Head of Ukraine’s national foreign intelligence service – “We have studied…the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. We are aware of Russia’s long-term plans…at least until 2030.”
Russia is running out of troops but their recruitment numbers are way higher than Ukraine’s. I support the Ukrainian armed forces unconditionally and have donated to them multiple times so believe me that it brings me no pleasure to say this, but there is no way Russia runs out of soldiers before Ukraine does.
“Capable” in this context doesn’t just refer to training alone.
As laid out in the video, Russian recruits are getting older and older (as in: have sometimes even fought in Soviet era conflicts) and recruitment standards are dropped more and more (apparently having Schizophrenia is OK for a Russian soldier) to keep a steady influx of warm bodies. Next, Russian recruits appear to be broadly separated into two groups: The meat shields who are rushed to the front with minimal training to plug the biggest holes in the units (stark examples include only multiple days between reported recruitment and death). The second group is going through a more traditional training regiment but also shortened. This shortening also applies to officer candidates.
In short: Recruits are getting less physically capable due to the average age increasing drastically over time, and militarily less capable due to shortened or basically nonexistent training.
As for the Ukrainians: I expect the video with analysis on their casualties and recruitment to drop this week.
Well the Ukrainians are at least trying to train their troops while Russia has been caught shoving raw recruits into the front line after literally no training. Those reports are obviously magnified by each side’s information ops but we do know the Russians have a survivability problem. The two biggest things you learn in basic are what to do when someone starts shooting, and how to hit things with your rifle. Everything else is extra that’s meant to make you able to use specialized equipment. The real learning environment has always been combat itself. And in this arena the Ukrainians are absolutely dominant.
The motivation of russian soldiers is about as sound as was the motivation of US troops in Vietnam. “Protect the free world from communism by attacking another country”. Yeah, ok.
The US had an active force of half a million troops at the height of that attempted occupation and a total of more than 3 million troops had been deployed in Vietnam over the course of the 6 years of war. The US committed various terrorist acts and warcrimes. By the numbers, they had superiority in pretty much every way. At some point it looked like there were doing fine, and they utterly lost. They lost 58k soldiers.
Unfortunate slight difference, The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back. I doubt Putin would bat an eye at such a policy we’re simply fortunate the russian military simply isn’t capable of that kind of attack.
It’s good to remember that a small subset of Ukrainian commanders do see soldiers as mere cannon fodder. Mere 11 years ago, the Ukrainian military was run almost precisely the same way as the Russian one. And many commanders are from before 2014. Many of them have converted to the new ways since 2014, but some haven’t. That’s a problem that severely hampers Ukraine’s recruitment capacity. Still, Ukrainians are a nation that will flex when it needs to. If the Russia starts advancing faster than the 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total area in year like they did in 2024, people get more afraid of what is going on and get motivated to join the armed forces.
Russia is running out of troops but their recruitment numbers are way higher than Ukraine’s. I support the Ukrainian armed forces unconditionally and have donated to them multiple times so believe me that it brings me no pleasure to say this, but there is no way Russia runs out of soldiers before Ukraine does.
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Russia won’t run out of troops, but they will run out of capable troops: Russian Casualties & Force Generation - Losses, Recruitment & Sustaining the war in Ukraine
Honest question, what makes Ukraine troops that much better trained?
“Capable” in this context doesn’t just refer to training alone.
As laid out in the video, Russian recruits are getting older and older (as in: have sometimes even fought in Soviet era conflicts) and recruitment standards are dropped more and more (apparently having Schizophrenia is OK for a Russian soldier) to keep a steady influx of warm bodies. Next, Russian recruits appear to be broadly separated into two groups: The meat shields who are rushed to the front with minimal training to plug the biggest holes in the units (stark examples include only multiple days between reported recruitment and death). The second group is going through a more traditional training regiment but also shortened. This shortening also applies to officer candidates.
In short: Recruits are getting less physically capable due to the average age increasing drastically over time, and militarily less capable due to shortened or basically nonexistent training.
As for the Ukrainians: I expect the video with analysis on their casualties and recruitment to drop this week.
Well the Ukrainians are at least trying to train their troops while Russia has been caught shoving raw recruits into the front line after literally no training. Those reports are obviously magnified by each side’s information ops but we do know the Russians have a survivability problem. The two biggest things you learn in basic are what to do when someone starts shooting, and how to hit things with your rifle. Everything else is extra that’s meant to make you able to use specialized equipment. The real learning environment has always been combat itself. And in this arena the Ukrainians are absolutely dominant.
Because Ukranian troops have 2 things Russian troops will never have.
Also
The motivation of russian soldiers is about as sound as was the motivation of US troops in Vietnam. “Protect the free world from communism by attacking another country”. Yeah, ok.
The US had an active force of half a million troops at the height of that attempted occupation and a total of more than 3 million troops had been deployed in Vietnam over the course of the 6 years of war. The US committed various terrorist acts and warcrimes. By the numbers, they had superiority in pretty much every way. At some point it looked like there were doing fine, and they utterly lost. They lost 58k soldiers.
Sounds vaguely familiar to me.
Unfortunate slight difference, The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back. I doubt Putin would bat an eye at such a policy we’re simply fortunate the russian military simply isn’t capable of that kind of attack.
It’s good to remember that a small subset of Ukrainian commanders do see soldiers as mere cannon fodder. Mere 11 years ago, the Ukrainian military was run almost precisely the same way as the Russian one. And many commanders are from before 2014. Many of them have converted to the new ways since 2014, but some haven’t. That’s a problem that severely hampers Ukraine’s recruitment capacity. Still, Ukrainians are a nation that will flex when it needs to. If the Russia starts advancing faster than the 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total area in year like they did in 2024, people get more afraid of what is going on and get motivated to join the armed forces.
I think you’ve got the wrong tense there, comrade.