this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Russia's committing way more resources into this conflict than they ever did for previous similar operations though. Ukraine is claiming they killed/wounded over 200000 Russian soldiers. That's not anywhere near comparable to previous post WWII conflicts.
Ukraine claims a lot of things, it's called war propaganda. We won't know what the actual losses are on each side until the war is over. It's certainly absurd to take Ukrainian numbers uncritically. In fact, it doesn't even match up with Ukraine having done multiple mobilizations now while Russia has only done one. If Russia was losing anywhere close to manpower Ukraine claims, then they would've had to do multiple mobilizations by now as well. Also, as many military experts have pointed out, this is primarily an artillery war and Russia has a huge artillery advantage over Ukraine. That's where vast majority of casualties comes from.
Russia never really stopped mobilizing men. They started the mobilization back in autumn, then passed several reforms to allow them to keep mobilizing men in a less conspicuous way, like making the delivery of the mobilization letter electronic and without receipt, adding restrictions to those who don't go the conscription office and other laws. All these were done in the winter and thousands of reports of electronic mobilization letters surfaced during these months on the internet. It's a steady stream conscripts rather than big batches, but the result it's the same.
Yup, that sure sounds like a credible report to me.
Human resources yeah, but financial? I'm not sure. The Iraq war cost 3 trillion dollars.
And mind you, you're talking about the victors (mostly) the Korean war cost the lives of 2 million people. As did the Vietnam war.
Don't you mean generated trillions of dollars (for private war profiteers)?
The thing about corruption is that it's very inefficient. Spending a trillion dollars on weapons translates to only a couple of billions in the pockets of profiteers, the rest is used to actually make the weapons, move them in place, and to pay the people using them.
So with a useless war, you waste far more than you would if you just have the money to the profiteers.
The money would be wasted on things like super yachts anyways. At least a good chunk of this waste goes to things like feeding and housing soldiers and contractors and paying those people and all the people who make the food, supplies, etc. Seems less wasteful than just giving it to billionaires. Granted, the weapons, when they actually function at all, can be used to cause harm to many people...
Rule of Acquisition number 34: War is good for business.
A lot of western oligarchs are making very good profits off this war. Here's an undercover interview with a Blackrock recruiter who openly says Blackrock is making money and they want the war to keep going https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOhAgYonAY4
Anybody who thinks that the west is there to protect Ukraine and defend democracy is brain damaged.
that is, 0.6% of the total number of people who can be drafted into the army.
The current political regime is not particularly concerned about military losses. even if we take into account the 2 million Russians who left, 200,000 people still make up about 1% of the number of conscripts. Even if we assume that half of them will somehow manage to escape from the Ministry of Defense, 15 million people can still be called up into the army.
You can't really send every man able to hold a gun directly to the front without your economy completely collapsing. Even 1% of your abled men being suddenly dead is very serious in terms of the economy. Plus all the injured coming home from the war now suddenly being a burden rather than a productive asset to your economy.
Definitely not good for either country
Well, that's right. But already now the business is starting to hire women more willingly than men who can conscripted. And just recently, a law was passed that those who could refuse the draft after entering the institute would still serve after the institute. Government introduced new much stricter laws against draft evasion. Look like preparation for the beginning of mobilization.
You can call a lot of people, but the reality is that the Russian army gradually shifts from trained soldiers with tanks and artillery to Igor with a gun.
Their losses will skyrocket the moment they can't provide sufficient counter-battery fire and air defence for their troops anymore.
the Russian army has never been well trained. Almost the entire composition of the army below the officers are forcibly conscripted civilians. the number of contractors is ridiculously small.
the Russian army has never been contracted. And a year of training of a forcibly conscripted person always gives approximately the same result.
UPD: if we lived in the world of starcraft, Russia would undoubtedly be Zerg. In general, the command and tactics are applied accordingly - a swarm of Zerg. I am generally surprised that conscripts are at least given weapons.
when I served in the army on universal conscription for 2.5 years of compulsory conscription many, years ago, I fired from a machine gun about 2 times. This is the average level of training of a Russian soldier.
This number takes into account every men from the age bracket 15 to to 55, according to rosstat numbers. https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/Bul_chislen_nasel-pv_01-01-2022.pdf
This assumes a lot given that realistically there is no real way to know how many people are really living there. This is absolutely not the number of people who are eligible to be conscripted.
By the contract, a person of any age can now be called up until the rifle falls out of his hands. So it's even less than it could theoretically be required. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/28/05/2022/6291e8e79a7947008579486b
In the Russian Federation, the same resolution on conscripts can be issued one day at any time.
True, technically the Russian government proclaims that everyone who can stand straight for a moment is a potential recruit. But if the previous mogilisation attempts showed us something, that even the most loyal putin's dogs would prefer making war efforts from the comfort of their own homes.
I don't have anything other than gut feelings after extensive reading of telegram channels to base this on, but my personal estimation that they could probably get another half of a million of meatbags or so, but after that the whole shit will just collapse in on itself.
I think not. the regime is very slow to advance its interests, and you don't have time to look back, because 7 years have passed, and everyone has served at least a year in a hot spot.
For example. Mobilization has begun. People were outraged. Everyone was shown on TV how Putin promises that they will not demand more. What we really have: no one has canceled the mobilization on paper. Mobilization orders are coming in, only slowly, so as not to cause unrest. Contractors cannot quit after the contract expires, as mobilization and military operations seem to be continuing. For greater security, they began to send out mobilization orders through state websites, so as not to run after those who are runs away from the military commissariat. And if he did not show up, then he is deprived of his driver's license and credit rating. But I don't see any dissatisfaction.
And so it is everywhere.
Yeah, but that's not how you conscript all the people in one go, that's how you slowly suck the life out of your country by methodically killing small amount of people with relentless consistency. You can't use this slow boiling method to conscript hundreds of thousands of people, let alone millions, and the moment you try, the system shits itself.
I didn't mean that 30 million people would go to the front in a single rush. I suspect that at least half of them will hide from the army in all possible ways. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine a situation where slow replenishment of the reserve will not help. If only for months there will be hot battles every day with thousands of dead.