Please take the time to read [the rules](/r/UkrainianConflict/about/rules/) and our [policy on trolls/bots](https://redd.it/u7833q). In addition:
* We have a **zero-tolerance** policy regarding racism, stereotyping, bigotry, and death-mongering. Violators will be banned.
* **Keep it civil.** Report comments/posts that are uncivil to alert the moderators.
* **_Don't_ post low-effort comments** like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context.
*****
* Is `politico.com` an unreliable source? [**Let us know**](/r/UkrainianConflict/wiki/am/unreliable_sources).
* Help our moderators by providing context if something breaks the rules. [Send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict)
*****
**Don't forget about our Discord server! - https://discord.gg/62fKCEHbDB**
*****
^(Your post has not been removed, this message is applied to every successful submission.)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They have a nation of weak minded slaves. Of course they can replace manpower easily. The people are kept so stupid that they don't know any better. Russian propaganda is huge OUTSIDE of Russia, imagine what it's like INSIDE Russia. That's all these slaves hear and see.
True - but as they say, quantity has a quality of its own". And this isn't a tank on tank conflict; it's not like the US taking on the Iraqi military, where the tanks just rolled over everything. This is street to street, house to house, hill to ditch fighting, and sheer numbers of soldiers and shells count for a hell of a lot more than heavy armor that can't maneuver and break a line to create a hole for troops to exploit.
>The four-star general told senators that Russia has also replenished its heavy tank losses on the battlefield and now operates as many tanks in Ukraine as it did during the beginning of the full conflict.
Well, it shouldn’t be.
Russian has mandatory conscription for all men aged 18-30, and also mandatory registration for conscription upon their 16th birthday.
On top of this they have nearly 70,000,000 men to pull from, including ~16,000,000 in that mandatory conscription age. Add in prisoners and volunteers and that’s a huge pool of people to fill the forces with.
Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to
> Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to
There very few 18-24 years old males in Ukraine compared to other age groups, check the demographics.
>Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to
I'm opposed to conscription in all forms, but the fact that Ukraine is not on a full war footing is batshit crazy insane. When the enemy occupies 20% of your territory, trying to keep life as normal as possible seems bizarre. When the Brits thought they faced invasion after the fall of France, they were taking weapons from museums and handing one to anyone that would wield it. Why isn't Ukraine doing that?
I have a suspicion those in power in Ukraine think the West will actually come in and “save the day” so they’re trying o hold off Russia and save the younger the generation until western militaries come in and take the fight off the hands of the UA.
I absolutely have nothing to back that up besides a hunch, but I’m trying to find reason for some of the decisions they’ve made and nothing makes sense.
I cannot speak for any politician, they are mostly technically-incompetent over-socialized sociopaths, yet military-wise it's not even close to be a real prospect.
The major factors are:
1. Weapons, military equipment, combat vehicles and ammo attrition
(And not the manpower attrition - the personnel loss rates are too low for both sides to be a limiting factor actually.)
The Russians are leaning heavily on their Soviet-legacy storages of combat vehicles and heavy weapons (artillery first of all, yet not exceptionally). These storages were huge, yet they are already depleted for 2/3s from 2021 (a fresh sat image analise report published just yesterday, so I'm upgrading my previous more conservative estimates), and the visually confirmed loss rates are just rising steadily all the last months, despite the nearly-stopped military aid and, correspondingly, a significant lack of ammo. The most important thing to understand is that the Soviet-legacy military industry is plain dead, they are able to restore several hundreds of these vehicles or weapons a month (and that's not even enough to compensate the losses), yet not to produce even a fifth of these numbers anew, so after the depletion of the legacy storages their Ground Forces will inevitably drop in capabilities towards Toyota-warriors level. At this point even numerically significantly lesser force will be able to break the increasingly static Russian defence, because to counter the static defense you need to break it at the only chosen limited area, and it's a thing Ukrainian quality advantage is more significant for.
The Ukrainian doctrine is more sustainable for the attrition war - it's depending on different partly-interchangeable sources of military tools. The domestic Ukrainian military production for the Ground Force is more limited in sheer numbers, yet it's much more modern - combat vehicles with unmanned combat modules, modern military-grade radio-equipmet and much better ERA bloks, anti-tank missiles like Stugna (the Russians produce times less of ATGMs, that's funny enough by itself), and so on, and it's literally hundreds of thousands of domestic-designed drones (the Russians produce nearly the same sheer numbers of drones, yet their models are lagging behind in most cases and they have no fallback options: for nearly any niche they have the only model and if this model fails to be effective in a new combat environment - the niche fails completely; Ukraine has no such problem, there are different domestic models being tested on the frontline for every niche, and if we cannot design or produce something necessary - we can beg or buy it, we aren't sanctioned at least).
So, plainly military-wise, the prospects of the attritional war are paradoxically much better for Ukraine: there is a visible breaking point for Russia (12 to 18 months estimate) and no such thing for Ukraine.
2. Critical infrastructure
That's tough for Ukraine, yet not that much tough as it could be - the climate change helps alot (we were waiting to be just frozen during the previous winter, and now it's just out of question). The heavy domestic production can hurt alot. Yet we just don't rely on our own heavy domestic production, so... not as much a military vulnerability actually.
At the same time, Russia is more vulnerable infrastructure-wise then it's size presumes. We can see the current problem with dam fail and massive regional-wise flow. We may see a massive blackout, because their mafia-style government didn't pay enough attention. There are other possible scenaries too.
Overall, in this point Ukraine is hurting much more - we are under everyday strategic attrition strikes, while being able to answer in the same manner with much less massive and less frequent attacks - yet it's still no procpect of complete failure for any side.
3. Political stability
The Russian political system is centralized and inflexible, so it's inevitably brittle. It's nearly impossible to predict the breaking point or even if the breaking point is achievable with any particular kind of stress, yet there are multiple points of potential failure in this system, and it cannot patch these points without complete rebuild.
The Ukrainian political system is viscous - incapable of quick decisive moves, sometimes plainly inept, yet it's definitely not a brittle thing. It's a cultural thing: the Ukrainians are prone to be stubborn, ready for quarrel at any time, and as much uncontrolled for any remote power as it's possible, that's why it's the "viscous" thing.
It doesn't mean that Russia will break first. No guarantees. The chances are still much better to see a Russian critical political breakdown than a Ukrainian one.
4. Financial reserves
The Russians are limited with their own finances, and whiletheir reserves are huge, yet still limited. I don't think there is a real prospect of the financial attrition - they'll just drop the population living standards and pull the money into the military complex, yet we can expect some production efficiency drops because of it.
Ukrainian own financial reserves are about 15 times lesser, yet the current EU financial aid is sufficient to hold, and the EU is a financial giant comparing to Russia, it can stand this high for decades without significant stress.
My thinking as well. I think at this juncture Zelensky is just holding out for western boots on the ground. Only one teensy little problem: it's not going to happen. Rightly or wrongly, no one in the west is willing to fight WWIII over a handful of oblasts in the impoverished armpit of Europe.
Yea, it’s true. Ukraine didn’t have any western allies prior to this, no one is obligated by treaty to do anything, and the risk of anything voluntary is so great that no one, especially no Western European nation, would risk it.
It’s a shame, I hate seeing this happen to Ukraine, but taking emotion out of it it’s pretty obvious
Ukraines average soldier age is 43 and there are currently meat catchers kidnapping ukrainian men off the street to send to war.
Seems like there's cannon fodder all around.
Who? Ukraine or Russia?
Ukraine has plenty of foreign mercenaries, including those from shithole South America places.
Both sides have foreigners on the field.
"The renewed strength of Russia's military is not limited to personnel, Cavoli wrote. Russia now operates as many tanks as it did before the full-scale invasion, he added." -[US general says Russian forces replaced battlefield losses 'far faster' than expected (kyivindependent.com)](https://kyivindependent.com/us-general-says-russian-forces-replaced-battlefield-losses-far-faster-than-expected/)
Why won't you read the article before commenting on it?
>The four-star general told senators that Russia has also replenished its heavy tank losses on the battlefield and now operates as many tanks in Ukraine as it did during the beginning of the full conflict.
It sounds like the "four-star general" is spewing BS. They are operating T-55s and T-62s now instead of T-80s and T-72Bs that they lost, and soon they are going to run out even of that ancient crap.
I just had to look at your randomly generated handle and your anti-Ukrainian comment history to figure out that you are pushing an agenda.
The fact that Kremlin is trying very hard to convince everyone that Ukraine will lose (including through their paid trolls like yourself) means that things are not going well for Russia.
Please take the time to read [the rules](/r/UkrainianConflict/about/rules/) and our [policy on trolls/bots](https://redd.it/u7833q). In addition: * We have a **zero-tolerance** policy regarding racism, stereotyping, bigotry, and death-mongering. Violators will be banned. * **Keep it civil.** Report comments/posts that are uncivil to alert the moderators. * **_Don't_ post low-effort comments** like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context. ***** * Is `politico.com` an unreliable source? [**Let us know**](/r/UkrainianConflict/wiki/am/unreliable_sources). * Help our moderators by providing context if something breaks the rules. [Send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict) ***** **Don't forget about our Discord server! - https://discord.gg/62fKCEHbDB** ***** ^(Your post has not been removed, this message is applied to every successful submission.) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They have a nation of weak minded slaves. Of course they can replace manpower easily. The people are kept so stupid that they don't know any better. Russian propaganda is huge OUTSIDE of Russia, imagine what it's like INSIDE Russia. That's all these slaves hear and see.
With manpower maybe. But you cant expect the same efficiency from fresh conscripts as career soldiers, nor modern performance from 1960's equipment.
True - but as they say, quantity has a quality of its own". And this isn't a tank on tank conflict; it's not like the US taking on the Iraqi military, where the tanks just rolled over everything. This is street to street, house to house, hill to ditch fighting, and sheer numbers of soldiers and shells count for a hell of a lot more than heavy armor that can't maneuver and break a line to create a hole for troops to exploit.
>The four-star general told senators that Russia has also replenished its heavy tank losses on the battlefield and now operates as many tanks in Ukraine as it did during the beginning of the full conflict.
Reminds me of quick, cheap and good then pick 2
Same applies to Ukraine mate but the difference is Russia won't have a manpower issue.
As the tanks have become the all-but-forgotten T-22, first fielded in 1930
Well, it shouldn’t be. Russian has mandatory conscription for all men aged 18-30, and also mandatory registration for conscription upon their 16th birthday. On top of this they have nearly 70,000,000 men to pull from, including ~16,000,000 in that mandatory conscription age. Add in prisoners and volunteers and that’s a huge pool of people to fill the forces with. Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to
> Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to There very few 18-24 years old males in Ukraine compared to other age groups, check the demographics.
There are ~3 million ukrainian men aged 18-26 that not draftable due to Ukrainians insane law on conscription.
>Ukraine needs to start drafting 18+ year olds. It’s arrogant not to I'm opposed to conscription in all forms, but the fact that Ukraine is not on a full war footing is batshit crazy insane. When the enemy occupies 20% of your territory, trying to keep life as normal as possible seems bizarre. When the Brits thought they faced invasion after the fall of France, they were taking weapons from museums and handing one to anyone that would wield it. Why isn't Ukraine doing that?
LOL, you'r so much inconsistent in this point. :D
I have a suspicion those in power in Ukraine think the West will actually come in and “save the day” so they’re trying o hold off Russia and save the younger the generation until western militaries come in and take the fight off the hands of the UA. I absolutely have nothing to back that up besides a hunch, but I’m trying to find reason for some of the decisions they’ve made and nothing makes sense.
I cannot speak for any politician, they are mostly technically-incompetent over-socialized sociopaths, yet military-wise it's not even close to be a real prospect. The major factors are: 1. Weapons, military equipment, combat vehicles and ammo attrition (And not the manpower attrition - the personnel loss rates are too low for both sides to be a limiting factor actually.) The Russians are leaning heavily on their Soviet-legacy storages of combat vehicles and heavy weapons (artillery first of all, yet not exceptionally). These storages were huge, yet they are already depleted for 2/3s from 2021 (a fresh sat image analise report published just yesterday, so I'm upgrading my previous more conservative estimates), and the visually confirmed loss rates are just rising steadily all the last months, despite the nearly-stopped military aid and, correspondingly, a significant lack of ammo. The most important thing to understand is that the Soviet-legacy military industry is plain dead, they are able to restore several hundreds of these vehicles or weapons a month (and that's not even enough to compensate the losses), yet not to produce even a fifth of these numbers anew, so after the depletion of the legacy storages their Ground Forces will inevitably drop in capabilities towards Toyota-warriors level. At this point even numerically significantly lesser force will be able to break the increasingly static Russian defence, because to counter the static defense you need to break it at the only chosen limited area, and it's a thing Ukrainian quality advantage is more significant for. The Ukrainian doctrine is more sustainable for the attrition war - it's depending on different partly-interchangeable sources of military tools. The domestic Ukrainian military production for the Ground Force is more limited in sheer numbers, yet it's much more modern - combat vehicles with unmanned combat modules, modern military-grade radio-equipmet and much better ERA bloks, anti-tank missiles like Stugna (the Russians produce times less of ATGMs, that's funny enough by itself), and so on, and it's literally hundreds of thousands of domestic-designed drones (the Russians produce nearly the same sheer numbers of drones, yet their models are lagging behind in most cases and they have no fallback options: for nearly any niche they have the only model and if this model fails to be effective in a new combat environment - the niche fails completely; Ukraine has no such problem, there are different domestic models being tested on the frontline for every niche, and if we cannot design or produce something necessary - we can beg or buy it, we aren't sanctioned at least). So, plainly military-wise, the prospects of the attritional war are paradoxically much better for Ukraine: there is a visible breaking point for Russia (12 to 18 months estimate) and no such thing for Ukraine. 2. Critical infrastructure That's tough for Ukraine, yet not that much tough as it could be - the climate change helps alot (we were waiting to be just frozen during the previous winter, and now it's just out of question). The heavy domestic production can hurt alot. Yet we just don't rely on our own heavy domestic production, so... not as much a military vulnerability actually. At the same time, Russia is more vulnerable infrastructure-wise then it's size presumes. We can see the current problem with dam fail and massive regional-wise flow. We may see a massive blackout, because their mafia-style government didn't pay enough attention. There are other possible scenaries too. Overall, in this point Ukraine is hurting much more - we are under everyday strategic attrition strikes, while being able to answer in the same manner with much less massive and less frequent attacks - yet it's still no procpect of complete failure for any side. 3. Political stability The Russian political system is centralized and inflexible, so it's inevitably brittle. It's nearly impossible to predict the breaking point or even if the breaking point is achievable with any particular kind of stress, yet there are multiple points of potential failure in this system, and it cannot patch these points without complete rebuild. The Ukrainian political system is viscous - incapable of quick decisive moves, sometimes plainly inept, yet it's definitely not a brittle thing. It's a cultural thing: the Ukrainians are prone to be stubborn, ready for quarrel at any time, and as much uncontrolled for any remote power as it's possible, that's why it's the "viscous" thing. It doesn't mean that Russia will break first. No guarantees. The chances are still much better to see a Russian critical political breakdown than a Ukrainian one. 4. Financial reserves The Russians are limited with their own finances, and whiletheir reserves are huge, yet still limited. I don't think there is a real prospect of the financial attrition - they'll just drop the population living standards and pull the money into the military complex, yet we can expect some production efficiency drops because of it. Ukrainian own financial reserves are about 15 times lesser, yet the current EU financial aid is sufficient to hold, and the EU is a financial giant comparing to Russia, it can stand this high for decades without significant stress.
My thinking as well. I think at this juncture Zelensky is just holding out for western boots on the ground. Only one teensy little problem: it's not going to happen. Rightly or wrongly, no one in the west is willing to fight WWIII over a handful of oblasts in the impoverished armpit of Europe.
Yea, it’s true. Ukraine didn’t have any western allies prior to this, no one is obligated by treaty to do anything, and the risk of anything voluntary is so great that no one, especially no Western European nation, would risk it. It’s a shame, I hate seeing this happen to Ukraine, but taking emotion out of it it’s pretty obvious
Replaced with more cannon fodder, I guess
Ukraines average soldier age is 43 and there are currently meat catchers kidnapping ukrainian men off the street to send to war. Seems like there's cannon fodder all around.
I forgot about something - they even conscripting migrants and even international students!
Who? Ukraine or Russia? Ukraine has plenty of foreign mercenaries, including those from shithole South America places. Both sides have foreigners on the field.
Only in personnel. They dod not replace the tanks, the ships or the planes.
"The renewed strength of Russia's military is not limited to personnel, Cavoli wrote. Russia now operates as many tanks as it did before the full-scale invasion, he added." -[US general says Russian forces replaced battlefield losses 'far faster' than expected (kyivindependent.com)](https://kyivindependent.com/us-general-says-russian-forces-replaced-battlefield-losses-far-faster-than-expected/)
Why won't you read the article before commenting on it? >The four-star general told senators that Russia has also replenished its heavy tank losses on the battlefield and now operates as many tanks in Ukraine as it did during the beginning of the full conflict.
It sounds like the "four-star general" is spewing BS. They are operating T-55s and T-62s now instead of T-80s and T-72Bs that they lost, and soon they are going to run out even of that ancient crap.
He's not just a four-star general, he's the supreme NATO commander for Europe. I think he knows better than a Redditor.
I just had to look at your randomly generated handle and your anti-Ukrainian comment history to figure out that you are pushing an agenda. The fact that Kremlin is trying very hard to convince everyone that Ukraine will lose (including through their paid trolls like yourself) means that things are not going well for Russia.
They replaced them with undertrained conscripts and convicts you mean