Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 8

[theprestige]

Yes, heres the thing though. Ukraine has much more video and pictures to show us of destroyed Russian equipment than Russia has to show us of destroyed Ukrainian equipment. That leads me to believe that Ukraine is indeed winning the battle of attrition. Russia would be showing us the masses of western MBT's they've destroyed, if they had indeed destroyed them.

I'm not disputing any of that. We've discussed Ukraine's progress and prospects in the war of attrition elsewhere. Here I'm wondering how much of their ten million available laborers is the amount they can actually afford to send to Ukraine without collapsing their economy and/or gutting their other military necessities.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I don't think Russia needs all that many people for employment in their critical industry. You need oil and gas workers drilling, pumping, refinery. Some port infrastructure, and the railroads. A few military factories... 100k workers at the absolute most. Agriculture and food service... sure some there. But its mostly mechanized huge grain field low manpower style agriculture. Most of their consumer goods are imported. I think they could probably still operate as the worlds largest gas station with many millions of men in their military.

You're way too low. From Bowen, Andrew (2021). Russia's Arms Sales and Defense Industry (CRS Report No. R46937), p.9:

Russia’s defense industry remains a domestically important sector, employing several million workers and supporting foreign arms sales. (Estimates of the size of the workforce range from 2 million to 3 million. Connolly and Sendstad, Russia’s Role as an Arms Exporter, p. 3; Tor Bukkvoll, Tomas Malmlof, and Konstantin Makienko, “The Defence Industry as a Locomotive for Technological Renewal in Russia: Are the Conditions in Place?” Post-Communist Economies vol. 29, no. 2 (2017), p. 234 . . . ; Pavel Luzin, Russia’s Defense Industry: Between Political Significance and Economic Inefficiency, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2020, p. 3 . . . .) [form of citation changed from footnote to in-line for clarity]
​

Further, from The Moscow Times:

Russian Factories Face Record Labor Shortages

Russia’s industrial worker shortage reached a new high last month, the RBC news website reported Thursday, citing a survey by the Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy.

The survey found that 42% of Russian industrial enterprises faced a shortage of workers in July, surpassing April’s record-setting shortage of 35%, according to the same survey of around 1,000 enterprises. . . .

Only 2% of the surveyed enterprises said they were overstaffed, with RBC noting that the stark shortage-to-surplus of workers ratio represents the widest margin in the past 28 years.

According to an April survey by Russia's Central Bank, in the first quarter of 2023, worker shortages in Russia reached their highest level since records began in 1998.

The most acute shortage of personnel according to the Central Bank survey was observed in manufacturing, industrial, mining and transportation.​

So no, Russia can't just add "many millions of men" to their army. And even if they somehow went ahead anyway, there would be no means of training, arming, equipping, or supplying them; Russia can't even do those things adequately for the troops it has now.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania.
Both countries have moved forces to the border regions and are expecting provocations. NATO forces in the Forward Presence Battalions are also on increased readiness.

 

[SpitfireIX]

The 250,000 number (post #14) is interesting because it's very close to the running count from the official Ukraine Govt, sources. When they release the numbers they get a lot of "what source?" and "how did you count?" responses in Twitter - but it seems they are not inflating.

(And if that's from Obituaries, how many more wounded are there?)

All militaries overclaim, even if they're sincerely trying to give an accurate accounting. It's just in the nature of warfare. I would also point out that the recently leaked Pentagon documents contained estimates of Russian casualties that were about half what the Ukrainians were claiming at the time. As for the number of wounded, I suspect that Russia's wounded-to-KIA ratio is significantly smaller than the expected 3:1, due to a combination of indifference and incompetence.

 

[Doubt]

Some Russian demographics googled from various sources I have not vetted:

Soviet Union population in 1941: 205 million
Russian population 2023: 144.4 million.

Russia has an aging population and a declining birth rate.
Men tend to die early compare to other industrialized nations.

The Soviets used to lean on the ethnic minorities to fill out the infantry. Russia already leaned on what is left of the minorities in the last mobilization. Without the other Soviet republics, they don't have the ability to just pull some non-Russian farmer out of a field and send him off to die without anybody in the big cities noticing.

 

[lobosrul5]

I'm flabbergasted that they need 3 million people in their weapons sector for.... That.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I imagine inefficiency plays a part in that.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Some Russian demographics googled from various sources I have not vetted:

Soviet Union population in 1941: 205 million
Russian population 2023: 144.4 million.

Russia has an aging population and a declining birth rate.
Men tend to die early compare to other industrialized nations.

The Soviets used to lean on the ethnic minorities to fill out the infantry. Russia already leaned on what is left of the minorities in the last mobilization. Without the other Soviet republics, they don't have the ability to just pull some non-Russian farmer out of a field and send him off to die without anybody in the big cities noticing.

Another point: The Soviet economy came perilously close to complete collapse in 1942, and it likely would have collapsed without Lend-Lease. So there's no way the Russians could possibly put up anything close to a WWII level of military production; Putin would surely be tossed out a window for even suggesting such a thing.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, in ww2, the Russians got thousands of miles of rail track, 11,000 items of rolling stock and 2000 locomotives. Half a million trucks, almost 60% of their fuel including 90% of their high octane aircraft fuel, an entire tyre factory, many thousands of miles of wire cable. Industrial goods like machine tools, bearings plus 53% of their ammunition.
That's without even mentioning the weapons deliveries which included over 10,000 aircraft and.13000 combat vehicles.
Britain sent over 3,000+ Hurricanes, 4,000 other aircraft
27 naval vessels, over 5,000 tanks, over 5,000+ anti-tank guns and over 6000 other combat vehicles.
In addition the US and Britain sent many thousands of radios, radar sets and telephone systems.
Plus importantly many millions of pairs of boots. Britain alone sent 15 million pairs.
Mundane things like wool and cotton for weaving and a vast amount of woven fabric and buttons were important.
Over $180 billion in today's value.

It all allowed Russian industry to concentrate on weapon production.

 

[The Don]

Yes, in ww2, the Russians got thousands of miles of rail track, 11,000 items of rolling stock and 2000 locomotives. Half a million trucks, almost 60% of their fuel including 90% of their high octane aircraft fuel, an entire tyre factory, many thousands of miles of wire cable. Industrial goods like machine tools, bearings plus 53% of their ammunition.
That's without even mentioning the weapons deliveries which included over 10,000 aircraft and.13000 combat vehicles.
Britain sent over 3,000+ Hurricanes, 4,000 other aircraft
27 naval vessels, over 5,000 tanks, over 5,000+ anti-tank guns and over 6000 other combat vehicles.
In addition the US and Britain sent many thousands of radios, radar sets and telephone systems.
Plus importantly many millions of pairs of boots. Britain alone sent 15 million pairs.
Mundane things like wool and cotton for weaving and a vast amount of woven fabric and buttons were important.
Over $180 billion in today's value.

It all allowed Russian industry to concentrate on weapon production.

I've taken to listening to the "We Have Ways of Making you Talk" podcast while out walking. They're currently focusing on 1943 and a repeated theme they come back to is how lend lease changed the equation in the East, the sheer volume of stuff involved and the incredible speed at which it arrived.

Will China and India become Russia's Lend Lease suppliers in this war in exchange for natural resources ?

 

[Andy_Ross]

At one point in 1941 over 50% of the medium tanks in Russian service were lend lease and the air force relied on Hurricanes as the main fighter.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

An observation watching Twitter vids & updates.

The Ukrainians have videos of dozens of vehicle kills per day. The Russians have 1 or 2 and recycle them for days.

I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but social media videos of the war is propaganda and doesn't have much use beyond being a morale booster (which is good, morale is important!). Presumably the Ukrainians are making more of an effort to get their propaganda served up to a Western audience considering we're their benefactors in this war, while any Russian propaganda would mostly be for a Russian audience and they may not be making as much of an effort to reach the English speaking internet. I'm assuming Russian social media is awash with content that shows their soldiers bravely waging war and achieving glorious victory.

Tallying up social media videos is hardly a useful way to make an assessment of anything.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Some Russian demographics googled from various sources I have not vetted:

Soviet Union population in 1941: 205 million
Russian population 2023: 144.4 million.

Russia has an aging population and a declining birth rate.
Men tend to die early compare to other industrialized nations.

The Soviets used to lean on the ethnic minorities to fill out the infantry. Russia already leaned on what is left of the minorities in the last mobilization. Without the other Soviet republics, they don't have the ability to just pull some non-Russian farmer out of a field and send him off to die without anybody in the big cities noticing.

Ukraine is also going through a demographic collapse that predates the war, and obviously the invasion is only accelerating that. Safe to assume that a large percentage of those that end up getting any kind of permanent residency status out of Ukraine will probably not return to a war-torn homeland, even in victory.

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/war-exacerbates-ukraines-population-decline-new-report-shows-2023-03-08_en

Curious to speculate about what potential post-war closer relations with the EU would mean. I would guess that easier immigration would mean a huge exodus of Ukrainians to European countries where wages and standards of living were higher.

 

[Drewbot]

I saw a clip on Tik Tok from @joeycontino2 he says the Russian MOD Propaganda TV show, announced that they have counted obituaries, and the actual Russian KIA are 284,000 approx. 34,000 higher than the Ukraine estimate.

Why would they, after a year of lying about casualties, come out with a higher number? What is the plan? are they going to announce a new mobilization? or will this be the start of a draw down, leading to peace? It's a shocking number for 16 months of modern warfare.

 

[theprestige]

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania.
Both countries have moved forces to the border regions and are expecting provocations. NATO forces in the Forward Presence Battalions are also on increased readiness.

Von Clausewitz has little use for feints, but I think even he would agree that if you're going to make a feint, it should at least draw away some of the forces you are actually fighting, instead of activating fresh forces from an as-yet latent enemy.

 

[theprestige]

I saw a clip on Tik Tok from @joeycontino2 he says the Russian MOD Propaganda TV show, announced that they have counted obituaries, and the actual Russian KIA are 284,000 approx. 34,000 higher than the Ukraine estimate.

Why would they, after a year of lying about casualties, come out with a higher number? What is the plan? are they going to announce a new mobilization? or will this be the start of a draw down, leading to peace? It's a shocking number for 16 months of modern warfare.

It's probably just Moscow's version of the modified limited hang-out.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Will China and India become Russia's Lend Lease suppliers in this war in exchange for natural resources ?

If they're trading, rather than giving, it's not Lend-Lease.

That aside, as I've mentioned, secondary sanctions would be a disaster for China, and I mean that quite literally. Further, as much as Xi likes having Russia distract the West from attempting to contain China, the trade disruptions caused by the war are going to hurt China's economy, on balance. For example, before the war, China was one of the largest purchasers of Ukrainian grain. And, as has been discussed, Russia's ability to supply oil and gas to anywhere outside of Europe is limited, due to lack of pipelines and suitable export terminals.

As for India, most of the above also applies to that country; additionally, there's the problem that much (though not all) of India's military equipment is NATO, rather than Soviet, standard.

 

[lobosrul5]

If they're trading, rather than giving, it's not Lend-Lease.

That aside, as I've mentioned, secondary sanctions would be a disaster for China, and I mean that quite literally. Further, as much as Xi likes having Russia distract the West from attempting to contain China, the trade disruptions caused by the war are going to hurt China's economy, on balance. For example, before the war, China was one of the largest purchasers of Ukrainian grain. And, as has been discussed, Russia's ability to supply oil and gas to anywhere outside of Europe is limited, due to lack of pipelines and suitable export terminals.

As for India, most of the above also applies to that country; additionally, there's the problem that much (though not all) of India's military equipment is NATO, rather than Soviet, standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Indian_Army

I'm seeing a LOT of Soviet and Russian flags in the equipment origin column. Especially tanks.

Their Air Force operates Soviet/Russia, French, and home built planes. But they operate more Soviet/Russian than anything else.

 

[theprestige]

I've taken to listening to the "We Have Ways of Making you Talk" podcast while out walking. They're currently focusing on 1943 and a repeated theme they come back to is how lend lease changed the equation in the East, the sheer volume of stuff involved and the incredible speed at which it arrived.

Will China and India become Russia's Lend Lease suppliers in this war in exchange for natural resources ?

"Lend lease" only worked because it turned out that America had enough latent industrial capacity to backstop all of its allies and out-produce its primary opponent at the same time. I don't think China and India have enough spare industrial capacity combined to shore up Moscow's shortfalls in this conflict.

 

[jimbob]

The Ukraine War Has Found the Machinery of Western Governments Wanting
RUSI

While the provision of Western support to Ukraine has seen some notable successes, the slow pace of decision-making has made it more difficult to capitalise on Russian weaknesses.

The failure to recognise decision points risks causing Ukraine serious problems in 2024 also. The massive consumption of ammunition from deficient NATO stockpiles was evident from June 2022. Across the board, assessments were clear that Western capitals needed to expand production of munitions and key spare parts like barrels. Here, however, the urgency felt in defence ministries has not been recognised across government. In the UK, for instance, while the Ministry of Defence has had the power to purchase materiel from the international market, sending UK money abroad and kicking the impending shortfall down the road, there has been little cross-government strategy on expanding production.

The rest of the article is good too