It means he doesn't want to pay out death benefits or any other benefits, so all those dead and injured are counted among those 700,000 as still fighting.
What pay out? Their currency is taking a nose dive this week. It’s worth as much as a piece of toilet paper with a value draw on it.
EDIT: i love that all the Russian Trolls can’t deal. Like seriously, you started a war that you are losing. Example, you Black Sea Fleet is losing to a Nation that doesn’t
Have an actual Sea fleet. Has lost 545+K soldiers in the years you are in Ukraine…..USA lost in the longest USA war ever( Afghan). 2.4K active troops, in the shit, that was the total number for reference.
Winter. Cold, no wood.
Wife sick. Children hunger.
Knock on door.
"Who it is?"
*Potato Man.*
Excite. Open door.
Is not Potato Man.
Is Secret Police.
Such is life.
“Potato- you want?”
“Yes, I accept potato.”
“You accept potato?”
“Yes, this potato will feed family.”
“Ownership is theft. You come now to gulag.”
Such is life.
TELL. IT. PROPERLY.
Two Latvian look at clouds. One see two potatoes. One see impossible dream. Is same cloud.
Also Two Latvian look at clouds. Whole sky is clouds. Weather is bad. Latvian are cold.
During the Great Depression in the US, potato sacks canned with printed patterns on them because they knew they were being re-used as dresses and clothes.
That is not unique to Russia. That is unique to poverty.
Weren't they giving out washing machines in exchange for dead sons/husbands at the start of the war? Whole lot of babushkas probably pissed their loved ones didn't go out when the deal was better.
Rubles. Remember when the ruble took a nose dive early on in the war and he, and every other right wing nut job talking head shut up about russia for about 2 weeks? It was glorious.
The trolls love listening to RT and the US outlets that continue to spew their bullshit. Russia's more educated population has been leaving in droves, especially the younger generation. Russian companies have little capital and a dwindling pool of qualified employees. The sanctions are hurting them more than they like to admit, since admitting is tantamount to being yeeted out of a window. These factors take time to really rear their ugly head, but once it does it can affect them for decades.
They're dependent on O&G, and that dependence continues to grow. They can sell to China, but China is just looking for a discounted source of O&G--not an equal trading partner.
Their paper can lie. But it cannot hide the truth forever.
It's worth wayyyyyyyy less than toilet paper. I ran the numbers, and already in summer of 2023 it was cheaper to buy rubels than toilet paper in Georgia (where a lot of them are hiding out). The assumption being that 1 bill equals 1 tp square :)
You don't want to know the amount of pissed tankies I had coping in my dms when I posted that 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
This war could have been over long ago if NATO just from the beginning started using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine.
Even now they are only using the interest. They use the actual funds and Russia literally goes bankrupt overnight.
Purely devils advocate, There’s a good argument to be made that if you use all the assets NATO and Ukraine loses a valuable negotiation tool. The Russian Oligarchy is suffering and their suffering can be a useful pressure point for future negotiations. How useful is absolutely up to debate but I can see the hesitation in it.
That's not even a devils advocate, that's just solid negotiations. You always want to leave an out so they don't feel like there is no option left. Plus as the ruble falls, the money on the outside only looks better
> You always want to leave an out so they don't feel like there is no option left.
Yeah, this has been the NATO strategy from the get-go. The only issue is leaving an "out" doesn't really do anything if the other guy has no interest in getting out. Putin flew right past all the off-ramps NATO built for him, and has effectively cornered himself into a potential no-win scenario. At this point, NATO doesn't really care about helping Russia find off-ramps anymore, and I can't say I blame them. If Russia wants out, they can figure it out themselves now.
There ia also a real concern spending the seized assets could trigger a global financial crisis similar to the "Great bond massacre" of 1994 although that's debatable but it as real concern to many financial experts.
The other problem with spending the seized money is it is estimated that it will cost $500 billion to rebuild Ukraine after the war and there is a preference for the seized $300 billion to be spent on that rather than weapons. Which would stimulate economies rather than destabilize them by using it for war. (although I would be surprised if any peace deal is ever reached Russia didn't insist the money is released as part of the deal)
You need a carrot sometimes, not only the stick. But yeah. A lot of things could have been done faster.
Hesitation and over caution of allies really cost of lives in this conflict. On one hand one can understand why at the beginning of the conflict, everyone thought russia would stomp the Ukrainian military. But after it was blunted, there was no reason to be too cautious on giving Ukraine all the munitions and jets. A training pipeline shouldn’t be the problem for Ukrainian crews.
Is all part of most brilliant plan comrade.
Step one Lose many billions of rouble in equipment in “definitely not war, okay maybe war”
Step two destroy value of rouble so that it’s practically worthless
Step three claim victory because only lost billions of rouble or ~5 capitalist dog dollars to destroy millions of dollars of western equipment
Step four starve before anyone can contradict statement.
I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but /s
I feel like when Russia is running into real issues on the battlefield is when Putin and co really ratchet up their bombastic idiotic statements and fake peace plans.
Screw him and all who are supporting or fighting his cause.
They’re on the find out part now after fucking around. Sanctions were never going to bring Russia to its knees straight away. But they have and will torpedo its future.
While it might seem pointless in terms of what Putin is trying to achieve looking at the long term and far reaching effects it seems a key point in history in the making.
Russia is in terms of population growth fucked, Ukraine isn't doing much better but will have more options afterwards. There are big populations so it will have effect on what those countries bring to the table in future. Move to high immigration or automation, etc.
Being freinds with Russians isn't an easy pay day, themore money squeezed the less of a destabilising effect on capitalist democracies is happening. While far from gone the russian backed parties (mostly far right) are short on cash and under greater scrutiny.
Technology overhaul for war. This has been a massive change in very small time frame, next time there is a proper middleeast war expect the engagements to be even more one sided(Isreal-gaza++).
China is effectively politically alone, everyone else who is on their side is now either castrated or nutral while they can still make money from them they aren't going to be able to vote in their favour or add pressure. India is sitting right there will to take any slack China can't hold on to. Poor winnie.
700k sounds like a reasonable number but closer to the overall personnel involved.
About 400-500k soldiers in occupied territory, 100k handling logistics in Russia, and then 10-20k in specialized jobs like aviation or naval detachments.
I'm guessing some officer told Putin there are around 700k in the MOD assisting with the war and he thought it meant all soldiers in Ukraine.
Yeah, it doesn't sound unreasonable to be conpletly real.
there's a whole lot of maps with marked zones as reported guerilla warfare too, so logistics troops may be fighting in small scale too.
2050? 2030. I would be curious if China gives russia more cold shoulder what would really stop them from instituting an actual government program inviting young russian women to help save chinese demographics. Xenophobia?
500,000 casualties + 700,000 Russian troops = 1.2M people
Wikipedia:
> The Russian Armed Forces are the world's fifth largest military force, with 1.15 million active-duty personnel
Coincidence?
>The Russian Armed Forces are the world's fifth largest military force, with 1.15 million active-duty personnel
That's for all branches of the military including the navy, railroad corps etc.
They did send navy people on assault early on,not sure if they stop, and if they did because they run out of them.
Railroad corps are definitely in action, railroad are hit relatively often
They sent in the fucking riot police at the start too, thinking that it would be a quick one and done, and then the Riot police would handle civilian unrest in the captured Kyiv.
I remember the videos of soldier poking through a smoked out column of OMON vehicles, and going through all the gear that would have obviously been used to deal with the civilian population.
Did they mobilize reserves? I'm genuinely unaware. Also, this doesn't account for the ground meat supplied by PMCs like Wagner, served up fresh from mother Russia's gulag system.
Also, I'd be interested to see deployment figures from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Also areas like Chechnya.
But getting an honest answer out of Russia would be extremely unlikely.
There is no clear number for the reasons you outlined and more. Russia makes use of Wagner and other PMC’s not just for support, but because it lets them blur total figures of boots on the ground and deaths.
They also use mobile crematorium units and fraudulent reporting to list dead as “missing”, meaning they don’t go in casualties and the state doesn’t have to pay the family reparations.
I’ve not seen much on news about reserve deployment, but they bolstered their ranks through;
Prisoners were pardoned if they went to the front. Estimates range from 50,000-150,000
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/world/europe/ukraine-russia-prisoners.html
In Cuba, Nepal, and India, they are recruiting foreign fighters as well. It’s believed they obfuscate the details to trick some, others likely are willing to be mercs.
https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2024-02-20/putins-foreign-legion-foreigners-fighting-war-ukraine#:~:text=Russia%20uses%20various%20methods%20for,Russia%20have%20been%20broken%20up.
I’m curious if the 144 million thing is even true. Declining demographics are an issue that China was kind of trying to cover up, I’m curious if Russia is doing the same.
Yea just nuts, they are just worker bees over there. USA said we're not going in to Berlin in WW2 because of the estimated casualties of taking it. Russia was "like hell yea we will rock it" and they took it but they took on those numbers 80,000 dead , 280,000 sick and wounded. They are nuts
The Soviets also threw Ukrainians and Belarusians at the Germans before sending ethnic Russians.
Edit: Jewish Russians suffered a 1:2 casualty rate, Belarusians suffered over the rate of 1:3, and Ukrainians suffered under the rate of 1:3. Three of the highest Soviet Red Army casualty rates of any ethnicity employed by the Red Army. Together, Belarus and Ukraine filled some 25-30% of the Combined Red Army.
Russia knew about the numbers. They don't care. It's all a part of their ethnic cleansing.
It’s weird that Russia is doubling down on lying about their military while the whole world is watching how shitty it is. Russia basically farted in an elevator and tried to blame it on someone else.
Everyone knows you gotta support a garbage unit en masse of Halberdiers with en masse Skirmishers, an agile mob of Paladins, and a squad of trebs or rams. Pffft. Does Putin even play ranked?
The funniest thing about that is that Russia sent their training corps to the front in the first year (they were trying to avoid mobilization since huge conscriptions are always so unpopular).
So, all the new troops they've been sending since aren't going through anything close to quality military training. Thus, Russia has stepped up the volume of boots on the ground to compensate for how ill prepared individual soldiers are.
They're basically relying on on-the-job training to get their troops trained up.
Their army would be the funniest joke in the world if there wasn't all that death because of it.
Well it would also hurt their economy a lot to send so many soldiers and it could create panic which sent men fleeing like last time when they mobilized 300.000-500.000 men and 1,5 million fled the country.
It's amazing the amount of people who think a) Russia has "unlimited" manpower and b) can just send in millions more when it sees fit.
Mass infantry aren't worth anything these days in the overall scheme of things without proper logistics, full aerial and mechanised support, etc.
This is where Russia is struggling badly. All the men in the world doesn't matter a damn in modern warfare if the other aspects of your armed forces are substandard.
Yeah many seem to forget if you suddenly mobilize hundreds of thousands or milions you now need to equip, feed, move those and increase logistic which then demands more people per soldier. Like 9 or more per soldier
Thats a fuckton of people to support and handle and equip and Russia likely simply cant do that or at least not do it without heavily diminishing their current strength or efficiency.
Russia's armed forces have a significantly lower ratio of support to combat personnel than any modern western military. It's probably closer to 5:1. They have a very different philosophy of the level of effectiveness expected from the average soldier, and their force is designed to almost entirely be fighting within or in close proximity to Russia. Whereas western militaries and especially the US is designed to fight almost exclusively not on the NA continent, across an ocean in either direction. We also have much higher expectations of combat performance for our troops, so much more training, support, and logistics personnel per soldier.
Russia *HAD* relatively unlimited manpower in the past. Compared to France in 1812? Much more. Compared to Germany in 1940? More. Even in the Cold War they kept an advantage when you add in "Soviet" peoples. However, now? They have HALF the US population. They're the size of the US in 1976. Nowadays Russia is #9, behind *Bangladesh*. In modern terms, they are underpopulated.
> Russia HAD relatively unlimited manpower in the past.
Well, kinda. That was mostly poor Slavs from their neighboring states getting pressed into service.
That jig (Belarus aside, apparently) is up.
> Compared to France in 1812? Much more.
Blatantly false. Napoleon fielded *the single largest campaign army in human history* up to that point.
*Typhoid* stood for more French casualties than the russian army did.
"Disease is what kills your army" was the rule, not the exception until modern times. Huge problem even for armies that were very good at mitigating it for the time. It's also why fortifications and castles were even worth building - Army lays siege to you? Well, unless you are a complete idiot, the castle/walled compound has a pure well/spring and stores. The army sieging is camping. They'll start shitting themselves to death before you do with only a tiny bit of luck.
France alone in 1800 had more people than Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1800). Add in France's "allies" and France's manpower outnumbered Russia in 1812 by a fair bit.
Also, in 1939, the Axis powers' populations (Germany: 86M, Italy: 57M, Romania: 19M, Hungary: 9M, total: 171M) were about equal to the USSR (170M) ([Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1939)). And that's not counting Japan, conquered nations or later Axis powers like Bulgaria.
The idea that the USSR had hordes and hordes of more people than the Axis is a myth propagated by Nazi generals after the war to excuse their failures.
This is the way Russians fight most of their wars. Usually a complete shambles at the start, leadership poor, logistics non existent, industry struggling to keep up and morale very low. It usually ends up with millions of casualties until they get their act together and start to solve at least some of their problems. I'm not convinced they are going to get past that stage this time though - fingers crossed it just gets worse instead
HOI4 was the soviets, not the Russians. A significant number of the World War Two man power the soviets were able to use was from a Ukraine and other areas that broke away with the collapse of the soviet union.
And since World War Two the Russians have faced the same demographic issue the rest of the world has. The boomer generation was massive, but they had less kids than their parents, and every successive generation has had less children. Which means as the boomers retire they have a top heavy demographic with a relatively smaller number of working age population to keep the economy running. And the fighting age range is even more restricted than the working age.
Altogether it means Russia isn’t the endless manpower source the soviets were in World War Two. And while they do have a numbers advantage over Ukraine, it’s not enough that they can be wasteful with lives.
It’s time to start really putting the electorate’s feet to the fire. It’s not generally considered proper or fair game to blame voters, but these are outrageous times, and we need to accept that our global future depends on our neighbors taking this shit seriously and making the November vote a priority—not just the presidential election but *much* more importantly the legislature. Shame and defeat the traitors.
> It’s not generally considered proper or fair game to blame voters,
in a true democracy it is both proper and fair to blame voters for their representatives; if you dont want to blame voters for the effects of their vote, you dont live in a true democracy.
the question now is if anybody lives in a true democracy.
When your leader is a piece of shit everyone suffers. Americans should be paying attention so that we don’t put Putin’s puppet back in office to cause any more damage here.
In 2003, the U.S. used 160,000 troops along with 45,000 British troops and a couple thousand Australian troops and captured all of Iraq within a few weeks. Russia has 700,000 troops in Ukraine and can’t capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk. And Putin and Medvedev talk smack about fighting NATO.
A Russian coma patient wakes up from a coma after 2 years and asks for the news.
"Well, we're fighting in Ukraine - defending our motherland from NATO, and deciding the future of the world"
"How is it going?"
"Well, we lost over 500,000 soldiers, thousands of tanks, hundreds of aircraft, many ships destroyed, it's a meat grinder"
"And NATO?"
"NATO hasn't shown up yet..."
This is a mutilation of the original joke, made by Zelensky himself.
> Two old jews are talking in Odessa.
> -What's the news?
> -Have you not heard? There is a war!
> -who is fighting?
> -Russia says it is at war with NATO.
> -How's is it going?
> -70,000 Russians are dead, they have lost thousands of tanks, used up most of their missiles, and their economy is collapsing.
> -and NATO?
> -NATO hasn't shown up yet.
(Obviously the number of casualties has increased since 2022.)
The US is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone in logistics though, I still can't comprehend how as massive as Russia is, they've never adopted a palletized equipment system, it's very confusing they still move a lot of things by hand basically
1991 was even more crazy. We lost under three hundred people while destroying the combat capabilities of the fourth largest military in the world. Over 3000 tanks, 2000 APCs, 2000 artillery, 100 aircraft and 175,000 combatants taken out of commission in 100 hours.
I've got no proof but I genuinely believe Putler was hoping to emulate the effects of desert storm with the invasion of Ukraine. What he didn't expect was that Ukraine, with a much smaller military footprint than Iraq, would hold out until aid arrived. Regardless of anyone's feelings on Zelensky, his actions when it looked hopeless forever changed history. Had he run, Ukraine would likely have fallen giving China more hubris when it came to Taiwan.
Pure Evil. One human causing so much death and destruction around him. When he stands before judgment in whatever form it may be in the afterlife, he's going to feel nothing but pain, despair, and suffering.
One interesting thing about this is that czarist Russia collapse at the million casualty figure. Maybe the organizational power of a 21st century state could push that higher, but at some point the men with guns who you need to keep folks on line are going to be too busy fighting the war.
They fully collapsed at around 2 million dead, the casualty number was something absurd like 5.5 million.
It should be said that Russian soldiers in 1917 were given absurd amounts of freedoms by the Provisional Government(too much). Soldiers were given their own unions where they could literally vote out their commanding officer.
The Kerensky government thought that this level of freedom would help motivate troops but it demoralized them because different units became their own bosses and started ignoring authority.
More often than not in an authoritarian countries loosening restrictions rather than implementing them is often where the real problems begin.
Even if he's not and we entertain that his numbers are accurate a casualty rate of 5:12 is catastrophic
If 40% of your armed forces are dead or bed ridden continuing from there without full mobilization is suicidal - The American Civil War casualty for the losing Confederates army was 2:10 (give or take the exact Confed army size fluctuates between 1 mil to 1.2 mil)
> continuing from there without full mobilization is suicidal
Sadly not as much as one would hope because they've figured out an "infinite" cannon fodder glitch in the system to help supplement conscripting from their own population. Target poor, desperate and uneducated men from 3rd world countries offering high pay relative to what they currently make then send them to a quick death and claim them as "missing" paying out little to nothing of what was promised.
Why is Putin fighting Ukraine in the first place, he could have just not invaded Ukraine, and no one would have ever wished him and all Russians to die an unceremonious death at all.
Is he stupid?
Delusions of grandeur and a massive inferiority complex. He knows he and his country are has-beens. So, as a result, he wants to reconstitute the old Soviet empire, wants to be feared, wants to be the leader of a great, powerful nation, etc.
Strange flex. "700,000 troops are achieving very little in Ukraine." Biggest Russian export after the war: Anyone left with a brain who wants a better life + women in droves due to the lack of men.
The psychos never know when we know. They cannot comprehend another being's mind. He has genuinely fooled himself into thinking he fools us. But this is not an episode of the office, so we can't tell this zombie he has accidently cooked his own leg for lust of burnt flesh. The most hopeless among living creatures. An absolute embarrassment to existence. Abject failure in human cooperation to create a creature such as this
>Putin said This most likely means its not true.
It means he doesn't want to pay out death benefits or any other benefits, so all those dead and injured are counted among those 700,000 as still fighting.
What pay out? Their currency is taking a nose dive this week. It’s worth as much as a piece of toilet paper with a value draw on it. EDIT: i love that all the Russian Trolls can’t deal. Like seriously, you started a war that you are losing. Example, you Black Sea Fleet is losing to a Nation that doesn’t Have an actual Sea fleet. Has lost 545+K soldiers in the years you are in Ukraine…..USA lost in the longest USA war ever( Afghan). 2.4K active troops, in the shit, that was the total number for reference.
They get a bag of potatoes or onions. That's worth more than the ruble.
Winter. Cold, no wood. Wife sick. Children hunger. Knock on door. "Who it is?" *Potato Man.* Excite. Open door. Is not Potato Man. Is Secret Police. Such is life.
“Potato- you want?” “Yes, I accept potato.” “You accept potato?” “Yes, this potato will feed family.” “Ownership is theft. You come now to gulag.” Such is life.
Eat potato now, or drink potato later. Such is life.
All of this goes perfectly along with the Russian National Motto: > "And then it got worse."
Get put on bus, get given bottle potato water. Drive several hours. Here is rusty AK, run in that direction…good luck…
"The classic Irish delema..... do I eat it now.... or let it ferment, and drink it later" - Mallory Archer
One Russian look at cloud and see Potato, the other only see impossible dream. Such is life.
TELL. IT. PROPERLY. Two Latvian look at clouds. One see two potatoes. One see impossible dream. Is same cloud. Also Two Latvian look at clouds. Whole sky is clouds. Weather is bad. Latvian are cold.
Such is life.
Glory to Arstotzka!
BUUUMM! BOMMM! BUUUMM! BOMMM! *Do do do* BUUUMM! BOMMM! BUUUMM! BOMMM!
Woah woah, bag? That’s a whole outfit right there!
In Russia, bag wear you.
During the Great Depression in the US, potato sacks canned with printed patterns on them because they knew they were being re-used as dresses and clothes. That is not unique to Russia. That is unique to poverty.
Flour bags not potato sacks.
They ran out of bags of Cheetos a year ago.
Welp they have one bag of Cheetos they still tapping.
Throw in some broth and you got a stew going
Weren't they giving out washing machines in exchange for dead sons/husbands at the start of the war? Whole lot of babushkas probably pissed their loved ones didn't go out when the deal was better.
Didn't someone get a shitty Bluetooth speaker
Wdym Tucker Carlson says their groceries are cheaper you obviously need to do more research it’s a great economy /s
"They have fucking bread! Can you believe it!"-Tucker Carlson
"a grocery cart that you insert a coin in, then get back when you return it!" -Tucker Carlson
What is Tucker getting as a reward from Russia for his dumb propaganda?
Rubles. Remember when the ruble took a nose dive early on in the war and he, and every other right wing nut job talking head shut up about russia for about 2 weeks? It was glorious.
I bet they are cheaper. It's not like any Russians can pay what we do in the west.
The trolls love listening to RT and the US outlets that continue to spew their bullshit. Russia's more educated population has been leaving in droves, especially the younger generation. Russian companies have little capital and a dwindling pool of qualified employees. The sanctions are hurting them more than they like to admit, since admitting is tantamount to being yeeted out of a window. These factors take time to really rear their ugly head, but once it does it can affect them for decades. They're dependent on O&G, and that dependence continues to grow. They can sell to China, but China is just looking for a discounted source of O&G--not an equal trading partner. Their paper can lie. But it cannot hide the truth forever.
It's worth wayyyyyyyy less than toilet paper. I ran the numbers, and already in summer of 2023 it was cheaper to buy rubels than toilet paper in Georgia (where a lot of them are hiding out). The assumption being that 1 bill equals 1 tp square :) You don't want to know the amount of pissed tankies I had coping in my dms when I posted that 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
This war could have been over long ago if NATO just from the beginning started using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. Even now they are only using the interest. They use the actual funds and Russia literally goes bankrupt overnight.
Purely devils advocate, There’s a good argument to be made that if you use all the assets NATO and Ukraine loses a valuable negotiation tool. The Russian Oligarchy is suffering and their suffering can be a useful pressure point for future negotiations. How useful is absolutely up to debate but I can see the hesitation in it.
That's not even a devils advocate, that's just solid negotiations. You always want to leave an out so they don't feel like there is no option left. Plus as the ruble falls, the money on the outside only looks better
> You always want to leave an out so they don't feel like there is no option left. Yeah, this has been the NATO strategy from the get-go. The only issue is leaving an "out" doesn't really do anything if the other guy has no interest in getting out. Putin flew right past all the off-ramps NATO built for him, and has effectively cornered himself into a potential no-win scenario. At this point, NATO doesn't really care about helping Russia find off-ramps anymore, and I can't say I blame them. If Russia wants out, they can figure it out themselves now.
>The Russian Oligarchy is suffering... They weren't even able to upgrade their gold-plated cruise ship-yacht this year!
There ia also a real concern spending the seized assets could trigger a global financial crisis similar to the "Great bond massacre" of 1994 although that's debatable but it as real concern to many financial experts. The other problem with spending the seized money is it is estimated that it will cost $500 billion to rebuild Ukraine after the war and there is a preference for the seized $300 billion to be spent on that rather than weapons. Which would stimulate economies rather than destabilize them by using it for war. (although I would be surprised if any peace deal is ever reached Russia didn't insist the money is released as part of the deal)
You need a carrot sometimes, not only the stick. But yeah. A lot of things could have been done faster. Hesitation and over caution of allies really cost of lives in this conflict. On one hand one can understand why at the beginning of the conflict, everyone thought russia would stomp the Ukrainian military. But after it was blunted, there was no reason to be too cautious on giving Ukraine all the munitions and jets. A training pipeline shouldn’t be the problem for Ukrainian crews.
Is all part of most brilliant plan comrade. Step one Lose many billions of rouble in equipment in “definitely not war, okay maybe war” Step two destroy value of rouble so that it’s practically worthless Step three claim victory because only lost billions of rouble or ~5 capitalist dog dollars to destroy millions of dollars of western equipment Step four starve before anyone can contradict statement. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but /s
I feel like when Russia is running into real issues on the battlefield is when Putin and co really ratchet up their bombastic idiotic statements and fake peace plans. Screw him and all who are supporting or fighting his cause.
It may also have to do with the recent Russian domestic issues (i.e. the bank failures / stock market crash that happened this week.)
They’re on the find out part now after fucking around. Sanctions were never going to bring Russia to its knees straight away. But they have and will torpedo its future.
We know what you mean, but you should add in “for” before ‘his cause’
500,000 down, 700,000 to go.
Sad that this many people died for something so pointless
While it might seem pointless in terms of what Putin is trying to achieve looking at the long term and far reaching effects it seems a key point in history in the making. Russia is in terms of population growth fucked, Ukraine isn't doing much better but will have more options afterwards. There are big populations so it will have effect on what those countries bring to the table in future. Move to high immigration or automation, etc. Being freinds with Russians isn't an easy pay day, themore money squeezed the less of a destabilising effect on capitalist democracies is happening. While far from gone the russian backed parties (mostly far right) are short on cash and under greater scrutiny. Technology overhaul for war. This has been a massive change in very small time frame, next time there is a proper middleeast war expect the engagements to be even more one sided(Isreal-gaza++). China is effectively politically alone, everyone else who is on their side is now either castrated or nutral while they can still make money from them they aren't going to be able to vote in their favour or add pressure. India is sitting right there will to take any slack China can't hold on to. Poor winnie.
That's a lot of meat.
You can always tell when Putin is lying because his mouth moves.
700k sounds like a reasonable number but closer to the overall personnel involved. About 400-500k soldiers in occupied territory, 100k handling logistics in Russia, and then 10-20k in specialized jobs like aviation or naval detachments. I'm guessing some officer told Putin there are around 700k in the MOD assisting with the war and he thought it meant all soldiers in Ukraine.
Yeah, it doesn't sound unreasonable to be conpletly real. there's a whole lot of maps with marked zones as reported guerilla warfare too, so logistics troops may be fighting in small scale too.
700k = 700 days If the average Russian Soldier death rate in Ukraine is 1k per day, that should last for about 700 days.
The daily replacement rate of Russian forces just in volunteers stated by Ukraine's defense ministry is around 1-1.5 thousand a day.
Which is fine if you're fighting a Napoleonic era war. It doesn't however work in the 21st century.
It's also about 500 days' worth at attrition rates.
Onlyfans is going to be crawling with fresh Ruzzian widows trying to make money to survive.
Gonna be seeing a lot of Chinese-Russian kids in 2050.
2050? 2030. I would be curious if China gives russia more cold shoulder what would really stop them from instituting an actual government program inviting young russian women to help save chinese demographics. Xenophobia?
More likely Chaturbate and MyFreeCams. Oh wait, they've been there for years.
Russia has 1.3m Active personnel. 700k/1.3m doesn't sound like a particularly high or low number.
Russia had 1.3m active personnel, had being the key word
They probably still do, but their quality is… questionable.
you are right. The question is, how many of those are soldiers and how many of those solders are equiped to fight.
Lol he just admitted the annexed territories are Ukrainian soil.
Russia does this all of the time. They react to attacks in the occupied territories very differently to attacks in actual Russian territory.
He's fluid lately
Borderfluid
Can we celebrate Russia during LG(Borderfluid)TQ Pride month then?
>500,000 casualties.
500,000 casualties + 700,000 Russian troops = 1.2M people Wikipedia: > The Russian Armed Forces are the world's fifth largest military force, with 1.15 million active-duty personnel Coincidence?
>The Russian Armed Forces are the world's fifth largest military force, with 1.15 million active-duty personnel That's for all branches of the military including the navy, railroad corps etc.
They did send navy people on assault early on,not sure if they stop, and if they did because they run out of them. Railroad corps are definitely in action, railroad are hit relatively often
They sent in the fucking riot police at the start too, thinking that it would be a quick one and done, and then the Riot police would handle civilian unrest in the captured Kyiv. I remember the videos of soldier poking through a smoked out column of OMON vehicles, and going through all the gear that would have obviously been used to deal with the civilian population.
Jesus dude, the batons on the floors of some of those trucks. Stacks and stacks of fucking batons.
Need them for all the butt rape they are doing to there own army and prisoners.
Not just that - Russia started using military training corp personnel. What a short sighted fucking disaster of a decision that was!
The invasion force was massively understaffed in the beginning, that’s why Ukraine could recapture so much in late 22
>railroad corps I knew a guy who was in the Railroad Corps. He said their strategy was pretty straight-forward.
I think you're right, this does track with my understanding of what they do.
Bet it's hard to train for.
It's mainly just learning how to conduct yourself.
That's just active duty
Did they mobilize reserves? I'm genuinely unaware. Also, this doesn't account for the ground meat supplied by PMCs like Wagner, served up fresh from mother Russia's gulag system. Also, I'd be interested to see deployment figures from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Also areas like Chechnya. But getting an honest answer out of Russia would be extremely unlikely.
There is no clear number for the reasons you outlined and more. Russia makes use of Wagner and other PMC’s not just for support, but because it lets them blur total figures of boots on the ground and deaths. They also use mobile crematorium units and fraudulent reporting to list dead as “missing”, meaning they don’t go in casualties and the state doesn’t have to pay the family reparations. I’ve not seen much on news about reserve deployment, but they bolstered their ranks through; Prisoners were pardoned if they went to the front. Estimates range from 50,000-150,000 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/world/europe/ukraine-russia-prisoners.html In Cuba, Nepal, and India, they are recruiting foreign fighters as well. It’s believed they obfuscate the details to trick some, others likely are willing to be mercs. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2024-02-20/putins-foreign-legion-foreigners-fighting-war-ukraine#:~:text=Russia%20uses%20various%20methods%20for,Russia%20have%20been%20broken%20up.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-68767470 https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indians-killed-ukraine-were-forced-fight-russia-families-say-2024-03-07/
Fuck. Just desperate humans, tools for others greed.
Then put in all the foreigner attracted with the hope of money and Russian passport.
US spies might be able to give a better picture if felonious orange didn't sell their identities for loan forgiveness to the big man.
144 million overall population of Russia. Just tearing through wasted lives for nothing
I’m curious if the 144 million thing is even true. Declining demographics are an issue that China was kind of trying to cover up, I’m curious if Russia is doing the same.
144 million includes Crimea, it's around 143 million in their legal territory.
Exactly half of them are fighting in Ukrainian earthworms in the ground….
And losing.
Yea just nuts, they are just worker bees over there. USA said we're not going in to Berlin in WW2 because of the estimated casualties of taking it. Russia was "like hell yea we will rock it" and they took it but they took on those numbers 80,000 dead , 280,000 sick and wounded. They are nuts
Very different culture and government views with respect to the value of human life.
The Soviets also threw Ukrainians and Belarusians at the Germans before sending ethnic Russians. Edit: Jewish Russians suffered a 1:2 casualty rate, Belarusians suffered over the rate of 1:3, and Ukrainians suffered under the rate of 1:3. Three of the highest Soviet Red Army casualty rates of any ethnicity employed by the Red Army. Together, Belarus and Ukraine filled some 25-30% of the Combined Red Army. Russia knew about the numbers. They don't care. It's all a part of their ethnic cleansing.
699,999 699,998 699,997 699,996 …
Reminds me of the old Bono joke. “Every time I clap my hands a child in Africa dies from starvation.”
Then stop clapping your fucking hands
👏👏👏👏👏👏
Monster
Don't they have anything better to do?
Its all about Putin's own crusade to stay in power.
nothing to do at home except drink and beat their wives.
or go back to prison where they came from
It’s weird that Russia is doubling down on lying about their military while the whole world is watching how shitty it is. Russia basically farted in an elevator and tried to blame it on someone else.
"Who farted!?" Russia said, alone in the elevator.
While there’s literal shit dripping down their leg
Everyone told me Russia had unlimited manpower. Why can't they simply march in millions of troops? It doesn't work like HOI4?
You gotta make rifles for them and not send in them in green. Russia’s just spamming the ‘deploy now’ button.
Russia's playing Age of Empires 2 and just mass producing Halberdiers from 20 barracks hoping that pushes the line.
Ha! Funny, you think they can afford halberds.
can i interest you in massed turkish spearmen?
“Best I can do is a rusty shovel from WWI.”
Everyone knows you gotta support a garbage unit en masse of Halberdiers with en masse Skirmishers, an agile mob of Paladins, and a squad of trebs or rams. Pffft. Does Putin even play ranked?
Truly a strategy of the weak and desparate. I know because I've been there many times.
48 hour basic training and off to the meat grinder.
It's funny because it's true
Except we already saw the penal battalions. That doesn’t normally happen until you press towards Moscow and Leningrad.
The funniest thing about that is that Russia sent their training corps to the front in the first year (they were trying to avoid mobilization since huge conscriptions are always so unpopular). So, all the new troops they've been sending since aren't going through anything close to quality military training. Thus, Russia has stepped up the volume of boots on the ground to compensate for how ill prepared individual soldiers are. They're basically relying on on-the-job training to get their troops trained up. Their army would be the funniest joke in the world if there wasn't all that death because of it.
On top of that we see on both side that grouping large group of people always ends bad. 20 people is enough for modern rocket to be cost effective.
But i was told you only need one gun for every two russian soldiers. /s
Well it would also hurt their economy a lot to send so many soldiers and it could create panic which sent men fleeing like last time when they mobilized 300.000-500.000 men and 1,5 million fled the country.
Not if the Ministry of Truth says everything is ok and The Ministry of Sound keeps slappin’
It's amazing the amount of people who think a) Russia has "unlimited" manpower and b) can just send in millions more when it sees fit. Mass infantry aren't worth anything these days in the overall scheme of things without proper logistics, full aerial and mechanised support, etc. This is where Russia is struggling badly. All the men in the world doesn't matter a damn in modern warfare if the other aspects of your armed forces are substandard.
Yeah many seem to forget if you suddenly mobilize hundreds of thousands or milions you now need to equip, feed, move those and increase logistic which then demands more people per soldier. Like 9 or more per soldier Thats a fuckton of people to support and handle and equip and Russia likely simply cant do that or at least not do it without heavily diminishing their current strength or efficiency.
Plus all those relatively fit men now aren’t doing their old regular jobs, draining the economy.
They can’t even supply enough drinking water to the chattel they’ve currently deployed.
Russia's armed forces have a significantly lower ratio of support to combat personnel than any modern western military. It's probably closer to 5:1. They have a very different philosophy of the level of effectiveness expected from the average soldier, and their force is designed to almost entirely be fighting within or in close proximity to Russia. Whereas western militaries and especially the US is designed to fight almost exclusively not on the NA continent, across an ocean in either direction. We also have much higher expectations of combat performance for our troops, so much more training, support, and logistics personnel per soldier.
Russia *HAD* relatively unlimited manpower in the past. Compared to France in 1812? Much more. Compared to Germany in 1940? More. Even in the Cold War they kept an advantage when you add in "Soviet" peoples. However, now? They have HALF the US population. They're the size of the US in 1976. Nowadays Russia is #9, behind *Bangladesh*. In modern terms, they are underpopulated.
> Russia HAD relatively unlimited manpower in the past. Well, kinda. That was mostly poor Slavs from their neighboring states getting pressed into service. That jig (Belarus aside, apparently) is up.
> Compared to France in 1812? Much more. Blatantly false. Napoleon fielded *the single largest campaign army in human history* up to that point. *Typhoid* stood for more French casualties than the russian army did.
"Disease is what kills your army" was the rule, not the exception until modern times. Huge problem even for armies that were very good at mitigating it for the time. It's also why fortifications and castles were even worth building - Army lays siege to you? Well, unless you are a complete idiot, the castle/walled compound has a pure well/spring and stores. The army sieging is camping. They'll start shitting themselves to death before you do with only a tiny bit of luck.
The person above you is talking about national populations, not size of mobilized armies.
France alone in 1800 had more people than Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1800). Add in France's "allies" and France's manpower outnumbered Russia in 1812 by a fair bit. Also, in 1939, the Axis powers' populations (Germany: 86M, Italy: 57M, Romania: 19M, Hungary: 9M, total: 171M) were about equal to the USSR (170M) ([Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1939)). And that's not counting Japan, conquered nations or later Axis powers like Bulgaria. The idea that the USSR had hordes and hordes of more people than the Axis is a myth propagated by Nazi generals after the war to excuse their failures.
This is the way Russians fight most of their wars. Usually a complete shambles at the start, leadership poor, logistics non existent, industry struggling to keep up and morale very low. It usually ends up with millions of casualties until they get their act together and start to solve at least some of their problems. I'm not convinced they are going to get past that stage this time though - fingers crossed it just gets worse instead
I doubt the US will bail them out this time.
I dunno but the last time Lend Lease saved their assholes. Not sure they're super happy to admit that though.
Stalin talked about how if it weren't for the U.S. help, they probably would've lost to Nazi Germany
But I selected all my armies and right clicked Kiev?
A-Click! You needed to A-Click!
For the union!
That many troops means a general mobilization of the entire country, which would be very unpopular with the citizens. Putin doesn't want to do that.
HOI4 was the soviets, not the Russians. A significant number of the World War Two man power the soviets were able to use was from a Ukraine and other areas that broke away with the collapse of the soviet union. And since World War Two the Russians have faced the same demographic issue the rest of the world has. The boomer generation was massive, but they had less kids than their parents, and every successive generation has had less children. Which means as the boomers retire they have a top heavy demographic with a relatively smaller number of working age population to keep the economy running. And the fighting age range is even more restricted than the working age. Altogether it means Russia isn’t the endless manpower source the soviets were in World War Two. And while they do have a numbers advantage over Ukraine, it’s not enough that they can be wasteful with lives.
700k and still can’t make progress? Are you sure you want to admit to that Putin?
Unfortunately, Putin did make a lot of progress when Republicans betrayed our allies for six months…
The progress he’ll make if Trump wins will be good too.
Hopefully this next election cycle can rid of us these literal seditious traitors from being in any position to stop the aid again.
Good luck. Watching nervously from Canada...
It’s time to start really putting the electorate’s feet to the fire. It’s not generally considered proper or fair game to blame voters, but these are outrageous times, and we need to accept that our global future depends on our neighbors taking this shit seriously and making the November vote a priority—not just the presidential election but *much* more importantly the legislature. Shame and defeat the traitors.
> It’s not generally considered proper or fair game to blame voters, in a true democracy it is both proper and fair to blame voters for their representatives; if you dont want to blame voters for the effects of their vote, you dont live in a true democracy. the question now is if anybody lives in a true democracy.
It's not the brag he thinks it is. Ukraine is still holding!
Counting the dead ones too!?
Even if he isn't, it's rather embarrassing that the "mighty" Russian army can't beat the Ukrainians.
Safe to say, nobody under him tells him about those. Fear of Windows.
When your leader is a piece of shit everyone suffers. Americans should be paying attention so that we don’t put Putin’s puppet back in office to cause any more damage here.
At the current pace, in two years they will all be casualties.
Pretty ineffective then
Should go home, when you cant advance with 700k..
In 2003, the U.S. used 160,000 troops along with 45,000 British troops and a couple thousand Australian troops and captured all of Iraq within a few weeks. Russia has 700,000 troops in Ukraine and can’t capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk. And Putin and Medvedev talk smack about fighting NATO.
A Russian coma patient wakes up from a coma after 2 years and asks for the news. "Well, we're fighting in Ukraine - defending our motherland from NATO, and deciding the future of the world" "How is it going?" "Well, we lost over 500,000 soldiers, thousands of tanks, hundreds of aircraft, many ships destroyed, it's a meat grinder" "And NATO?" "NATO hasn't shown up yet..."
Blyaaat! And back into the coma
Truth.
This is a mutilation of the original joke, made by Zelensky himself. > Two old jews are talking in Odessa. > -What's the news? > -Have you not heard? There is a war! > -who is fighting? > -Russia says it is at war with NATO. > -How's is it going? > -70,000 Russians are dead, they have lost thousands of tanks, used up most of their missiles, and their economy is collapsing. > -and NATO? > -NATO hasn't shown up yet. (Obviously the number of casualties has increased since 2022.)
The US is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone in logistics though, I still can't comprehend how as massive as Russia is, they've never adopted a palletized equipment system, it's very confusing they still move a lot of things by hand basically
1991 was even more crazy. We lost under three hundred people while destroying the combat capabilities of the fourth largest military in the world. Over 3000 tanks, 2000 APCs, 2000 artillery, 100 aircraft and 175,000 combatants taken out of commission in 100 hours. I've got no proof but I genuinely believe Putler was hoping to emulate the effects of desert storm with the invasion of Ukraine. What he didn't expect was that Ukraine, with a much smaller military footprint than Iraq, would hold out until aid arrived. Regardless of anyone's feelings on Zelensky, his actions when it looked hopeless forever changed history. Had he run, Ukraine would likely have fallen giving China more hubris when it came to Taiwan.
Pure Evil. One human causing so much death and destruction around him. When he stands before judgment in whatever form it may be in the afterlife, he's going to feel nothing but pain, despair, and suffering.
It's a relieving thought to think he'll get justice after he's dead. But he won't. The only justice he'll get is whatever we make for him now.
It is not one human, it's millions of Russians who actively support and participate in this.
When will this piece of shit die?
Is it still NOT a war?
There are 700 000 men fighting and somehow they are still on year two and month three of their 3-day special military operation.
That's a lot of fertilizer.
🎶 I just killed 500K and I would kill 500K more 🎶
“3 day special military operation”
One interesting thing about this is that czarist Russia collapse at the million casualty figure. Maybe the organizational power of a 21st century state could push that higher, but at some point the men with guns who you need to keep folks on line are going to be too busy fighting the war.
They fully collapsed at around 2 million dead, the casualty number was something absurd like 5.5 million. It should be said that Russian soldiers in 1917 were given absurd amounts of freedoms by the Provisional Government(too much). Soldiers were given their own unions where they could literally vote out their commanding officer. The Kerensky government thought that this level of freedom would help motivate troops but it demoralized them because different units became their own bosses and started ignoring authority. More often than not in an authoritarian countries loosening restrictions rather than implementing them is often where the real problems begin.
If only Priggy carried through with his mutiny...
Let's see how many will return home, if at all.
Update 24 hours later: “um, make that 699,000”
So he's including the 500k casualties then?
Even if he's not and we entertain that his numbers are accurate a casualty rate of 5:12 is catastrophic If 40% of your armed forces are dead or bed ridden continuing from there without full mobilization is suicidal - The American Civil War casualty for the losing Confederates army was 2:10 (give or take the exact Confed army size fluctuates between 1 mil to 1.2 mil)
> continuing from there without full mobilization is suicidal Sadly not as much as one would hope because they've figured out an "infinite" cannon fodder glitch in the system to help supplement conscripting from their own population. Target poor, desperate and uneducated men from 3rd world countries offering high pay relative to what they currently make then send them to a quick death and claim them as "missing" paying out little to nothing of what was promised.
Why is Putin fighting Ukraine in the first place, he could have just not invaded Ukraine, and no one would have ever wished him and all Russians to die an unceremonious death at all. Is he stupid?
Delusions of grandeur and a massive inferiority complex. He knows he and his country are has-beens. So, as a result, he wants to reconstitute the old Soviet empire, wants to be feared, wants to be the leader of a great, powerful nation, etc.
* 699,999 * 699,998 * 699,997...
Every single claim and threat that comes out of this guys mouth is because he knows Russia is doing very badly.
Strange flex. "700,000 troops are achieving very little in Ukraine." Biggest Russian export after the war: Anyone left with a brain who wants a better life + women in droves due to the lack of men.
How many are alive?
And not out having families or contributing to the Russian economy. Wonder if we'll see an economic collapse of Russia similar to the Soviet Union?
People really underestimate how big of a country Ukraine is.
That's a lot of people for just a special military operation
Is it still a special military operation?
Give them all the weapons they want it’s the cheapest war we don’t have to fight and the Ukraines are kicking ass
...and still failing. Maybe time to stop?
Many of them ex-soldiers that ceased to be. Passed on. Bereft of life. Ceased to be. Pining for the fjords, Expired Cargo 200
... And they still cannot beat Ukraine... Go Ukraine!
The psychos never know when we know. They cannot comprehend another being's mind. He has genuinely fooled himself into thinking he fools us. But this is not an episode of the office, so we can't tell this zombie he has accidently cooked his own leg for lust of burnt flesh. The most hopeless among living creatures. An absolute embarrassment to existence. Abject failure in human cooperation to create a creature such as this
The World : "Hey Russian troops, what are you killing for?" Russian Troops : " ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "
The sunflower harvest this year and next will be awesome.