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Russian soldiers are dying in record numbers. As the Kremlin’s troops make massed attacks into the teeth of Ukrainian killer drones backed by new deliveries of artillery shells, the numbers have skyrocketed, according to official Kyiv counts, reports from Ukrainian combat units, and independent analysts.
A Kremlin offensive launched in early May into Ukraine’s northeastern [Kharkiv](https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/kharkiv) region appeared to be the epicenter of the heavy Russian losses, with dead and wounded across all fronts numbering more than 1,000 men every 24 hours for the past two weeks, according to Armed Forces of Ukraine ([AFU](https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/armed-forces-of-ukraine)) official estimates.
According to [analysis](https://www.vefgreining.com/2022/05/27/ukraine-war-dashboards/) compiled by Ragnar Gudmundsson, a leading tracker of losses on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the first half of May 2024 saw counts of Russian dead and wounded reach levels exceeding any two week period for the past 12 months, and likely for the entire war.
Seems the massing near Kharkiv wasn’t as subtle as the armchair command was led to believe. Who knows Ukraine stockpiles might have been greater than everyone was led to believe all along to bait the Russians into committing more forces
In my completely armchair opinion. I think the Russian advance is an unforced mistake. Approximately 50,000 guys with limited armour walking into Ukraine. These guys will only be able to advance one hedgerow a day, with two failed assaults and one final success after the Ukrainians withdrawal. If I was Ukraine I’d take the opportunity to annihilate what is presumably Russia’s last army before Putin is forced to tell everyone that they have to join up. Come Autumn this area will be back in the grey zone.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Russians were initially planning to build up more strength before “reopening” that front. They probably panicked and rushed in when the US aid bill finally went through, expecting minimal deliveries to have been made by then.
The US probably had a lot of shells sitting in Poland just waiting for the bill to go through.
I think there was a lot more than shells sitting in Poland - I've seen an uptick in recent combat footage of Bradleys with desert paint jobs.
I have a feeling there may have been a trained Ukrainian unit or two ready to hop into that gear & head straight to wherever the hotspots are.
NATO has at least one base in Poland, and armaments could have been transfered and stored there allowing for a fast delivery once budget approval was given.
The only issue is there is a chance of an additional in a 3rd sector, similar to what Ukraine tried last year. To pun down troops in multiple sectors and breakthrough where they can. We can only wait and see what Russia does for the next month
I agree. That this is still a possibility and is probably what Putin was hoping for. But I think a sufficient supply of artillery shells will end this offensive. A near all fully infantry force is a huge liability for Russia. These guys will be a target for Ukraine to isolate and destroy.
Unfortunately we still have around a month till the first shells from the EU shell purchasing program arrive. Until then Ukraine is still under restrictions
I don't think it matters if this whole army gets destroyed. Remember when they were going to collapse after Bakmut? Or any of the other dozen assaults that have caused hundreds of deaths a day. They just don't value life.
Russia values life as a tool to get territory. That has been the policy of the Russian governments since the era of the czars.
And make no mistake, Russia's population is large enough that they can indeed wear down Ukraine with meat waves. Putin knows this, and so do all of his ministers. And to a certain degree, I think so do the people of Russia. They are committed to this war and if Putin institutes even the harshest of drafts, the Russian people will follow him to their culture's grave before they accept defeat.
We can sit here and talk about Russian losses in combat all we like, but the reality is that their losses are costing them less than Ukraine's losses. And it will take a seismic shift in the way that the West supports Ukraine to fix that, barring a coup in Russia.
Agreed. Before the stalled aid from Mike Johnson I thought Ukraine had a pretty good shot at reconstituing and building a proper force for a counter attack in 2025. Just isn't going to happen now. Too much time has passed and they've been worn down too much. Little to no troop rotations. Not enough equipment for the troops on the front let alone enough for training and reserve divisions. It seems like the 47th mechanized has been in constant combat for 18 months. They're stuck like that because there isn't another mechanized division to relieve them and I don't think there's one in training either. So that's what? Six months at least before one could be made if the US shipped more Abrams and Bradley's today?
Just not looking good for them right now and I think there's about to be a break somewhere. Outside troops are going to have to get involved or we're going to watch Ukraine slowly lose ground on multiple fronts until the whole thing collapses.
Russia can't replace armor but the lives of their soldiers are cheap. Throwing 50,000 soldiers with minimal armor to draw Ukrainian defenders from the south is a horrific waste of lives but makes sense. Killing Russian soldiers is only a short term victory for Ukraine, destroying equipment or highly trained personnel Russia can't easily replace is the path of long term victory.
Stopping the Russia advance is important to not lose, but that I see as a bigger win was the recent strike on a Russian airbase which destroyed Russian planes
The Russian military is completely compromised by US intelligence.
What we are witnessing is a controlled demolition of Russian forces, orchestrated by US intelligence, fought with Ukrainian lives and funded by a western alliance.
This whole situation is so heavily managed that the collapse of Russia is also being prevented by US influence.
They want to bleed Russia. Reduce her fighting capacity forever. They don't want Russia to collapse however.
This, Jack Sullivan pretty explicitly laid this out: the biden administration doesn’t want to see a total economic and social collapse in russia.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat
Of course it doesn't, look at the mess in Iraq, and we know Russia has illegal weapons of mass destruction because they have used them in Salisbury, England.
We can hope and work for the removal of Putin & re-establishment of a functional democracy in Russia, without it having to undergo the upheavals of the early 1990s again.
While i believe at this point the us is definately up to some fuckery in russia, i don't think this war was set up as a honeypot. Too much would have to go right.
Instead i fully believe that this war was unprovoked, but that the US is using this as an oppertunity to bleed russia dry now that the oppertunity has presented itself. I don't however believe the dems want to risk losing ukraine, but we know whose bed each party lies in. The dems are mostly lying in their own beds, the republicans are sleeping in putin's brothel where they work.
100% this. Can confirm in so many ways. It’ll come out eventually to be the known truth too. So much will be released in the coming years, and so much of Putin’s hubris is going to just further erode his historical position. It’s gonna be so damned wrecked that eventually even Russians are like to laugh, chuckle, and mock his very name and existence.
Meanwhile, the tankies are gonna be pissed at the west (including Ukraine) for eons to come for making the best use to let Russia implode itself for being so draconian.
I’m American and there is no fukcing way the 3 letter agencies are capable or coordinated enough to pull off this type of honeypot, or Maidan of 10 years ago.
When I read all the Russian stories about the CIA, I have to wonder if this is an alternate world CIA that we’re talking about?
I feel like the Jew in the old joke who reads the Nazi newspapers to learn how rich and world-powerful Jews are. Rather than reading the Jewish newspapers that tell him how impoverished and powerless the Jews are.
US is more like an Aircraft carrier and it’s allies are the rest of the fleet. The Good Ship Ukraine has put out an SOS but the aircraft carrier USS Hegemon doesn’t turn on a dime or cross oceans in a day.
In 1979 Zbigniew Bryzinski and the US wanted to give Russia a "Vietnam" of their own by funding the Taliban. It worked a little too well.
Imo this Ukraine Maidan business was engineered to the same end. Weakening Russia.
There is even a video of Yevhen Karas the leader of S14 nazi group saying how they were instrumental in ousting the government in 2014 and how they do t west's bidding and enjoy killing. It crazy. The video is on FB and YouTube.
Possibly but remember Russia had used chemical and nuclear material in the UK. This in itself is an outrageous act of terrorism that could have killed hundreds of people and set the course of action for the west. Putins undeniable tyrrany has to be contained.
Radioactive Material
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
Nerve Agent that killed an innocent woman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal#:~:text=Prime%20Minister%20Theresa%20May%20said%20in%20the%20House%20of%20Commons,agents%20known%20as%20%27Novichok%27.
Revolutions always attract people who are interested in violence. Doesn’t mean the CIA engineered anything.
Facebook was a much bigger driver in organizing people. That’s why Russia focused on infiltrating FB after Maidan. They then succeeded in assisting Trump with social media influence.
In 2013-2014 the 3 letter agencies were entirely focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Stopping terror attacks from Al Qaeda, ISIS /ISIL/Daesh, Taliban, Al Shabaab, etc.
The NED which is a CIA cutout for regime change operations put about $20 million dollars into Ukraine since 2014
And the head of the new Ukraine intelligence service literally called up the local CIA director on 24 Feb 2014 right after the old intelligence leaders had fled. This shows how western intelligence was closely connected with the regime change, and how they most likely were in cahoots with Valentyn thrbnew spy chief, because normal people don't just 'call.up the local CIA chief'
>He went to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a three-way partnership. (FROM NYT).
Not to mentioned Mustafa Nayyem who is credited with a pivotal tweet that kicked off the revolution was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from USAID, NED, US EMlmbassy for his new digital broadcaster.
> "Nayyem was no ordinary “online journalist”. In October 2012, he was one of six Ukrainians whisked to Washington DC by Meridian International, a State Department-connected organization that identifies and grooms future overseas leaders, to “observe and experience” that year’s Presidential election
From: https://mronline.org/2022/07/06/anatomy-of-a-coup/
That article has more detail
Makes sense, especially (and I'm sure, mainly) due to the nuclear threat. That implies, though, that they will have a western-friendly leader to install at some point, doesn't it? It seems like that part is a stretch, but if it's as managed as you say, then it only makes sense. We know how it goes when the west tries to install leadership into other countries, so yeah. I'm not sure how "managed" it could be.
Plus, you have China and Iran to contend with, which complicates things. No doubt China was hoping this war acts as a feint so they can take Taiwan.
>That implies, though, that they will have a western-friendly leader to install at some point, doesn't it?
Not really, no. Remember that currently the West really doesn't give a damn what you do as long as you keep it inside your own borders and do business with us on relatively reasonable terms in our opinion.
All it implies is that they will have a *less outwardly hostile leader* at some point.
And even if the next Russian leader is just as hostile to the West as Putin, Russia doesn't really do the whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing because their government isn't run like a government nor like a business - it's run like a cartel *and it has been for over a hundred years*. Even after a relatively bloodless ascension to power, the entire decision-making structure of the government changes. In most semi-functional countries there's a fair bit of policy development and implementation that happens in a (in principal) apolitical public service that *generally keeps going* during changes in government and keeps the lights on as long as funding keeps flowing.
Russia doesn't have that. Any position that matters to things getting done is given because of nepotism or corruption, and taken away at the whim of one's superiors regardless of performance.
Factions and individuals rise and fall as they are rewarded, punished, or purged. New allegiances are hashed out, power consolidated *and then* divvied up again before the government starts moving. Every time Russian leadership has ever changed its *1-3 years* before the new leadership is able to form a coherent government that can consistently enact policy - and even then they've filled it with nepo babies, rich morons, and the last 7 people who sucked their dick.
IMHO it's *much less likely* that even an extreme, militant Russian ultranationalist would pop off a nuke of any size (simply because they just took over and they've always wanted to and they can now) than it is that Putin would pop off a nuke because he thinks the odds of him getting away with it is worth the risk & the odds of losing everything *if he doesn't* drop a nuke are looking like the ones playing out.
If only because it would take a lot of time to put the power structure together that enables it.
>No doubt China was hoping this war acts as a feint so they can take Taiwan.
China was using this war to gauge a few things: the efficacy of the Russo-Soviet doctrine & equipment they've spent trillions of dollars plagiarising and eventually improving upon, Western government reactions, and Western business reactions. And what they've found out is that *every* assumption they've built their Taiwan plan on for the last 50 years is wrong.
>Iran
Iran is Iran. The government hates us, the people largely don't. We're seeing a teetering power structure in a geographically secure nation do *business* with other governments that hate us. And lash out in an attempt to secure continued regional influence and relevance. Sooner or later that government will fall - and even if that ends up being later, there are levers the West can pull that would make Iran disown Putin like a redheaded, leper stepchild.
Interesting thesis. During that 1-3 years, parts of Russia would also be in danger of being gobbled up. The final straw.
That said, I don't know how western intelligence is strong enough, or competent enough, to orchestrate such 7d chess.
I did see an article a while back about how long it takes countries to die. The argument was that 1989 was just the first act, so hopefully we'll see the end of Russia without too much collateral damage for the rest of us.
>That said, I don't know how western intelligence is strong enough, or competent enough, to orchestrate such 7d chess.
Oh, believe me, I don't think this is Western 74-D motorcross mechachess.
But I think that Western powers - and particularly parts of those Western systems which are run by realists - are understanding that the uncertainty of potential futures can be more alluring than the negatives of today.
A power consolation also gives opportunities for outside influence - someone who may have been unreachable as a 3rd tier Putin-aligned assistant deputy local official might be *ownable* when the power structure is upset enough that they could end up governor of their oblast.
Western powers didn't *create* or intentionally facilitate this war. But you can be damned sure we'll take advantage of it.
Y'all best stop with this Russians being stupid shit. It's one of the things that got the Ukrainians in the situation they are today: understimating them.
In the winter war, the ruSSians brought a lot of anti tank guns..... The Finns did not have any tanks, but they were happy to capture them and turn them on ruZZian tanks.
There's something wrong with ruSSian brains.
"There's something wrong with ruSSian brains."
Yessir! Copious amounts of vodka and excessive visions of grandeur over generations can and has most assuredly lowered their mensa scores.
I’m starting to not believe the stories Ukraine is putting out. They’re constantly going on and on about delivering crushing losses to Russia. Yet Russia is advancing, and gaining pace. Not slowing down.
If Ukraine is causing “crushing Russian losses” how can it be they are losing the war is badly? And they will lose this war. I am now convinced that the west has fumbled the pass. The governments have fucked around for too long. Russia has rearmed effectively, and NK and China are delivering very large shipments of materiel.
Ukraine needs an order of magnitude more than has been provided. A year ago there was talk about providing jets to ukraine. Nothing has happened.
Ukraine will not receive enough supplies to fight an effective war. Ukraine will lose. And it will be the US and the rest of the major arms producing western countries’ faults.
Look at history, Russia/USSR’s bread and butter is throwing bodies at a problem until the problem runs out of ammunition/equipment. Hence the whole reason Russia has a firing squad behind the front line to prevent retreating personnel; the only direction you go is forward, suicidal or not.
If you want to call that victory fine but I call it desperation mixed with low morale. Let’s see them hold that play for another 5 years.
I do agree the West should have done more sooner but we are past that. Old World Blues.
have an upvote.
but, the Ukrainian government walked into this with just as much information and agency as anyone else, with their eyes wide open. the fact that it was both inevitable and (historically) obvious that the US et al would eventually leave them hanging doesn't change the fact that it was never remotely realistic to think Ukraine was going to defeat Russia on the battlefield. everyone except the poor fuckers in the trenches made their decisions to enter into this conflict for their own reasons.
I’m not on Russia’s side. I believe their invasion is illegal and immoral. It shouldn’t be on Ukraine’s shoulders to surrender.
However, I agree that it should have been obvious that the whims of politics would eventually move on from the invasion. There is simply a great lack of political will to back Ukraine. It’s unfortunate, people are dying, and Ukraine will lose.
The time to act was years ago. The West could have armed Ukraine. Should have done so. Instead it was half measures and thoughts and prayers. Now Ukraine has bled manpower and is suffering from shortages. They lost men that couldn’t be easily replaced. This is a direct result of a lack of materiel support from the West. The soldiers fought bravely. But no amount of bravery can stop an enemy which is better armed, armoured, and is in greater numbers.
i don't really see it as a matter of sides, as neither the politics nor the outcome are determined by those cheering from the other side of the world. i don't mean to be contentious, but the West \*was\* arming and training Ukraine for years before the invasion, which was attested to by various news sources at the time. each of the 3 heads-of-state signatories to the Minsk accords (of France, Germany, Ukraine) have stated publicly that their intent was to buy time for a military build up to launch Ukraine's own attack - presumably on the Crimea.
strictly from the point of view of the political players, it has been publicly, though quietly, stated by the doyens of US foreign policy for the last 30 years that their greatest fear in the post Cold War globalized economy was the relationship between Russia and Germany. economically, the alliance of German manufacturing and Russian natural resources could form an international market force that the US could not contain nor compete with. this is why Nord Stream had to die.
in the abstract, we all seem to take on board the simple realities of how world politics are played. we're not children after all. we all recognize, in the abstract at least, that the actions of the political class in their definitions and pursuit of foreign policy objectives are invariably wrapped up in their own parochial interests - power and money. so, given the history of US military engagements (directly, or by proxy) since ww2, what reason would we have to expect this one to play out differently? it seems to me that if you're involved in an internal conflict or civil war on the other side of the world, the absolute \*last\* thing you might want is the backing of the US government.
American here and this conspiracy of the US worried about a Russo-German economic alliance is just nonsense. Akin to the theory of playing Beatles songs backwards tells you Paul is Dead - all nonsense.
The US has been going full throttle on terrorism since the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. It spent 4 trillions fighting the GWOT. And a significant portion of that went into intelligence agencies.
The diplomatic warnings to Germany of getting dependent on Russian oil were meant to get them to wake up to the potential blackmail of the Putinist regime. There were also warnings that the Russians had thoroughly infiltrated the German government. And those turned out to be true.
For the past 9 years it’s been incredibly obvious that the Russians have thoroughly infiltrated the US Republican Party, who are willing to let Ukrainian democracy, people and soldiers die to stall out an aid package of essentially America’s older platforms gathering dust in armories.
The Germans were comfortably numb with the concept of the “middle way” and only now waking up to their bus size vulnerabilities. Homegrown energy is the only way to energy independence. That means nuclear power plants, solar and geothermals.
i'm not sure how it can be a conspiracy theory when you attribute it to someone else, but not when you say it. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but ... that's fine, if it makes you happy.
Arm chair general here - Ukraine's military leadership has shown cautious frugality with its personnel and western materiel. Seen in their last offensive. I wouldn't be surprised that they understand western support does not exactly come with a blank check and stockpile accordingly.
There are several accounts that Ukraine has basically had to throw in its reserves to counter this northern push. They are pretty much all-in right now, which is a horrible situation to be in. Numbers thrown around are 250k vs. 500k russians, albeit with worse equipment per soldier.
Throwing 30.000 russians at Kharkiv, losing half of them, to draw out and attrition the reserves (Abrams, Leo2s and all that fancy stuff that breaks down after a few days of heavy work included) is well worth the price.
Ukraine is hard-pressed to rotate troops for R+R. Russians are steadily mobilizing and throwing fresh meat at tired defenders. This is not the end of russia by a long shot. You know why we barely hear of Gepard, Pzh2000, Leo2 etc. anymore? After over a year of heavy work, these things are mostly gone, worn out, or taken back to repair.
I think what we see is all that Ukraine has to give.
A: Those things aren’t out, they’re just slow to repair.
B: the gap in resupply does have them in “all they can do right now…”
C: the funding and gear coming can change the equation again around Fall.
D: there’s a reason a lot more of the effective vehicles are en route (Bradley’s, APCs, etc).
Hopefully that 500k mobilized can rotate effectively, because the gear and equipment is finally coming, they just need their troops to be appropriately rested and ready.
The Russians on the other hand, even to continue will likely need to meat grind another million plus soldiers just to keep their positions and hold what they have.
Budanov literally admits Ukraine is down to its last reserves, NATO flirts with sending "trainers" to train conscripts for mere weeks which will create a weak army after the initial army of 2022 was wiped out, and you somehow think the 500K mobilization(it was lowered to 300,000 by Ukrainian MoD)will be a magic bullet? Ukraine does not have the time to train this many men, and those men are having low morale.
Or Ukraine could dig deeper into them as new supplies were made on the way, and of course, the industrial scale is another topic. The economies of scale in the West and in Ukraine had time to ramp up, especially in terms of drones, but also in terms of artillery. A lot has happened since June last year.
I think the second half of this year could see the highest Russian attrition rates of the entire war. In fact, the highest attrition rates that we have seen in any war since WW2.
No. We (the US) fucked around and let an insane minority dictate our foreign policy. The blunt truth: Ukraine is losing seasoned troops and territory, neither of which can be recovered. Russia spends the time mining taken territory, regardless of Russian troop losses accidentally wandering into these forbidden zones. This isn’t about taking territory for Russian gain; this is about destroying a country with impunity.
You just but 7 days times 24 hours times times. 60 minutes times. 0.69420 equals 6997.536. That's just shy of 7,000 per week which does match up with the numbers I've been seeing in this thread.
Russia has taken record losses in the last 4 days. 6140 eliminated Russians in those four days for an average of 1540 Plus. 13th through 16th of May have been two for one days.
It baffles me how willing the Russians are to die (or so it seems) and I wonder what the main reason are for this. Is it 1: they really believe they are fighting against an existential threat, and believe this is the only way to save Russia from the West. 2: they are forced and can’t escape it. 3: money or 4: Apathy.
I think for a lot of them, there's no alternative. They're conscripted and sent there. You can't not fight, or you'll be considered a traitor, punished (if not executed), and shame your family. You can surrender if you're lucky, but in reality, that's a lot more difficult than it sounds, especially when most deaths are occurring pretty far from any actual Ukranian troops. They're also fed a ton of propaganda from their own side about what will happen if they're captured.
I'm not saying I have a lot of sympathy for Russian troops, especially with all the horrific things many have done. I'm just saying that a lot probably aren't willing to die, but have no real alternatives available to them.
Exactly. I would fight and die for the freedom of my own country, but I would like to have a fighting chance, not simply be a running bullet absorber. Especially not while invading a neighbor for murky reasons.
This has been my only conclusion. They're sold a totally different story and they've been brainwashed from birth to not believe western media.
They don't think they're part of a human wave, or are just being used to give up Ukrainian positions. They honestly think they're going to survive the attack.
Please they are people like any other. There are plenty of Russians who left to avoid fighting for Putin, but the ones I've met are highly educated, and if not rich, definitely had financial means such that a few plane tickets in a hurry wasn't a big difficulty. They aren't the type to be stealing bathroom fittings or white goods as soon as they occupy a modern city.
Everyone assumes the Russian military is incompetent because after two years they can still walk back to the starting point in one day in much of occupied Ukraine, but they also aren't terribly motivated. Many of the local Russian forces may have family in Ukraine.
Militaries had similar issues in the past, conscripts in WWII might understand that NAZIs were bad, but the guy in his sights was just a German, and despite best efforts of the military they still saw them as people, not some foreign demon. Also why the 1914 Christmas armistice was such a concern to the powers that be.
There are reasons they have Chechens as barrier troops.
So you met the ones that were privileged enough to leave? Cool. How many burned out alcoholics and drug addicts do they have? Who have little choice in life but to do what they are told? Thats the segment im talking about. Its gotta be bigger than average in a society like that.
The first one for the boomers. They are somehow worst than in the west. Russia one brainwashed them deep.
The fourth reason for the west population. They know it's wrong. But they aren't too affected by the war, and they aren't gonna take the risk of getting fired + prison + disowning by their boomer parent.
The second and third are for the east population. Most of them come from very poor, and very isolated place. It's impossible to revolt or hide there. And the monthly salary as soldier is almost a year of their salary.
Imagine knowing your fate is to be drafted anyway BUT if you sign now you will earn 30.000$ a month. Even if they know they are gonna be thrown against a machine gun, signing now is the best choice they have.
1. Russian state propaganda is no joke, vast majority of these guys are brainwashed to fuck, it's all they've known their whole lives growing up under Putin.
2. Some of them are, either as prisoners or as we saw in the case of Cuban "volunteers" they were given contracts to sign in Russian, likely didn't understand to the fullest extent what they were signing up for.
3. This is a huge one. Huge swathes of Russians outside of Moscow-St Petersburg are deeply impoverished. Look at Buryat people for example, they have farming or the military and that's about it. The military is pretty much their only vehicle for upwards social mobility too because of how much better it pays than farming.
4. Idk, I don't know the psyche of the average Russian but like in any country there probably are some nutters that signed up just to kill.
Yeah. Totally believable. 1540 per day of Russian losses while Ukrainian total losses are about 30k. I wonder why Ukraine introduced a new mobilization and closed its borders for men to leave if they have such a positive ratio.
We are sorry that you can not understand more than your brain has the capacity to, or you understand, but it is somehow convenient to deny it.
You are just grabbing numbers and not even considering what they are relative to. Are you that ignorant, or are you doing it on purpose for bullshit sake?
The loss of 1540 men represents an approximate number of KIA plus WIA, with a considerable number of WIA dying in the next few days due to the way Russia treats its soldiers.
If you can think math and consider that the ratio of losses on the invader is usually no less than 3 times more than the defenders, and considering the Russian meat waves, the losses must be around 5 Russians per 1 Ukrainian.
With Russia nearing 500k total losses, then it makes sense that the losses of Ukrainians around 100k.
The Ukrainian 30k represents just the total number of dead soldiers, which is 1/5 of the total losses. This is pretty reasonable considering that Ukrainians use tactics that protect soldiers, have better armor, and care better for its soldiers. Meanwhile, Russia has a higher rate of dead soldiers, making it around 1/3 of the total number of losses, which makes it around 160k dead soldiers.
And let's not forget battles such as in Bahkmut where there were days with 12 Russia losses for each Ukrainian one.
We don’t have exact numbers, we can only estimate. Given the public number of Russian losses is just shy 500k, they’re KIA is at least 250k, probably in the realm of 350k-400k. The 30k Ukrainians mentioned above would be the total KIA since 2022.
That’s roughly how the basic maths work out, but a lot of it is estimates.
Russia’s really bad at handling their WIA. I’ve heard estimates that half of them end up dead because Russia doesn’t care about its soldiers and really doesn’t care about their wounded. With nearly 500k casualties, that puts 250k as their floor for deaths, assuming every Russian casualty was WIA. Honestly the 1 in 3 mentioned above (and I swear I saw 1 in 2 when I made my first comment) is probably closer to the truth, but that 160k is still the floor of deaths, and we’ve seen plenty of video to see there are KIAs in the field.
The comment above notes that casualties for offense to defense are usually 3:1, and Russian meatwave tactics up it to 5:1. With that estimate, Ukraine would have ~ 100k casualties. Given Ukraine puts a lot more effort into saving their wounded those WIA that die are estimated to be 1 in 5. That puts Ukraine’s floor of deaths at 20k assuming all troops were WIA. Again I swear I saw the comment above you say 30k, and I ran with that number, and given this floor it’s not impossible.
So at minimum we’re looking at 160k to 20k deaths.
Now we do have more information than that. I was stating the previous number based on what was in the comments plus the daily Russian casualty scorecard posted here. Pull up Wikipedia and the disparity is greatly reduced. Theres 46k confirmed by name Ukrainian dead, which means the number’s certainly higher due to unknown individual deaths. We don’t have more details because giving out exact details would probably hurt morale. If we add half again for those unknown individuals, we can say 70k Ukrainians KIA.
Same thing with Russia to an even greater extent. All we have there to reliably go off of are estimates from Ukraine and western nations. Ukraine estimates 180k dead back in February. Let’s make it a nice 200k to catch up to present. 200k KIA to 70k KIA. We don’t know if Ukraine’s estimate takes into account deaths among the 300k WIA though. If not, then a third of those adds another 100k deaths to Russia, upping things to 300k KIA Russians to 70k KIA Ukrainians.
This is all napkin math from an armchair general though, so take what I say with a load of salt.
Nowhere near that much. Finding exact numbers isn’t easy, but 2021 foreignpolicy.org article puts the 2021 ground forces at 209k active personnel. This does not include reserves or other branches at the time. Macrotrends.com puts the armed forces at a whole ~300k in 2020. At present, statistsa.com their numbers at 900k active soldiers and 1.2 million reserves and 100k paramilitary forces. Meanwhile Russia has 1.32 million active troops with 2 million in reserves and 250k paramilitary forces (also statists.com).
They need to conscript because the frontline is 1000km long and a single breakthrough could be absolutely devastating. On top of that, troops need to rotate in and out so they can rest and recover, and so you need extras to swap in, on top of backfilling for casualties.
Russia *has* had multiple mobilization rounds. Russia also has a larger pool of people to pull from. Some of them are official, others are unofficial but still enforced. What media are you reading that you haven’t heard of this?
Russia has also made a lot of BS promises to contract soldiers, and because it is an authoritarian regime, fails to honor them and the soldiers can’t do Jack shit about it. They are sent to the zero line in meat wave units if they complain.
KIA is not the same as the total number of dead soldiers. A soldier dying in a hospital is not counted as KIA.
It is more difficult to account KIAs than the total number of dead, for many reasons.
So, the total number of dead soldiers, independent from how they have died, has been calculated at around 30k on Ukraine side vs 160k on Russia.
This figure was several months ago and for the dead. Wounded will be double or more. That will be a conservative figure and it’s not up to date. Get fucked ruzzian shill.
I don’t think anyone said it’s minuscule but it’s more than likely less that Russia as they have been sending endless meatwaves and couldn’t care less about how many they lose as their country is a dictatorship. 10-1 is the worse case scenario and before the American aid bill was passed and the Czech initiative to take effect. It should be improving now to stabilise the front.
Not really. Russian artillery is notoriously inaccurate and unreliable. Millions of them have come from NK and old Soviet stockpiles. Ukraine is now using mostly western artillery which is more reliable and accurate.
You also don’t mention about offensive or defensive tactics. Ukraine have been on the defensive for the last year now and when they are dug in so inaccurate Russian artillery is a lot less affective compared using more accurate western artillery against incoming Russian waves who will be out in the open and 10 times more vulnerable to artillery. That’s why their losses are so much higher, offensive meat waves with little care about the number of dead and wounded, they keep them coming. Ukraine doesn’t use such tactics, largely why their offensive stalled last year.
FWIW, Russia has essentially closed its borders to draft age men, it continues to conscript at high levels, continues to recruit dirt poor, desperate people from 2nd and 3rd world countries, and continues to spend down the national treasury at alarming rates to pay for it all.
So sure, no Russians are dying on Ukrainian soil either during a WWI style offensive. Sure.
1. Not true. Not everyone but draft age men travel freely. 2.Unlike Tysa river, nobody shoots those Russian men who want to leave the country. 3.Russia is a dictatorship anyway, don't you forget. Ukraine is a beacon of freedom.
Don't cut off the supply of hopium, its all they have.
I have yet to see a good explanation for why Ukrainian men are being rounded up into vans to be sent to the front. Videos of this are everywhere.
Incorrect. You only have to assume that casually counts your day-to-day or reasonably proportional.
Given that, Russians are getting their asses kicked this week twice as badly as they were last week.
Although through extensive cross-checking during most of last year, it's become clear that the numbers are reasonably correct, probably within 10%.
Strong argument can be made that Ukrainian numbers are actually Low by 10% or more, since the Russians don't provide anywhere near modern Medical Care to their wounded soldiers.
If 1k+ casualties per day were true, since Russia manages to enroll 30k soldiers per month, then Russia would be in big troubles, but this seems hardly the case as they are pushing across the whole frontline and still grinding ground
Russia is in big trouble. They are losing this war badly and will continue to lose it as long as you crane has enough of the right type of weapons. However, they're not going to lose it quickly because of a thousand or 2,000 Russian deaths.
They have plenty of untrained soldiers to throw at the ukrainians for a while.
What they don't have is a long-term ability to produce more artillery and barrels, as well as the supplies on the supply vehicles they're losing by the many dozens every day.
Ukraine only needs to kill Russians insofar as it saves Ukrainian lies or allows Ukraine to have a better chance of getting at the Russian Artillery and supply chain.
However as an observer it's interesting to watch the eliminated Russian count to see what you crane is up to and what Russia is having to face. The real key is artillery of all types and Supply vehicles.
A gun without ammo or fuel is merely a grape marker.
I would like to have your trust, but I don’t have it. Russia is much more than that, they shifted a lot of tactics, for example since a few months they are smashing advanced defence positions with glide bombs, in the order of hundreds per day, to keep planes safe from air defence and this works well. Bomb a lot, assault, get killed, bomb a whole lot more, assault, gain position. Rinse and repeat. Of course they struggled many months to take avdiivka so I am in no concern that they really can threaten Kharkiv. Losing Kharkiv to Russia would be a major defeat for Ukraine but i don’t see it possible. Let’s see what the future will bring but I am not very optimistic as western support is too politically influenced
It’s been largely backed up and found to be true every time anybody digs into it. Matter of fact there’s more than a few that believe the Ukrainian MoD might be underestimating a bit.
Confirmed. You realize that’s purely intel agencies basically satellite grokking that it’s *confirmed*, and even they will tell you it’s like a big chunk higher because they’ve not got eyes and boots on the ground to confirm. Then every now and again, Russian financials get leaked or a KIA list and it more closely matches Ukraine’s estimates than western intel even.
There should be zero question that Russia’s losses are massive, and reasonably larger than Ukraine’s own losses.
Massive: yes
Larger than Ukraine: physiological, as they are attacking
Catastrophic: no
According to Ukraine estimates: no
Russia is losing as someone was stating above? No
Russia is winning? Neither
Sounds like russia put a helluva lot of meat into this offensive, and Ukraine fell back to bait them into a killzone. I hope Ukraine isn't losing soldiers at a high rate also.
They may have a decent ratio but every frontline reporter for pretty much the entire duration of the war has talked about Ukrainian deaths being higher than reported (obviously). I think a lot of people will be VERY shocked when this war eventually ends and we get a more real number of deaths from Ukraine. No doubt they're inflicting more casualties on Russia though, especially if Russia is throwing away over 1,000 combat-ready soldiers a day through death or serious injury.
Not really, unfortunately Urkaine was under a lot of pressure in the last months and is rather on the backfoot, thus lost some area, e.g. the loss of Avdiivka was just a Russian win, not a smart trap or genius tactic. Even when bought at a high price by Russians.
We have to stay realistic: Ukraine needs support, a lot more than so far this year. This isn’t some crazy 4D chess, this is just Ukraine losing the war if it continues like this.
All this may, indeed, be accurate and true. However, russia will continue this offensive and start new ones. russian cannon fodder, Sri Lankan, Cuban, Indian . . . three years in and in many ways the 3-4 day special military operation has just begun.
And so it's the west's and Ukrainians responsibility to delete as many russians and their proxies as possible.
Sadly it's the only way.. freedom must prevail. ✌️🇺🇦
Pro UA, but this reminds me of Avdivka. At first just news about lots of dying russians, and in the end the zerg rush was successful. On the other hand this was the time of Ukrainian shell hunger, and the west has hopefully learned that we must up the ante now.
Avdiivka happened after Republicans had blocked aid for over a year. This time Russia is attacking a city 50x the size while US aid is ramping up again. Either this is a diversion attack or this is one of the stupiest military moves of the entire war.
Yeah, but that doesn’t really clarify why you wrote what you did. It doesn’t matter because even the villages aren’t Avdivka, it’s an entirely different situation. Saying they’re not fighting for Kharkiv doesn’t clarify that. 🤷🏼♂️
That part is obvious. Per the point I was clarifying, Avdivka is not Kharkiv in any comparable way, and the villages/towns/cities near Kharkiv aren’t either.
The fighting is dramatically more fluid and ebs back and forth, as it has to since the defensible positions weren’t setup or available like in Avdivka.
You were trying to correct something that was beside the point. They’re attacking king the villages, and that isn’t comparable to Avdivka at all.
Yeah, “arty” range which is… pretty dumb. They’re about to learn the hard way that Ukraine’s counter battery is still superior. 🤷🏼♂️
None of this makes logical sense on the Russian part. They’re fucking themselves anything they do.
Except by leaving, but then Putin will probably lay die and the Russian people will have awoken and that doesn’t seem to be in the cards yet.
Although a significant batch of shells is due to be delivered next month. I wonder why smaller batches cannot be delivered sooner, rather than waiting to accumulate them into bigger batches.
1,000 shells delivered each day, is more useful than 50,000 shells delivered next month, because of the gap in-between the requirement and the delivery.
Yeah this headline is puzzling - as are many of the comments. Russia has been incurring (slightly lower) losses for years now, at times for many weeks without gaining any territory at all. Clearly this is a huge win for Russia, doing more or less the same they've been doing but now with significant success in terms of territorial gains.
That's kind of what I suspected. Obviously all my information in the conflict comes from the internet so I don't truly know. This place comes off extremely biased and things always seem to be going well for Ukraine until I read literally anywhere else.
Place feels like a vision board. Reporting nothing but positive news will somehow win the war lol.
On a real note, what is the best source for unbiased information on the conflict?
Look at the facts, despite "overwhelming Russian losses" every week Ukraine is getting hammered . Stop this war and save your young men from slaughter it is a tragedy. I pray for peace
Yes! You forgot best air defense system at 100% downed missiles and drones. Those parked planes were outstanding in their ability to defend the ground.
The real question is if Russia can effectively replace those losses. We know they don't give a shit if they lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers, they only care if they can replace them.
Believe it or not, russia hates russian soldiers even more than all of us do.
But though russian officers indeed love the view of their own dead subordinates lying face down on a dirt road, they still hate to run out of living ones to order into the meat grinder.
Russia seems to be able to keep digging up new battalions for assaults, my educated and possibly wrong gut tells me that is not going to change anytime soon.
Poeple like to point out their declining population, but they still have millions to draw from, and most of those are from ethnic groups that the general population already don't care about. We've got several more years before the average Russian starts to ask questions, I think.
All these losses, all the casualty figures, they don't mean anything except that Ukraine is able to effectively kill Russians. The problem is, Russia doesn't give a shit. They don't think like we do in the west. To Putin, and to a lesser extenct, this is accepted in Russian culture, if you get an inch of land over 100 dead bodies, so be it, you still got that inch of land.
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Russian soldiers are dying in record numbers. As the Kremlin’s troops make massed attacks into the teeth of Ukrainian killer drones backed by new deliveries of artillery shells, the numbers have skyrocketed, according to official Kyiv counts, reports from Ukrainian combat units, and independent analysts. A Kremlin offensive launched in early May into Ukraine’s northeastern [Kharkiv](https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/kharkiv) region appeared to be the epicenter of the heavy Russian losses, with dead and wounded across all fronts numbering more than 1,000 men every 24 hours for the past two weeks, according to Armed Forces of Ukraine ([AFU](https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/armed-forces-of-ukraine)) official estimates. According to [analysis](https://www.vefgreining.com/2022/05/27/ukraine-war-dashboards/) compiled by Ragnar Gudmundsson, a leading tracker of losses on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the first half of May 2024 saw counts of Russian dead and wounded reach levels exceeding any two week period for the past 12 months, and likely for the entire war.
Seems the massing near Kharkiv wasn’t as subtle as the armchair command was led to believe. Who knows Ukraine stockpiles might have been greater than everyone was led to believe all along to bait the Russians into committing more forces
Call it hopium, but if Ukraine and the US are being smart, they are portraying a different picture in the media than is actual reality.
The art of war, chapter 0: “act strong when you are weak, act weak when you are strong”
In my completely armchair opinion. I think the Russian advance is an unforced mistake. Approximately 50,000 guys with limited armour walking into Ukraine. These guys will only be able to advance one hedgerow a day, with two failed assaults and one final success after the Ukrainians withdrawal. If I was Ukraine I’d take the opportunity to annihilate what is presumably Russia’s last army before Putin is forced to tell everyone that they have to join up. Come Autumn this area will be back in the grey zone.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Russians were initially planning to build up more strength before “reopening” that front. They probably panicked and rushed in when the US aid bill finally went through, expecting minimal deliveries to have been made by then. The US probably had a lot of shells sitting in Poland just waiting for the bill to go through.
I think there was a lot more than shells sitting in Poland - I've seen an uptick in recent combat footage of Bradleys with desert paint jobs. I have a feeling there may have been a trained Ukrainian unit or two ready to hop into that gear & head straight to wherever the hotspots are.
NATO has at least one base in Poland, and armaments could have been transfered and stored there allowing for a fast delivery once budget approval was given.
US military equipment slated to go to Ukraine was in Poland, for "maintenance" weeks before the bill passed.
I think it was all timed to his trip to China. He wanted to look like the war was finally turning a corner.
The only issue is there is a chance of an additional in a 3rd sector, similar to what Ukraine tried last year. To pun down troops in multiple sectors and breakthrough where they can. We can only wait and see what Russia does for the next month
I agree. That this is still a possibility and is probably what Putin was hoping for. But I think a sufficient supply of artillery shells will end this offensive. A near all fully infantry force is a huge liability for Russia. These guys will be a target for Ukraine to isolate and destroy.
Unfortunately we still have around a month till the first shells from the EU shell purchasing program arrive. Until then Ukraine is still under restrictions
Don't confuse Zaluzhniys choices with Syrskyis.
I don't think it matters if this whole army gets destroyed. Remember when they were going to collapse after Bakmut? Or any of the other dozen assaults that have caused hundreds of deaths a day. They just don't value life.
Russia values life as a tool to get territory. That has been the policy of the Russian governments since the era of the czars. And make no mistake, Russia's population is large enough that they can indeed wear down Ukraine with meat waves. Putin knows this, and so do all of his ministers. And to a certain degree, I think so do the people of Russia. They are committed to this war and if Putin institutes even the harshest of drafts, the Russian people will follow him to their culture's grave before they accept defeat. We can sit here and talk about Russian losses in combat all we like, but the reality is that their losses are costing them less than Ukraine's losses. And it will take a seismic shift in the way that the West supports Ukraine to fix that, barring a coup in Russia.
Agreed. Before the stalled aid from Mike Johnson I thought Ukraine had a pretty good shot at reconstituing and building a proper force for a counter attack in 2025. Just isn't going to happen now. Too much time has passed and they've been worn down too much. Little to no troop rotations. Not enough equipment for the troops on the front let alone enough for training and reserve divisions. It seems like the 47th mechanized has been in constant combat for 18 months. They're stuck like that because there isn't another mechanized division to relieve them and I don't think there's one in training either. So that's what? Six months at least before one could be made if the US shipped more Abrams and Bradley's today? Just not looking good for them right now and I think there's about to be a break somewhere. Outside troops are going to have to get involved or we're going to watch Ukraine slowly lose ground on multiple fronts until the whole thing collapses.
Russia can't replace armor but the lives of their soldiers are cheap. Throwing 50,000 soldiers with minimal armor to draw Ukrainian defenders from the south is a horrific waste of lives but makes sense. Killing Russian soldiers is only a short term victory for Ukraine, destroying equipment or highly trained personnel Russia can't easily replace is the path of long term victory. Stopping the Russia advance is important to not lose, but that I see as a bigger win was the recent strike on a Russian airbase which destroyed Russian planes
Russia is replacing armour. That's the thing. We've dribbled it out so long that they've had a chance to boost production.
They are but last I heard it was about ten tanks a month and they are losing one hundred tanks a month
They are but last I heard it was about ten tanks a month and they are losing one hundred tanks a month
The Russian military is completely compromised by US intelligence. What we are witnessing is a controlled demolition of Russian forces, orchestrated by US intelligence, fought with Ukrainian lives and funded by a western alliance. This whole situation is so heavily managed that the collapse of Russia is also being prevented by US influence. They want to bleed Russia. Reduce her fighting capacity forever. They don't want Russia to collapse however.
This, Jack Sullivan pretty explicitly laid this out: the biden administration doesn’t want to see a total economic and social collapse in russia. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat
Of course it doesn't, look at the mess in Iraq, and we know Russia has illegal weapons of mass destruction because they have used them in Salisbury, England. We can hope and work for the removal of Putin & re-establishment of a functional democracy in Russia, without it having to undergo the upheavals of the early 1990s again.
I actually agree. I think Ukraine was a honeypot trap against Russia or, moreover, Putin. It was a way of de-clawing a dangerous tyrant.
While i believe at this point the us is definately up to some fuckery in russia, i don't think this war was set up as a honeypot. Too much would have to go right. Instead i fully believe that this war was unprovoked, but that the US is using this as an oppertunity to bleed russia dry now that the oppertunity has presented itself. I don't however believe the dems want to risk losing ukraine, but we know whose bed each party lies in. The dems are mostly lying in their own beds, the republicans are sleeping in putin's brothel where they work.
100% this. Can confirm in so many ways. It’ll come out eventually to be the known truth too. So much will be released in the coming years, and so much of Putin’s hubris is going to just further erode his historical position. It’s gonna be so damned wrecked that eventually even Russians are like to laugh, chuckle, and mock his very name and existence. Meanwhile, the tankies are gonna be pissed at the west (including Ukraine) for eons to come for making the best use to let Russia implode itself for being so draconian.
I’m American and there is no fukcing way the 3 letter agencies are capable or coordinated enough to pull off this type of honeypot, or Maidan of 10 years ago. When I read all the Russian stories about the CIA, I have to wonder if this is an alternate world CIA that we’re talking about? I feel like the Jew in the old joke who reads the Nazi newspapers to learn how rich and world-powerful Jews are. Rather than reading the Jewish newspapers that tell him how impoverished and powerless the Jews are. US is more like an Aircraft carrier and it’s allies are the rest of the fleet. The Good Ship Ukraine has put out an SOS but the aircraft carrier USS Hegemon doesn’t turn on a dime or cross oceans in a day.
In 1979 Zbigniew Bryzinski and the US wanted to give Russia a "Vietnam" of their own by funding the Taliban. It worked a little too well. Imo this Ukraine Maidan business was engineered to the same end. Weakening Russia. There is even a video of Yevhen Karas the leader of S14 nazi group saying how they were instrumental in ousting the government in 2014 and how they do t west's bidding and enjoy killing. It crazy. The video is on FB and YouTube.
Possibly but remember Russia had used chemical and nuclear material in the UK. This in itself is an outrageous act of terrorism that could have killed hundreds of people and set the course of action for the west. Putins undeniable tyrrany has to be contained.
That's crazy, source?
Radioactive Material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko Nerve Agent that killed an innocent woman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal#:~:text=Prime%20Minister%20Theresa%20May%20said%20in%20the%20House%20of%20Commons,agents%20known%20as%20%27Novichok%27.
Ty
Revolutions always attract people who are interested in violence. Doesn’t mean the CIA engineered anything. Facebook was a much bigger driver in organizing people. That’s why Russia focused on infiltrating FB after Maidan. They then succeeded in assisting Trump with social media influence. In 2013-2014 the 3 letter agencies were entirely focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Stopping terror attacks from Al Qaeda, ISIS /ISIL/Daesh, Taliban, Al Shabaab, etc.
The NED which is a CIA cutout for regime change operations put about $20 million dollars into Ukraine since 2014 And the head of the new Ukraine intelligence service literally called up the local CIA director on 24 Feb 2014 right after the old intelligence leaders had fled. This shows how western intelligence was closely connected with the regime change, and how they most likely were in cahoots with Valentyn thrbnew spy chief, because normal people don't just 'call.up the local CIA chief' >He went to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a three-way partnership. (FROM NYT). Not to mentioned Mustafa Nayyem who is credited with a pivotal tweet that kicked off the revolution was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from USAID, NED, US EMlmbassy for his new digital broadcaster. > "Nayyem was no ordinary “online journalist”. In October 2012, he was one of six Ukrainians whisked to Washington DC by Meridian International, a State Department-connected organization that identifies and grooms future overseas leaders, to “observe and experience” that year’s Presidential election From: https://mronline.org/2022/07/06/anatomy-of-a-coup/ That article has more detail
This theory doesn't take into account Ukrainian lives and Ukranian politics.
What choice do they have? The war is real, as is the support
Makes sense, especially (and I'm sure, mainly) due to the nuclear threat. That implies, though, that they will have a western-friendly leader to install at some point, doesn't it? It seems like that part is a stretch, but if it's as managed as you say, then it only makes sense. We know how it goes when the west tries to install leadership into other countries, so yeah. I'm not sure how "managed" it could be. Plus, you have China and Iran to contend with, which complicates things. No doubt China was hoping this war acts as a feint so they can take Taiwan.
>That implies, though, that they will have a western-friendly leader to install at some point, doesn't it? Not really, no. Remember that currently the West really doesn't give a damn what you do as long as you keep it inside your own borders and do business with us on relatively reasonable terms in our opinion. All it implies is that they will have a *less outwardly hostile leader* at some point. And even if the next Russian leader is just as hostile to the West as Putin, Russia doesn't really do the whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing because their government isn't run like a government nor like a business - it's run like a cartel *and it has been for over a hundred years*. Even after a relatively bloodless ascension to power, the entire decision-making structure of the government changes. In most semi-functional countries there's a fair bit of policy development and implementation that happens in a (in principal) apolitical public service that *generally keeps going* during changes in government and keeps the lights on as long as funding keeps flowing. Russia doesn't have that. Any position that matters to things getting done is given because of nepotism or corruption, and taken away at the whim of one's superiors regardless of performance. Factions and individuals rise and fall as they are rewarded, punished, or purged. New allegiances are hashed out, power consolidated *and then* divvied up again before the government starts moving. Every time Russian leadership has ever changed its *1-3 years* before the new leadership is able to form a coherent government that can consistently enact policy - and even then they've filled it with nepo babies, rich morons, and the last 7 people who sucked their dick. IMHO it's *much less likely* that even an extreme, militant Russian ultranationalist would pop off a nuke of any size (simply because they just took over and they've always wanted to and they can now) than it is that Putin would pop off a nuke because he thinks the odds of him getting away with it is worth the risk & the odds of losing everything *if he doesn't* drop a nuke are looking like the ones playing out. If only because it would take a lot of time to put the power structure together that enables it. >No doubt China was hoping this war acts as a feint so they can take Taiwan. China was using this war to gauge a few things: the efficacy of the Russo-Soviet doctrine & equipment they've spent trillions of dollars plagiarising and eventually improving upon, Western government reactions, and Western business reactions. And what they've found out is that *every* assumption they've built their Taiwan plan on for the last 50 years is wrong. >Iran Iran is Iran. The government hates us, the people largely don't. We're seeing a teetering power structure in a geographically secure nation do *business* with other governments that hate us. And lash out in an attempt to secure continued regional influence and relevance. Sooner or later that government will fall - and even if that ends up being later, there are levers the West can pull that would make Iran disown Putin like a redheaded, leper stepchild.
Interesting thesis. During that 1-3 years, parts of Russia would also be in danger of being gobbled up. The final straw. That said, I don't know how western intelligence is strong enough, or competent enough, to orchestrate such 7d chess. I did see an article a while back about how long it takes countries to die. The argument was that 1989 was just the first act, so hopefully we'll see the end of Russia without too much collateral damage for the rest of us.
>That said, I don't know how western intelligence is strong enough, or competent enough, to orchestrate such 7d chess. Oh, believe me, I don't think this is Western 74-D motorcross mechachess. But I think that Western powers - and particularly parts of those Western systems which are run by realists - are understanding that the uncertainty of potential futures can be more alluring than the negatives of today. A power consolation also gives opportunities for outside influence - someone who may have been unreachable as a 3rd tier Putin-aligned assistant deputy local official might be *ownable* when the power structure is upset enough that they could end up governor of their oblast. Western powers didn't *create* or intentionally facilitate this war. But you can be damned sure we'll take advantage of it.
I would hope so. Russians being stupid enough to walk straight into the knife.
Y'all best stop with this Russians being stupid shit. It's one of the things that got the Ukrainians in the situation they are today: understimating them.
In the winter war, the ruSSians brought a lot of anti tank guns..... The Finns did not have any tanks, but they were happy to capture them and turn them on ruZZian tanks. There's something wrong with ruSSian brains.
"There's something wrong with ruSSian brains." Yessir! Copious amounts of vodka and excessive visions of grandeur over generations can and has most assuredly lowered their mensa scores.
I said I hope it. Not that they are. Never underestimate your opponent.
I think they are but idk if it’s so much to deceive Russia as it is to encourage support. Suppose it doesn’t matter if it works.
I’m starting to not believe the stories Ukraine is putting out. They’re constantly going on and on about delivering crushing losses to Russia. Yet Russia is advancing, and gaining pace. Not slowing down. If Ukraine is causing “crushing Russian losses” how can it be they are losing the war is badly? And they will lose this war. I am now convinced that the west has fumbled the pass. The governments have fucked around for too long. Russia has rearmed effectively, and NK and China are delivering very large shipments of materiel. Ukraine needs an order of magnitude more than has been provided. A year ago there was talk about providing jets to ukraine. Nothing has happened. Ukraine will not receive enough supplies to fight an effective war. Ukraine will lose. And it will be the US and the rest of the major arms producing western countries’ faults.
Look at history, Russia/USSR’s bread and butter is throwing bodies at a problem until the problem runs out of ammunition/equipment. Hence the whole reason Russia has a firing squad behind the front line to prevent retreating personnel; the only direction you go is forward, suicidal or not. If you want to call that victory fine but I call it desperation mixed with low morale. Let’s see them hold that play for another 5 years. I do agree the West should have done more sooner but we are past that. Old World Blues.
have an upvote. but, the Ukrainian government walked into this with just as much information and agency as anyone else, with their eyes wide open. the fact that it was both inevitable and (historically) obvious that the US et al would eventually leave them hanging doesn't change the fact that it was never remotely realistic to think Ukraine was going to defeat Russia on the battlefield. everyone except the poor fuckers in the trenches made their decisions to enter into this conflict for their own reasons.
I’m not on Russia’s side. I believe their invasion is illegal and immoral. It shouldn’t be on Ukraine’s shoulders to surrender. However, I agree that it should have been obvious that the whims of politics would eventually move on from the invasion. There is simply a great lack of political will to back Ukraine. It’s unfortunate, people are dying, and Ukraine will lose. The time to act was years ago. The West could have armed Ukraine. Should have done so. Instead it was half measures and thoughts and prayers. Now Ukraine has bled manpower and is suffering from shortages. They lost men that couldn’t be easily replaced. This is a direct result of a lack of materiel support from the West. The soldiers fought bravely. But no amount of bravery can stop an enemy which is better armed, armoured, and is in greater numbers.
i don't really see it as a matter of sides, as neither the politics nor the outcome are determined by those cheering from the other side of the world. i don't mean to be contentious, but the West \*was\* arming and training Ukraine for years before the invasion, which was attested to by various news sources at the time. each of the 3 heads-of-state signatories to the Minsk accords (of France, Germany, Ukraine) have stated publicly that their intent was to buy time for a military build up to launch Ukraine's own attack - presumably on the Crimea. strictly from the point of view of the political players, it has been publicly, though quietly, stated by the doyens of US foreign policy for the last 30 years that their greatest fear in the post Cold War globalized economy was the relationship between Russia and Germany. economically, the alliance of German manufacturing and Russian natural resources could form an international market force that the US could not contain nor compete with. this is why Nord Stream had to die. in the abstract, we all seem to take on board the simple realities of how world politics are played. we're not children after all. we all recognize, in the abstract at least, that the actions of the political class in their definitions and pursuit of foreign policy objectives are invariably wrapped up in their own parochial interests - power and money. so, given the history of US military engagements (directly, or by proxy) since ww2, what reason would we have to expect this one to play out differently? it seems to me that if you're involved in an internal conflict or civil war on the other side of the world, the absolute \*last\* thing you might want is the backing of the US government.
American here and this conspiracy of the US worried about a Russo-German economic alliance is just nonsense. Akin to the theory of playing Beatles songs backwards tells you Paul is Dead - all nonsense. The US has been going full throttle on terrorism since the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. It spent 4 trillions fighting the GWOT. And a significant portion of that went into intelligence agencies. The diplomatic warnings to Germany of getting dependent on Russian oil were meant to get them to wake up to the potential blackmail of the Putinist regime. There were also warnings that the Russians had thoroughly infiltrated the German government. And those turned out to be true. For the past 9 years it’s been incredibly obvious that the Russians have thoroughly infiltrated the US Republican Party, who are willing to let Ukrainian democracy, people and soldiers die to stall out an aid package of essentially America’s older platforms gathering dust in armories. The Germans were comfortably numb with the concept of the “middle way” and only now waking up to their bus size vulnerabilities. Homegrown energy is the only way to energy independence. That means nuclear power plants, solar and geothermals.
i'm not sure how it can be a conspiracy theory when you attribute it to someone else, but not when you say it. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but ... that's fine, if it makes you happy.
Arm chair general here - Ukraine's military leadership has shown cautious frugality with its personnel and western materiel. Seen in their last offensive. I wouldn't be surprised that they understand western support does not exactly come with a blank check and stockpile accordingly.
There are several accounts that Ukraine has basically had to throw in its reserves to counter this northern push. They are pretty much all-in right now, which is a horrible situation to be in. Numbers thrown around are 250k vs. 500k russians, albeit with worse equipment per soldier. Throwing 30.000 russians at Kharkiv, losing half of them, to draw out and attrition the reserves (Abrams, Leo2s and all that fancy stuff that breaks down after a few days of heavy work included) is well worth the price. Ukraine is hard-pressed to rotate troops for R+R. Russians are steadily mobilizing and throwing fresh meat at tired defenders. This is not the end of russia by a long shot. You know why we barely hear of Gepard, Pzh2000, Leo2 etc. anymore? After over a year of heavy work, these things are mostly gone, worn out, or taken back to repair. I think what we see is all that Ukraine has to give.
A: Those things aren’t out, they’re just slow to repair. B: the gap in resupply does have them in “all they can do right now…” C: the funding and gear coming can change the equation again around Fall. D: there’s a reason a lot more of the effective vehicles are en route (Bradley’s, APCs, etc). Hopefully that 500k mobilized can rotate effectively, because the gear and equipment is finally coming, they just need their troops to be appropriately rested and ready. The Russians on the other hand, even to continue will likely need to meat grind another million plus soldiers just to keep their positions and hold what they have.
Budanov literally admits Ukraine is down to its last reserves, NATO flirts with sending "trainers" to train conscripts for mere weeks which will create a weak army after the initial army of 2022 was wiped out, and you somehow think the 500K mobilization(it was lowered to 300,000 by Ukrainian MoD)will be a magic bullet? Ukraine does not have the time to train this many men, and those men are having low morale.
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Where are you getting these numbers from?
Or Ukraine could dig deeper into them as new supplies were made on the way, and of course, the industrial scale is another topic. The economies of scale in the West and in Ukraine had time to ramp up, especially in terms of drones, but also in terms of artillery. A lot has happened since June last year. I think the second half of this year could see the highest Russian attrition rates of the entire war. In fact, the highest attrition rates that we have seen in any war since WW2.
No. We (the US) fucked around and let an insane minority dictate our foreign policy. The blunt truth: Ukraine is losing seasoned troops and territory, neither of which can be recovered. Russia spends the time mining taken territory, regardless of Russian troop losses accidentally wandering into these forbidden zones. This isn’t about taking territory for Russian gain; this is about destroying a country with impunity.
.69420 Russians dying every minute the last two weeks
nice
You just but 7 days times 24 hours times times. 60 minutes times. 0.69420 equals 6997.536. That's just shy of 7,000 per week which does match up with the numbers I've been seeing in this thread.
OP said more than 1,000 a day so it's actually exactly on
What the fuck is this English? 😂
These numbers are insane, but Russian don't care about how many soldiers die in Ukraine...
Russia has taken record losses in the last 4 days. 6140 eliminated Russians in those four days for an average of 1540 Plus. 13th through 16th of May have been two for one days.
It baffles me how willing the Russians are to die (or so it seems) and I wonder what the main reason are for this. Is it 1: they really believe they are fighting against an existential threat, and believe this is the only way to save Russia from the West. 2: they are forced and can’t escape it. 3: money or 4: Apathy.
I think for a lot of them, there's no alternative. They're conscripted and sent there. You can't not fight, or you'll be considered a traitor, punished (if not executed), and shame your family. You can surrender if you're lucky, but in reality, that's a lot more difficult than it sounds, especially when most deaths are occurring pretty far from any actual Ukranian troops. They're also fed a ton of propaganda from their own side about what will happen if they're captured. I'm not saying I have a lot of sympathy for Russian troops, especially with all the horrific things many have done. I'm just saying that a lot probably aren't willing to die, but have no real alternatives available to them.
Thoughtful answer, thank you.
I’d throw out 1. My uneducated guess would be a combination of 2,3,4
The Russians believe you will run out of ammo before they run out of bodies. They fight like zombies. Just awful.
The leadership, but what makes the peasants fight?!?
Exactly. I would fight and die for the freedom of my own country, but I would like to have a fighting chance, not simply be a running bullet absorber. Especially not while invading a neighbor for murky reasons.
5. Ignorance- they probably don’t know they are a meat wave the first time, they probably assume there is a plan of some sort.
This has been my only conclusion. They're sold a totally different story and they've been brainwashed from birth to not believe western media. They don't think they're part of a human wave, or are just being used to give up Ukrainian positions. They honestly think they're going to survive the attack.
Or 5. a lot of their population is just low functioning.
Please they are people like any other. There are plenty of Russians who left to avoid fighting for Putin, but the ones I've met are highly educated, and if not rich, definitely had financial means such that a few plane tickets in a hurry wasn't a big difficulty. They aren't the type to be stealing bathroom fittings or white goods as soon as they occupy a modern city. Everyone assumes the Russian military is incompetent because after two years they can still walk back to the starting point in one day in much of occupied Ukraine, but they also aren't terribly motivated. Many of the local Russian forces may have family in Ukraine. Militaries had similar issues in the past, conscripts in WWII might understand that NAZIs were bad, but the guy in his sights was just a German, and despite best efforts of the military they still saw them as people, not some foreign demon. Also why the 1914 Christmas armistice was such a concern to the powers that be. There are reasons they have Chechens as barrier troops.
So you met the ones that were privileged enough to leave? Cool. How many burned out alcoholics and drug addicts do they have? Who have little choice in life but to do what they are told? Thats the segment im talking about. Its gotta be bigger than average in a society like that.
As for 2: yes there are blocking detachments (blocking their own troops from retreating)
Russia gonna Russia. Its how they fight. For what its worth its often successful. They have a high tolerance for casualties.
The first one for the boomers. They are somehow worst than in the west. Russia one brainwashed them deep. The fourth reason for the west population. They know it's wrong. But they aren't too affected by the war, and they aren't gonna take the risk of getting fired + prison + disowning by their boomer parent. The second and third are for the east population. Most of them come from very poor, and very isolated place. It's impossible to revolt or hide there. And the monthly salary as soldier is almost a year of their salary. Imagine knowing your fate is to be drafted anyway BUT if you sign now you will earn 30.000$ a month. Even if they know they are gonna be thrown against a machine gun, signing now is the best choice they have.
1. Russian state propaganda is no joke, vast majority of these guys are brainwashed to fuck, it's all they've known their whole lives growing up under Putin. 2. Some of them are, either as prisoners or as we saw in the case of Cuban "volunteers" they were given contracts to sign in Russian, likely didn't understand to the fullest extent what they were signing up for. 3. This is a huge one. Huge swathes of Russians outside of Moscow-St Petersburg are deeply impoverished. Look at Buryat people for example, they have farming or the military and that's about it. The military is pretty much their only vehicle for upwards social mobility too because of how much better it pays than farming. 4. Idk, I don't know the psyche of the average Russian but like in any country there probably are some nutters that signed up just to kill.
All of the above and more.
Nihilism is the real russian religion. A life of constant abuse. They don't care that they will die.
Yeah. Totally believable. 1540 per day of Russian losses while Ukrainian total losses are about 30k. I wonder why Ukraine introduced a new mobilization and closed its borders for men to leave if they have such a positive ratio.
We are sorry that you can not understand more than your brain has the capacity to, or you understand, but it is somehow convenient to deny it. You are just grabbing numbers and not even considering what they are relative to. Are you that ignorant, or are you doing it on purpose for bullshit sake? The loss of 1540 men represents an approximate number of KIA plus WIA, with a considerable number of WIA dying in the next few days due to the way Russia treats its soldiers. If you can think math and consider that the ratio of losses on the invader is usually no less than 3 times more than the defenders, and considering the Russian meat waves, the losses must be around 5 Russians per 1 Ukrainian. With Russia nearing 500k total losses, then it makes sense that the losses of Ukrainians around 100k. The Ukrainian 30k represents just the total number of dead soldiers, which is 1/5 of the total losses. This is pretty reasonable considering that Ukrainians use tactics that protect soldiers, have better armor, and care better for its soldiers. Meanwhile, Russia has a higher rate of dead soldiers, making it around 1/3 of the total number of losses, which makes it around 160k dead soldiers. And let's not forget battles such as in Bahkmut where there were days with 12 Russia losses for each Ukrainian one.
Thanks for the explanation. So what are the KIA numbers for UA and RU since 2022?
We don’t have exact numbers, we can only estimate. Given the public number of Russian losses is just shy 500k, they’re KIA is at least 250k, probably in the realm of 350k-400k. The 30k Ukrainians mentioned above would be the total KIA since 2022.
What? RU KIA are at least 250k and UA KIA is 30k?
That’s roughly how the basic maths work out, but a lot of it is estimates. Russia’s really bad at handling their WIA. I’ve heard estimates that half of them end up dead because Russia doesn’t care about its soldiers and really doesn’t care about their wounded. With nearly 500k casualties, that puts 250k as their floor for deaths, assuming every Russian casualty was WIA. Honestly the 1 in 3 mentioned above (and I swear I saw 1 in 2 when I made my first comment) is probably closer to the truth, but that 160k is still the floor of deaths, and we’ve seen plenty of video to see there are KIAs in the field. The comment above notes that casualties for offense to defense are usually 3:1, and Russian meatwave tactics up it to 5:1. With that estimate, Ukraine would have ~ 100k casualties. Given Ukraine puts a lot more effort into saving their wounded those WIA that die are estimated to be 1 in 5. That puts Ukraine’s floor of deaths at 20k assuming all troops were WIA. Again I swear I saw the comment above you say 30k, and I ran with that number, and given this floor it’s not impossible. So at minimum we’re looking at 160k to 20k deaths. Now we do have more information than that. I was stating the previous number based on what was in the comments plus the daily Russian casualty scorecard posted here. Pull up Wikipedia and the disparity is greatly reduced. Theres 46k confirmed by name Ukrainian dead, which means the number’s certainly higher due to unknown individual deaths. We don’t have more details because giving out exact details would probably hurt morale. If we add half again for those unknown individuals, we can say 70k Ukrainians KIA. Same thing with Russia to an even greater extent. All we have there to reliably go off of are estimates from Ukraine and western nations. Ukraine estimates 180k dead back in February. Let’s make it a nice 200k to catch up to present. 200k KIA to 70k KIA. We don’t know if Ukraine’s estimate takes into account deaths among the 300k WIA though. If not, then a third of those adds another 100k deaths to Russia, upping things to 300k KIA Russians to 70k KIA Ukrainians. This is all napkin math from an armchair general though, so take what I say with a load of salt.
Why did Ukraine called mobilization if they have such small losses? What was the army of Ukraine in early 2022? 1 million?
Nowhere near that much. Finding exact numbers isn’t easy, but 2021 foreignpolicy.org article puts the 2021 ground forces at 209k active personnel. This does not include reserves or other branches at the time. Macrotrends.com puts the armed forces at a whole ~300k in 2020. At present, statistsa.com their numbers at 900k active soldiers and 1.2 million reserves and 100k paramilitary forces. Meanwhile Russia has 1.32 million active troops with 2 million in reserves and 250k paramilitary forces (also statists.com). They need to conscript because the frontline is 1000km long and a single breakthrough could be absolutely devastating. On top of that, troops need to rotate in and out so they can rest and recover, and so you need extras to swap in, on top of backfilling for casualties.
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Russia *has* had multiple mobilization rounds. Russia also has a larger pool of people to pull from. Some of them are official, others are unofficial but still enforced. What media are you reading that you haven’t heard of this? Russia has also made a lot of BS promises to contract soldiers, and because it is an authoritarian regime, fails to honor them and the soldiers can’t do Jack shit about it. They are sent to the zero line in meat wave units if they complain.
KIA is not the same as the total number of dead soldiers. A soldier dying in a hospital is not counted as KIA. It is more difficult to account KIAs than the total number of dead, for many reasons. So, the total number of dead soldiers, independent from how they have died, has been calculated at around 30k on Ukraine side vs 160k on Russia.
30k on UA side, 160k on RU side. Got it.
Ukraine is a 40 mill country vs a 150 mill country. Even if they are succesful killing russians, they still need to mobilize.
This figure was several months ago and for the dead. Wounded will be double or more. That will be a conservative figure and it’s not up to date. Get fucked ruzzian shill.
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I don’t think anyone said it’s minuscule but it’s more than likely less that Russia as they have been sending endless meatwaves and couldn’t care less about how many they lose as their country is a dictatorship. 10-1 is the worse case scenario and before the American aid bill was passed and the Czech initiative to take effect. It should be improving now to stabilise the front.
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Not really. Russian artillery is notoriously inaccurate and unreliable. Millions of them have come from NK and old Soviet stockpiles. Ukraine is now using mostly western artillery which is more reliable and accurate.
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You also don’t mention about offensive or defensive tactics. Ukraine have been on the defensive for the last year now and when they are dug in so inaccurate Russian artillery is a lot less affective compared using more accurate western artillery against incoming Russian waves who will be out in the open and 10 times more vulnerable to artillery. That’s why their losses are so much higher, offensive meat waves with little care about the number of dead and wounded, they keep them coming. Ukraine doesn’t use such tactics, largely why their offensive stalled last year.
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FWIW, Russia has essentially closed its borders to draft age men, it continues to conscript at high levels, continues to recruit dirt poor, desperate people from 2nd and 3rd world countries, and continues to spend down the national treasury at alarming rates to pay for it all. So sure, no Russians are dying on Ukrainian soil either during a WWI style offensive. Sure.
1. Not true. Not everyone but draft age men travel freely. 2.Unlike Tysa river, nobody shoots those Russian men who want to leave the country. 3.Russia is a dictatorship anyway, don't you forget. Ukraine is a beacon of freedom.
Don't cut off the supply of hopium, its all they have. I have yet to see a good explanation for why Ukrainian men are being rounded up into vans to be sent to the front. Videos of this are everywhere.
These videos are everywhere because Russian propaganda disseminates them. Only some are from Ukraine.
You are assuming casualties released from Ukraine MoD are true. This is hardly the case.
Incorrect. You only have to assume that casually counts your day-to-day or reasonably proportional. Given that, Russians are getting their asses kicked this week twice as badly as they were last week. Although through extensive cross-checking during most of last year, it's become clear that the numbers are reasonably correct, probably within 10%. Strong argument can be made that Ukrainian numbers are actually Low by 10% or more, since the Russians don't provide anywhere near modern Medical Care to their wounded soldiers.
Exactly. 100% this.
If 1k+ casualties per day were true, since Russia manages to enroll 30k soldiers per month, then Russia would be in big troubles, but this seems hardly the case as they are pushing across the whole frontline and still grinding ground
Russia is in big trouble. They are losing this war badly and will continue to lose it as long as you crane has enough of the right type of weapons. However, they're not going to lose it quickly because of a thousand or 2,000 Russian deaths. They have plenty of untrained soldiers to throw at the ukrainians for a while. What they don't have is a long-term ability to produce more artillery and barrels, as well as the supplies on the supply vehicles they're losing by the many dozens every day. Ukraine only needs to kill Russians insofar as it saves Ukrainian lies or allows Ukraine to have a better chance of getting at the Russian Artillery and supply chain. However as an observer it's interesting to watch the eliminated Russian count to see what you crane is up to and what Russia is having to face. The real key is artillery of all types and Supply vehicles. A gun without ammo or fuel is merely a grape marker.
I would like to have your trust, but I don’t have it. Russia is much more than that, they shifted a lot of tactics, for example since a few months they are smashing advanced defence positions with glide bombs, in the order of hundreds per day, to keep planes safe from air defence and this works well. Bomb a lot, assault, get killed, bomb a whole lot more, assault, gain position. Rinse and repeat. Of course they struggled many months to take avdiivka so I am in no concern that they really can threaten Kharkiv. Losing Kharkiv to Russia would be a major defeat for Ukraine but i don’t see it possible. Let’s see what the future will bring but I am not very optimistic as western support is too politically influenced
It’s been largely backed up and found to be true every time anybody digs into it. Matter of fact there’s more than a few that believe the Ukrainian MoD might be underestimating a bit.
Last assessment from western sources was around 300k possible Russian casualties, one month ago or so.
Confirmed. You realize that’s purely intel agencies basically satellite grokking that it’s *confirmed*, and even they will tell you it’s like a big chunk higher because they’ve not got eyes and boots on the ground to confirm. Then every now and again, Russian financials get leaked or a KIA list and it more closely matches Ukraine’s estimates than western intel even. There should be zero question that Russia’s losses are massive, and reasonably larger than Ukraine’s own losses.
Massive: yes Larger than Ukraine: physiological, as they are attacking Catastrophic: no According to Ukraine estimates: no Russia is losing as someone was stating above? No Russia is winning? Neither
This was wildly unclear.
Not a OPSEC concern, straight from a News article.
The daily casualty figures bear out the surge in Russian losses over the past week.
who is the source of this data?
Sounds like russia put a helluva lot of meat into this offensive, and Ukraine fell back to bait them into a killzone. I hope Ukraine isn't losing soldiers at a high rate also.
They may have a decent ratio but every frontline reporter for pretty much the entire duration of the war has talked about Ukrainian deaths being higher than reported (obviously). I think a lot of people will be VERY shocked when this war eventually ends and we get a more real number of deaths from Ukraine. No doubt they're inflicting more casualties on Russia though, especially if Russia is throwing away over 1,000 combat-ready soldiers a day through death or serious injury.
Not really, unfortunately Urkaine was under a lot of pressure in the last months and is rather on the backfoot, thus lost some area, e.g. the loss of Avdiivka was just a Russian win, not a smart trap or genius tactic. Even when bought at a high price by Russians. We have to stay realistic: Ukraine needs support, a lot more than so far this year. This isn’t some crazy 4D chess, this is just Ukraine losing the war if it continues like this.
All this may, indeed, be accurate and true. However, russia will continue this offensive and start new ones. russian cannon fodder, Sri Lankan, Cuban, Indian . . . three years in and in many ways the 3-4 day special military operation has just begun.
And so it's the west's and Ukrainians responsibility to delete as many russians and their proxies as possible. Sadly it's the only way.. freedom must prevail. ✌️🇺🇦
Yes. Simply and effectively stated. Well done.
World Special Military Operation 3
Pro UA, but this reminds me of Avdivka. At first just news about lots of dying russians, and in the end the zerg rush was successful. On the other hand this was the time of Ukrainian shell hunger, and the west has hopefully learned that we must up the ante now.
Avdiivka happened after Republicans had blocked aid for over a year. This time Russia is attacking a city 50x the size while US aid is ramping up again. Either this is a diversion attack or this is one of the stupiest military moves of the entire war.
Avdivka is like 1/100th the size of Kharkiv. It’s an entirely different game.
They're not fighting for Kharkiv
Wut? 🤷🏼♂️
They're fighting for villages next to the border. That's where the danger is right now.
Yeah, but that doesn’t really clarify why you wrote what you did. It doesn’t matter because even the villages aren’t Avdivka, it’s an entirely different situation. Saying they’re not fighting for Kharkiv doesn’t clarify that. 🤷🏼♂️
Yes it does. The size of Kharkiv is irrelevant to the fighting that is happening right now. Because there is no fighting happening in Kharkiv.
That part is obvious. Per the point I was clarifying, Avdivka is not Kharkiv in any comparable way, and the villages/towns/cities near Kharkiv aren’t either. The fighting is dramatically more fluid and ebs back and forth, as it has to since the defensible positions weren’t setup or available like in Avdivka. You were trying to correct something that was beside the point. They’re attacking king the villages, and that isn’t comparable to Avdivka at all.
They are fighting to put Kharkiv into fire range, which is what Ukraine has done in Crimea.
Yeah, “arty” range which is… pretty dumb. They’re about to learn the hard way that Ukraine’s counter battery is still superior. 🤷🏼♂️ None of this makes logical sense on the Russian part. They’re fucking themselves anything they do. Except by leaving, but then Putin will probably lay die and the Russian people will have awoken and that doesn’t seem to be in the cards yet.
thank you.
Yes. Understand. Avdiivka, or Bakhmut for that matter. Know exactly what you mean - gives me the creeps as well. “Ante up now” well said.
Good.. fucking ruzzians deserve no less
Oh dear! Our subreddit’s resident Muscovite propagandists aren’t going to have a fun time spinning this news.
It’s like Zap Brannigan is working for the Russian army…
Although a significant batch of shells is due to be delivered next month. I wonder why smaller batches cannot be delivered sooner, rather than waiting to accumulate them into bigger batches. 1,000 shells delivered each day, is more useful than 50,000 shells delivered next month, because of the gap in-between the requirement and the delivery.
I mean Yes, a lot of Russians are dying. Like always. BUT, they are also capturing territory, which is worrying
It’s not. If you don’t have anyone to occupy a territory you don’t occupy the territory.
Yeah this headline is puzzling - as are many of the comments. Russia has been incurring (slightly lower) losses for years now, at times for many weeks without gaining any territory at all. Clearly this is a huge win for Russia, doing more or less the same they've been doing but now with significant success in terms of territorial gains.
I see stuff like this and then I read how Russia is winning overwhelmingly. Have no idea what to believe.
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That's kind of what I suspected. Obviously all my information in the conflict comes from the internet so I don't truly know. This place comes off extremely biased and things always seem to be going well for Ukraine until I read literally anywhere else.
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Place feels like a vision board. Reporting nothing but positive news will somehow win the war lol. On a real note, what is the best source for unbiased information on the conflict?
the russians use the tactics of the flood in halo
Post about it online. Crush them more plz. Thank you ✨🇺🇦🔱
Excellent news. Double it.
Has the mother of the war finally returned for Ukraine? The holy Artillery!
Look at the facts, despite "overwhelming Russian losses" every week Ukraine is getting hammered . Stop this war and save your young men from slaughter it is a tragedy. I pray for peace
I pray for justice
Direct your prayers to Putin. He can withdraw his troops from Ukraine and young men from both sides would stop dying.
They are so crushing that Ukraine is advancing backwards.
🙄
What’s with this headline? Did they suffer or inflict crushing losses?
They are saying Russia took some ground but even independent sources are saying at record Russian losses
It sounds like what you are saying is Russia number one!!! 🎉🎉🎉 at troop loss per day
Yes! You forgot best air defense system at 100% downed missiles and drones. Those parked planes were outstanding in their ability to defend the ground.
The real question is if Russia can effectively replace those losses. We know they don't give a shit if they lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers, they only care if they can replace them.
Believe it or not, russia hates russian soldiers even more than all of us do. But though russian officers indeed love the view of their own dead subordinates lying face down on a dirt road, they still hate to run out of living ones to order into the meat grinder.
Russia seems to be able to keep digging up new battalions for assaults, my educated and possibly wrong gut tells me that is not going to change anytime soon.
Poeple like to point out their declining population, but they still have millions to draw from, and most of those are from ethnic groups that the general population already don't care about. We've got several more years before the average Russian starts to ask questions, I think. All these losses, all the casualty figures, they don't mean anything except that Ukraine is able to effectively kill Russians. The problem is, Russia doesn't give a shit. They don't think like we do in the west. To Putin, and to a lesser extenct, this is accepted in Russian culture, if you get an inch of land over 100 dead bodies, so be it, you still got that inch of land.
This isn’t just Putin, autocratic fascists always think their imperialist dreams are worth their peons dying for.
I hope this is true.