Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 9

plague311 said:
Jesus, how many kids can they call up? No wonder he doesn't fear throwing them in the meat grinder.
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Russia now has a smaller population than the US in 1950
And the age profile is really not good for its war fighting capability especially in the future
www.populationpyramid.net

Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2100

Russian Federation - 2024
www.populationpyramid.net www.populationpyramid.net


www.populationpyramid.net

Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2100

United States of America - 1950
www.populationpyramid.net www.populationpyramid.net

ETA /OT I've gone down a rabbit hole with that website. There are more Japanese people alive who were born between 1940 and 1944 than between 2020 and 2024
 
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Andy_Ross said:
Trump has just removed sanctions from the wife of one of Putin's closest friends.
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Thank God for that.
Andy_Ross said:
Karina Rotenberg has just been removed from the OFAC sanctions list. She is married to Boris Rotenberg, a Russian oligarch and longtime loyalist of President Vladimir Putin.
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She's a fine American patriot according to everything I've read.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Donald: "As you know, the Europeans get paid back the money they gave, and we don’t because Biden is an incompetent president. We could be in for $350B; they have no idea because Biden wasn’t a good bookkeeper, except for himself."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1906843402622075006
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Someone tell Dump he's president, because apparently he doesn't know. Would explain a lot.
 
theprestige said:
Taking a break from the political nonsense, there's a lot of heartening news coming from Ukraine.

There's the increased tempo of deep strikes against Russian logistical and energy infrastructure.

There's the increased use of the new western jets to intercept Russian cruise missiles and provide air support for Ukrainian assaults.

The Kursk incursion seems to have been wildly profitable for the Ukrainians. It ground away reserves that had been intended to sustain Russian momentum in other directions, and gobbled up a substantial amount of the North Korean contingent.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has accomplished some significant reversals around Luhansk and Toretsk.

While Russia has seemingly ground down its elite units to impotent nubs, Ukraine has been growing its cadre of special forces. They now have several brigade-sized veteran units, specializing in infantry assaults and drone warfare. These units have been fielded to great effect in the Kursk, Toretsk, and Luhansk directions.

In addition to these elite veteran units, Ukraine has also been able to pull regular troops off the front lines, to capitalize on the lessons learned in combat, before sending them back to the front as veteran formations, to great effect.

Perhaps the most significant development is the upgrade of the elite 3rd Assault Brigade to a full corps. This new 3rd Army Corps unifies five brigades under a single command structure, centered around the veteran 3rd Brigade. This new corps will enable larger, more coordinated operations across a wider front. Instead of separate brigades each doing their own thing in their sector, with limited coordination, the five brigades can be used in concert with each other. This reduces weak spots between uncoordinated brigades, and allows for timely follow-through on any one brigade's successes. It also means coordination of an entire corps' worth of artillery, logistics, air support, and other combat support resources.

There's a lot going on in Ukraine, and a lot of it is in Ukraine's favor. No thanks to Trump.

Heroiam slava. Slava Ukraine.
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They have made plenty of mistakes but they also learn and adapt.

Russia has been advancing it's drone technology and other novel use of weapons like glide bombs but it's main tactic for attack is still the murderous meatwave. The Russian people must be tiring of that now.
 
a_unique_person said:
They have made plenty of mistakes but they also learn and adapt.

Russia has been advancing it's drone technology and other novel use of weapons like glide bombs but it's main tactic for attack is still the murderous meatwave. The Russian people must be tiring of that now.
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Not at all. They're happy for their children to die protecting Mother Russia from Ukrainian fascists.

Also they have little idea of the true number of casualtie.
 
I long for the days a couple of years ago when we were told that the Russians were hopelessly incompetent, they would be completely rolled over by Western wonder weapons, and Russia's economy would collapse within a couple of months.
 
steenkh said:
I long for the days a couple of years ago when we were told that the Russians were hopelessly incompetent, they would be completely rolled over by Western wonder weapons, and Russia's economy would collapse within a couple of months.
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there is strong reason to believe that the Russian Economy Has collapsed - it's in War Zombie mode, propped up by massive deficit spending and fuelled by the lives of the people who were supposed to be in the workforce - everyone with marketable skills has left the country.
Russia can't afford to stop the war, or it will instantly face mass poverty and supply shortages.
 
theprestige said:
The way I like to put it, it's not at all clear (or even likely) that Ukraine will win this thing, but it's pretty obvious Russia has already lost.
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Is this some kind of bumblebee thing, that Russia has already lost, but doesn’t know it, and continues pushing Ukraine back day by day?
 
steenkh said:
Is this some kind of bumblebee thing, that Russia has already lost, but doesn’t know it, and continues pushing Ukraine back day by day?
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More like... Russia's army and armaments used to be praised quite a lot. Now? They're more like a laughingstock after they've shown themselves to be a paper tiger, unable to break even what was a vastly inferior force on paper. The reserves left behind by the Soviet Empire are now nigh gone. They're resorting to buying North Korean ammunition to stave off total depletion, no less. They've pretty much lost a naval fleet to a nation without a navy and lost much of the value of Sevastopol. The Russian economy? Down the crapper, with various markets that they had been depending upon likely closed to them for a fair while. They've been actively worsening an already bad demographic situation that they were facing and experiencing brain drain on top of that. They're apparently burning their gold reserves to keep sorta afloat. NATO? Multiple previously neutral nations have joined NATO and Russia's now got a LOT more border length with NATO. Russian stability? Russia's potentially at risk of falling apart, now, which is part of why they're having a hard time stopping. More points could be raised, but I think that covers enough.

Russia lost in many ways early on, to the point where even an "official victory" would still leave them distinctly worse off, and that really has just kept worsening since. I think that their one hope at this point to change that is for Trumpublicans to bail them out like crazy, which, while entirely possible, may carry a cost that will even make those amoral jackasses bulk at it.
 
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steenkh said:
Is this some kind of bumblebee thing, that Russia has already lost, but doesn’t know it, and continues pushing Ukraine back day by day?
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No, this is some kind of geostrategic thing, where Russia has lost military, economic, industrial, commercial and diplomatic ground, much of which will be almost impossible to regain, and all of which when taken together represents a severe loss of power and influence in the world. Every single strategic advantage Moscow anticipated has been replaced by strategic disadvantages, that will persist regardless of how well they could now manage to do in Ukraine. Trump could hand Ukraine to Moscow on a silver platter tomorrow, and Putin would still be coming up short like ten midgets in a brawl.

Also, defense in depth is an excellent strategy for a weaker force with territory to trade. Giving ground isn't always the same as losing the war.

Also, Ukraine has been pushing Moscow back lately, in some key directions. Keep up.
 
steenkh said:
I long for the days a couple of years ago when we were told that the Russians were hopelessly incompetent, they would be completely rolled over by Western wonder weapons, and Russia's economy would collapse within a couple of months.
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Russia's economy is 11th by GDP. America alone has a much larger economy and individual countries in the EU are larger. The combined EU is much larger.

The difference in the war effort is that Russia is all in but everyone else is still only making nominal contributions. As a result Russia is more experiencing much larger inflation, debt, labour shortages and materiel destruction. It can only slowly grind down Ukraine when it is putting everything into the invasion.

Putin is gambling that there will be a significant collapse on the front line that it can break through and cause a total collapse. Every day that doesn't happen the price to Russia is huge. It can't go on forever even with a dictator commanding a close to total war effort,
 
steenkh said:
Is this some kind of bumblebee thing, that Russia has already lost, but doesn’t know it, and continues pushing Ukraine back day by day?
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Some discussion of Moscow "pushing Ukraine back day by day":


Ignore the clickbait thumbnail; the reporting itself is sober and straightforward.
 
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Aridas said:
More like... Russia's army and armaments used to be praised quite a lot. Now? They're more like a laughingstock after they've shown themselves to be a paper tiger, unable to break even what was a vastly inferior force on paper.
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theprestige said:
No, this is some kind of geostrategic thing, where Russia has lost military, economic, industrial, commercial and diplomatic ground, much of which will be almost impossible to regain, and all of which when taken together represents a severe loss of power and influence in the world.
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I don't think it is much of a consolation for Ukraine to know that Russia has lost the war, when they are still fighting, and Trump believes that Russia has "all the cards". It may very well be that Russia's army has lost a lot of credibility, and that it will take a long time to rebuild the army and the economy, but right now they have not lost the war, and their economy has not collapsed.
theprestige said:
Also, Ukraine has been pushing Moscow back lately, in some key directions. Keep up.
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That is great news. But I don't think it means that Russia has lost the war. If they had, Trump would offer US forces to stop the Ukrainians from entering Moscow!
 
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