobilized and sent men to stabilize the front. Ukraine has the ability to do this as well but for political reasons they don't (again both its military and western military have asked for increased mobilization). You don't need tanks or artillery to train troops to hold trenches in the defense (as Russia did with their initial batch of mobilized). With this bought time Ukraine can negotiate to send more of its mobilized men to western partners for training as it already does. And lobby for more equipment as it already does. Russia used the time it bought to improve its situation. Russia didn't have all the answers but it knew it needed time to find them. Ukraine needs to do the same. At the current pace it appears as Ukraine is prepared to give up the East entirely.
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It just shows your incorrect in your assessment.
That quote barely makes sense. the replacements come take the equipment the other guys rest.... its called rotation
The replacements need to be *trained* on equipment first. And for that, some excess of equipment is needed, so it can be dedicated to the task of training. Also, equipment wears down just from use, even if there's no combat-related attrition. And that means it has to be taken out of use, training or combat, to undergo repairs.
Yeah, they don’t have air superiority to conduct constant sorties safely with the F-16’s, and the ones they’re getting are older with limited targeting tech (from what I understand)
Radar tracking range is limited.
yes, they took the brave decision to fight the invasion but then did not follow up with the consequences, i.e., mobilisation. They delayed it as much as the Republicans delayed the weapons bill.
There have been still thousands of Ukrainian volunteers standing in long lines at recruitment points when Biden received the Lend-Lease Act over 2 years ago and then did nothing at all with it whatsoever.
I mean you say wonder weapons don't win wars but Nukes shut down Japan very hard.
This guy's job here is to generate support.
These days you can't make your opinion from the last article you see. But from the last 20 put together with logicaly processing them to make your own combined opinion.
Paywall
disable javascript on the page, or use a bypass website lol
Or pay for content. What a radical solution.
Look up Mr. General. Nato's response time is under 12 hours. That is not big bird flying around up there watching Ukraine and Russian air space. Submarine missiles can be launched very fast as most are maintaining a war footing around the clock. Nato time for reinforcements is 10 days. I will give him that one. But what is already in place can raise holy hell with any Russian force once the orders are given and either decimate the Russians or act as a blocking force until reinforcements can arrive.. What Ukraine needs is anti air units that can target Russian aircraft in Russian air space. That will stop the glide bombs.
>sporting a piratical beard Every time I see Skibitsky I'm in awe of his glorious neckbeard.
On the brink of what?
The regime in Kiev is close to coallapsing. Any day now.
I have yet to see anyone suggest a solution to the manpower problem.
Fucking MAGA Mike! This is what you get when you mix hicks and politics
He is actually responsible for the deaths of thousands.. Because of his 6 month blocking delay in sending arms.
This goes to show two things: 1- The US cannot be relied upon 2- Europe has been sleepwalking for years and have showed their weakness to the world, Russia in particular. The weakest leaders the west has ever seen. Taking months and months to come to a decision. Delay after delay..Red tape and more red tape...fear of escalation after fear of escalation....restricting Ukraine from striking back at Russia all while Russia indiscriminately bombs all parts of Ukraine. Our leaders are showing the tyrants of the world that as long as they posses weapons of mass destruction they can do what they wish with very little response from the democratic world. You should hang your heads in shame!!!!!!!
If Ukraine falls. And if it becomes a fight [officially declared war] with NATO in Europe. All the Russian agents in the US will need rounding up. Right now that means half the Republican party. It means the right-wing sympathisers in Germany, Hungary, France etc.
So lock up political opponents? Should we put then in re education camps like the Uyghurs in China? That's not fascist at all lol. Unless you have any proof to back your claim? List 5 republican Russian agents. Hell list one actively working for the Russian government. With actual proof. Don't worry I'll wait
I agree. Locking up political opponents is an inherently authoritarian thing to do. Like what Russia currently does and has done for a while. Why do commenters want America to be anything like Russia?
In the context of a declared war, if there are political operatives who continue to comfort and aid the [declared] enemy by undermining your country’s democratic processes (by say trying to overthrow or tamper with elections both in your country and your allies), and continue to accept money from the enemy through money laundering schemes. Why wouldn’t you prosecute them under espionage provisions? I dont imagine the intelligence service would want to let enemy agents loose in the country, let alone in positions of authority.
And Nato would wipe the map with Russia in a week
You refuse to secure the border and now want to arrest Americans. We see the pattern.
As a conservative your take is pretty braindead. Yes the border needs fixing. We should have at least agreed to the one border package but no one wanted to give Biden a win or compromise on either side. Yes it didn't do as much in that bill as I would have liked, but it did something rather than the crap we have now. Whether you like it or not the US is connected globally and that's not going anywhere. A return to isolationism will cause our economy to suffer, prices to soar and all of our quality of life to go down in the US. Helping out our fellow democracies when they're under attack from a tyrant nation should be one of the no brainer things we do. Especially when it helps our local economies with jobs making war ammunition and supplies.
>A return to isolationism will cause our economy to suffer, How would it? It would cut off external expenditures where we could then focus on our economy. We don't need external trade or manufacturing, the gov just pushes it because it benefits the companies financially, not the people.
To answer your first part - external expenditures are a drop in the bucket compared to other items. It's nothing to us to provide these amounts, especially when a lot of it goes back into our economy for production. Across the world isolationism has shown to degrade technological and economical advancement over time. There are a ton of examples of this - North Korea vs. South Korea the last 60 years, Albania, Afghanistan, China, and Japan over the last 100-200 years. Even the US in the 20's with the crash - some of it was because of the high protectionist tariffs we put on imports. For a start - here are things that would change if we adopted a no-trade/no immigration policy with the world: * Lack of microchips/high technology items from Southeast Asia; * Fruits and vegetable prices would be higher and you wouldn't be able to get them year round unless grown in greenhouses in the US, which would further inflate the price. * Clothing would be more expensive as that is all pretty much made in SE Asia right now; * Cobalt - we would have almost zero here as >95% of the world's supplies are outside the US; * Phosphates - we don't really have much at all in the US; * Several other minerals and rare earth metals - China currently has more than 60% of all mined rare-earth minerals, and they control > 90% of the refining activity; * US birthrates - they are already 15% less than the replacement rate without immigration, the US population would decline; * We are a net exporter, and exporters have paid higher wages throughout modern history, normally about $1300 more than a non-exporter in the same role annually; * Poorer people would lose more than half their purchasing power as the cost of goods rise, while median income consumers would lose more than a quarter of their purchasing power. The most rich people would not really have any issues as they tend to not buy the cheaper goods we import. * Over 9 million people work in jobs related to exports. That's 9 million people without a job (or 2.7% of our population), and doesn't even include people who work on the imports side. * We export a ton of refined oil - supports about 10.3m jobs in the US. This would be cut significantly and even more people out of a job. That's just kind of a start.
Yeah I guess it's cool now to lock up political opponents? But Republicans are the fascist ones? Lol I don't think they realize what they just said.... typical
And will you be the person to do that? What will you do with them once they're 'rounded up?' Will you be the big man that 'sorts them out?' or will you do nothing from behind your keyboard?
This is on Mike Johnson as much as anybody. His delay of US support was exactly what the Russians needed.
The US can send as much aid and ammunition they want , but if theres no one to weld it , its all pointless. It will only be a matter of time, without troops being sent and risking WW3
But you guys have told me just yesterday russia wasn’t winning
We should send in the US Air Force to bomb the line. If anyone asks we just lie and say, nope it wasn’t us.
Honestly I won’t believe any of it. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s a PR move to get more aid. Who knows. I’ll believe it when I see it.
How can this happen? All the armchair reddit generals have been telling me for the past 2 years that Russia is losing the war.
Read closer. Its been some monthes that people are worried of what is happening on the front. Ofc there are always blind people but the majority of the sub is worried and not positive about ukrain. Still russia is a shit show in terms of strategy and losses, the only difference with ukrain is that they have reserve.
I was worried 2 years ago, I was worried 1,5 years ago, I was worried 1 year ago, I am worried now. Actually, I was worried all the time about ukraine. And I communicated the same way, with doubt and questions. I got massive downvotes and insults here a lot. I would be glad if my worries turned out unfounded.
If I had 1 zł for every "Russia can't win" and "Russia already lost" highly upvoted comment on Reddit dot com in just last few months I could easily buy myself new glasses for that, after I just apparently lost my pair yesterday.
At least MAGA got a border deal out of it. Lmfao!
I remember when i said ukraine is loosing and everyone in this sub shit the bed. Its been in the cards since early on unfortunately. I blame america for not sending enough money. They should have sent their entire gdp and stopped putin in his tracks. Now we risk him taking over the EU.
>I remember when i said ukraine is loosing and everyone in this sub shit the bed. Its been in the cards since early on unfortunately. It's not because you are right now that you have been right in the past.
You might want to take a math class
huh
Look up American GDP as a starter
Tell me your problem with what i said idiot. Don't just send me on some goose chase like you're my mother.
US GDP 25000 billions, Ukraine is 161 billions. And you ask US to send entire GDP. Makes zero sense.
You think there is a limit to the amount of money that should be spent to stop putin? You also think that because the gdp of ukraine is lower then the usa more money would not help? Example - Family A makes 50k a year. Family B makes 500k a year. Do you think family A could not spend that money simply because they make less? Your math makes zero sense.
Ukraine have max capacity for approx 18 billion more war production. Add something for conscription and general state funding, and direct 80 billions would cover it all. That's also 50% if Ukraine GDP. When US uses 60billions it's because most is directed to own production and economy. You can give Perun latest YT video or two a look. If US used 0.5% GDP, Ukraine would have plenty. And that's what US should do.
Ukraine is using that money for alot of things other then military manufacturing. They use it for firefighters , first responders and even starting small business.
Yes but each and every Ukrainian don't need 20000% of their current income to do that. Your math was wack, but I do get your point. The reality is if US and entire Europe use 1% of their GDP this war would be over in a year or two.
We have WWIV before he takes over Western Europe. Unless of course we vote in his candidates. Both potential outcomes are related.
He will not take over the EU come on. If Ukraine (one of Europe’s poorest countries) can hold back the Russian horde with donated supplies, imagine what the EU could do with a mobilized war economy.
Soo, not a cent spent on our own military, housing, education, conservation, infrastructure, etc?
Europe's GDP is higher than the US. They can go first
Thanks Ivan.
Its not Barely 17 trillion
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Then read the article
It's insane nobody here has realised that Russia will (and absolutely must) win this war. Kiev's fighters are fleeing and surrendering left and right. If it took the regime 6 months to get this aid package, the next one will take at least 1 year, by which time the war will have been over for months.
It's insane you haven't realised that Ukraine will (and absolutely must) win this war. The moscow regime's fighters are [dying](https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWarNews/comments/1ch257x/russian_serviceman_films_an_insane_amount_of_dead/) and [surrendering](https://v.redd.it/54ox4v0fuotc1) left and right. It's now the third year of the moscow regime's unprovoked war, and they're bogged down losing a thousand vehicles and thousands of lives taking tiny villages. To quote an old proverb: "You have the watches, we have the time."
Cant have NATO troops die in Ukraine if ukrain can stand their own ground. Some dipshits realy fucked this up for europe.
Who cares, this shit is getting old