He should probably stop trying to take Avdiivka then. At this rate, there’s only going to be 15% of his army left by the end of the winter.
They’re not going to run out of meat to throw into the grinder anytime soon.
Indeed. In a war of attrition (which it looks like this is) Russia wins.
No, it’s that easy either, because Russia has way more losses than Ukraine. You also cannot just look at raw population numbers like it is a video game where every number represents a potential soldier. There’s people who aren’t able to fight, there’s also people with critical jobs to keep the economy afloat, or even just society or basic infrastructure. Those losses are very significant and will affect Russia for a very long time, hence why Putin called for women to become breeders for the motherland.
I just checked and you are correct. It is ay least 10x more (and that it including Ukraine civilians).
https://www.newsweek.com/how-russias-military-losses-compare-ukraines-this-month-1845800
Russian population is only 4-5 times that of Ukraine.
No, because will to fight is also a factor. Neither country will fight until the last man standing. Where the cutoff is will vary.
Ukraine’s got significantly-stronger incentive here.
For Ukraine, losing the war badly means no more Ukraine.
For Russia, losing the war badly means Russia doesn’t lop off part of a neighboring country, doesn’t get larger.
Take the US in Vietnam. The US is unquestionably militarily more capable than North Vietnamese forces, never lost a significant battle. However, what dominated in determing the outcome of the war was that the resources that the US is willing to expend on a conflict that is only peripheral to American interests is far lower than what it is in an existential fight for the US. If an invading force were marching on Washington with the aim of ending the US, I’d expect the US to be ready to do total mobilization, to fight a nuclear war, to suffer the destruction of a lot of American industry, to burn through a large percentage of lives. But the interest in Vietnam was predicated on domino theory, a considerably smaller and more-uncertain threat.
There was a famous quote about Vietnam – not about the Americans, about the French colonial forces, but same idea:
You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.
– Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh in a warning to French colonialists in 1946.
Ho Chi Minh was right.
France had double Vietnam’s population, and a lot more sophisticated military hardware. But that wasn’t the dominant factor – what dominated was that the Vietnamese cared a whole lot more about being out of the French Empire than the French cared about keeping the Vietnamese in the French Empire.
And Ukraine isn’t suffering anything like those kind of casualty ratios and has much more favorable ratio of support and hardware access than in Vietnam.
The Russian defence ministry statement posted on the Kremlin’s website said the numbers would be increased gradually through a recruitment drive, and not by mobilisation or changes to conscription.
That’s gonna be expensive, given that you’ve already offered pay well in excess of what the typical Russian salary is, and still weren’t able to attract all the people that haven’t signed up.
Dead meat don’t has to be paid. Most of them have to buy their own equipment too.
Dead meat don’t has to be paid.
The risk of death is something that prospective recruits are gonna take into account; that’s on both sides of the equation. Russia was offering death benefits before, and I expect that that hasn’t changed.
googles
From middle of last year:
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/07/18/their-first-trip-will-be-to-the-cemetery
The Russia-1 story didn’t specify how much money the family received in compensation for their son’s death, but according to Russian law, deceased soldiers’ relatives are entitled to a one-time payment and insurance coverage worth 7.4 million rubles (about $127,000). In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that victims’ families would be paid an additional five million rubles (about $86,000). Regional governments also issue families separate payments ranging from one million to three million rubles (approximately $17,000 to $51,000).
What the war criminal announces and what his mafia actually does are two very different things.
Meaning many relatives just don’t get paid.
That’s possible – Russia could default on payments to veterans – but if it does so, there are going to be domestic political risks that the Kremlin is going to have to deal with.
My guess is that if Russia is going to burn someone, the survivors of veterans won’t be at the top of the list.
Also problematic if the Kremlin intends to fight any other wars in the near future – if they don’t honor promises made now, it’s going to make it harder to get people onboard in the next conflict.
Spoken like someone from a state of law. That’s not what reality in Russia looks like. If the mafia doesn’t pay you, you don’t cause trouble for the mafia.
Death benefits are a sack of onions or some shit. They aren’t even paying their living soldiers wages. Also, they are not even dead, just missing, when they leave them in Ukraine.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The defence ministry said the move was a response to an increase in threats, including from the expansion of Nato.
Russia is thought to have sustained heavy casualties in more than a year-and-a-half of fighting in Ukraine, even though it does not release figures.
The Russian defence ministry statement posted on the Kremlin’s website said the numbers would be increased gradually through a recruitment drive, and not by mobilisation or changes to conscription.
“The increase in the number of servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is being implemented in stages, based on citizens who express a desire to undergo military service under a contract,” it added.
Nato has recently expanded to include Finland, which has a long border with Russia.
Earlier on Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for reinforcements and stronger defences along the front line with Russia, as temperatures in the region fall below freezing.
The original article contains 250 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 40%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!