In defence of Russia

I was not in first place.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply.
Many good points.
Ukraine did have a solid arms industry. One of the first things Russia did was hit the industry very hard. It did not completely destroy it in the first rounds. But it has been ground down to almost zero now. But Ukraine still retains the expertise. They have done amazing things with what they have. They are capable of building things with parts supplied. And come up with new ideas.

The Russian economic situation is a black box. As are a lot of countries. I seldom take as reality my own country’s economic figures. Politics slant them greatly. Russia has even greater reason to cloak them. It is however a large economy. A resource and production base. Sanctions were expected to reduce it to shambles. But that is not an instant thing. Russia can manipulate things internally for quite some time. It may be declining. But it may take a long time to have serious effect.

Facts not in evidence…
A lot of them are not in open evidence. A war of attrition has one piece of materiel that is of limited supply and long lead time. Human beings. Ukraine has lost so many people. The figures are not officially announced. But they are terrible. Russia just has more people to keep feeding in. The front lines have been quite stagnant for some time. That could indicate a balance of losses on both sides if both sides were content to just hold. But Ukraine is constantly trying to regain their territory. So they are more on the attack. Attackers lose more fighters and materiel.

Russia not winning at the moment? I can agree with that in many ways. But I think Ukraine is losing. Russia has it’s aims. So far they have not gained in many of them. So they are at a sort of net loss. Ukraine has many losses. Their gains are only measured in lessening the losses. Holding the line. As in many wars. It is who loses less that is considered to have won. A sad calculation.

Again I very much appreciate your reply.

Has anyone lately brought up that Russia should go fuck itself? They are a gigantic blight on the face of the earth. They have brought unbelievable death and destruction on a sovereign nation, just to stoke Putin’s massive evil ego. There is no defence of the piece of shit called Russia. And fuck anyone defending them (look directly above). Fuck Putin. If there is a hell, he’ll enjoy it.

Are you familiar with the concept of a Pyrrhic victory? If Russia “wins”, that’s likely its situation.

Perhaps I owe Kedikat an apology. After all, the only thing Putin wants here is to follow Russia’s constitution:

A journalist asked Peskov whether Russia wants to occupy new Ukrainian territories, apart from the four oblasts.

“No. We just want to control all the land we have now written into our constitution as ours,” replied Peskov.

Color me unsurprised that Ukraine is not interested in what the fucking Russian constitution has to say.

Come to think of it, I really don’t owe Kedikat any apology at all.

But doesn’t every country every now and then casually add control of another sovereign nation into their constitution as a pretext to invade? (Or write it in later as justification.)

After all, all countries are equally weird, right?

Yeah, and isn’t that funny?

I grew up during the Cold War. I had a Top Secret SAP/SAR clearance when the Soviet Union collapsed. The funny thing is that I actually thought Russia might join the civilised world. I was wrong.

Gosh, since when did Russia start paying attention to what the Russian constitution says? I mean they sure as shit don’t pay attention to what the Russian criminal code says, Wagner is an illegal organization by what that says.

I know, but, of course, we have to pretend it matters when we want to give our dear Komrade an opportunity to justify the режим (regime) and what they’re doing, especially when said режим is touting what their toilet paper constitution says.

Russia may have many aims, but Ukraine has just one - survive. Russia set out to subjugate Ukraine. If Ukraine ends this war a free and independent country, it wins.

Hitler was content with the Sudetenland, so why should Ukraine make a fuss about losing some eastern territory?

But it looks like Ukraine may end this war by surrendering contol of 20% of its land to Russia ,while losing 20% of its population*–and that’s a sad way to describe a win.

*(8 million refugees have fled Ukraine,from a population of 40 )

No it doesn’t.

You would agree that Russian forces have taken heavier losses in terms of both personnel and equipment, though?

Russia’s supply of equipment is dwindling, while Ukraine has, through its global partners, a much larger theoretical pool to draw from. With over three times the population of Ukraine, Russia has a theoretically larger pool of human resources, but Putin has exhibited a reluctance to maximize it through conscription, due to the risk of civil unrest.

The key asymmetrical aspect of the war is Russia’s willingness to target and kill civilians.

VDV does another oopsie, commander of the VDV accidentally admits the scale of their losses on VDV Day:

“Apparently unsanctioned” comments from a senior Russian commander of Moscow’s elite troops in Ukraine appear to show that around half of the Kremlin’s paratroopers have been killed or wounded in the country, according to a new assessment from the U.K. government.

On Wednesday, General Colonel Mikhail Teplinsky, who heads up Russia’s VDV, or airborne forces, said during a recorded speech that 8,500 paratroopers had been wounded in Moscow’s war effort since February 2022.

Yet the video, in which Teplinsky said 5,000 wounded paratroopers had returned to the frontline and more than 3,500 injured fighters had never left, quickly disappeared from Russian government channels.

Extrapolating the figures offered up by Teplinsky “endorses the assessment that at least 50 per cent of the 30,000 paratroopers who deployed to Ukraine in 2022 have been killed or wounded,” the British Defense Ministry said in an update on Sunday.

That corroborates, with a better source, what prominent Russian milblogger Rybar said in January:

Not to mention heavy losses by another elite force, the naval infantry. Russia seems to have led with their best light infantry, with both airborne and naval infantry tasked with early assaults. Reasonable enough on the face of it IF you are expecting a quick collapse. But instead the fighting took a turn to the prolonged and severe and those units got mauled.

A lot harder to replace elite units than conscripted cannon-fodder. Especially in this case as there are some reports that Russia stripped out some training units to try and maintain momentum early on.

you guys use the phrase “russian elite troops” in the wide sense of the word, right?

… right?

Wider than than say U.S. special forces, yes. Spetsnaz or elements thereof would be closer cognates to those. But compared to the the rest of the Russian army, they are relatively elite. Much lower percentage of conscripts to contract soldiers, cherry-picked from the best of the recruits, better paid. More professional, more capable - again, all in a relative sense.

If the implication is that all Russian soldiers and units suck, never underestimate an opponent :wink:. The Russian military has a shit ton of issues that hamper effectiveness. But the quality of higher-end contract soldiers probably isn’t one of them. It’s everything else around them like shitty logistics, unrealistic strategies, poorly chosen tactics. Individual units likely can still perform fine if used and supported properly. Thankfully the Russians often haven’t. Though they purportedly seem to have gotten a little smarter on the defense lately, using conscripts on the front lines to absorb the initial hit and higher-quality troops to then counter-attack.

But those heavy losses to quality troops hurts, because they are slow to replace relative to convict bullet-stoppers. It wasn’t the loss of ships (they were quickly replaced) that so badly damaged the Ottoman navy in the immediate aftermath of Lepanto in 1571, it was the loss of thousands of skilled archers that take much longer to train properly than musketeers.