Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.
Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable. A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.
The assessment, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday, comes as some Republicans have balked at the US providing additional funding for Ukraine and the Biden administration has launched a full-court press to try to get supplemental funding through Congress.
To be honest, I didn’t think Russia would make it to two years. I expected riots, revolution, putin getting killed, etc. It’s pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is. That makes it even more scary.
They did protest. And everyone was arrested. Then they protested the arrests. And everyone was arrested. Then people just silently stood in groups holding blank signs. And everyone was arrested.
So only another military coup could free Russia from Putin’s firm grasp.
But that’s why he kept his own military led by weak leadership. And the only paramilitary group he allowed to gain strength ended up attempting a coup against him.
And what a whimsical coup it was
Yeah, that was a wild couple of days. Not that Prigozhin and his merry bunch of neo-Nazis would have been that more tempting as leaders of Russia. So the prospects for Russians have usually been “and then it got worse” so it’s hard to blame them for not putting their necks on the line for the next despot.
Can’t imagine why a fucking Nazi mercenary marching on Moscow couldn’t gather grass roots support for the revolution.
They weren’t attempting a revolution, if anything, it was a coup. You don’t need grassroots support for that.
And yet, that was apparently his plan.
And it was actually a “coup” against the Minister of Defense which really cranks up the whimsy.
Only a very small minority did protest, that’s why it didn’t work.
That’s because Russian “law enforcement” is actually terror, they do everything for the large part of citizens to be too afraid to even speak up not to mention doing anything.
FTFY. ✌🏽
That’s because
Russian“law enforcement” is actually terror, they do everything for the large part of citizens to be too afraid to even speak up not to mention doing anything.Maybe, but there are at least places where law is virtually non-existent, those places work on the power of customs and traditions not on terror. Not saying that I prefer unwritten laws, that seems too complicated to be realistically used by a large enough society. Also, I personally don’t equate police not held accountable and terror.
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If you “don’t equate police not held accountable and terror”, you’re white AF.
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Law and law enforcement are two entirely different things.
Could you elaborate on the first item?
The way I see it terror is always directed towards/against something. It’s not just the atrocities committed by someone it’s mainly instigation of fear to blackmail people to act according to someone’s will.
Uncomtrolled police force leads to it becoming the organized crime itself, to corruption, to overuse of power, and other bad things, but it doesn’t seem to be directed in itself. So this may be an instrument of terror but it doesn’t necessarily imply the terror itself is what I was trying to say.
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It’s pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is.
It’s identical in the US. 4 years of Trump and all we got was a pro Trump attempted coup.
Trump is too narcissistic and up his own ass to deliberately export pure sadistic evil the way Putin does.
The Kurds beg to differ
Yes. He fucked that up… We fucked that up. But I do believe it was out of complete incompetence and absolute density and maybe indifference.
They don’t know the war is going badly. They don’t know what Western society knows about the war. They’re fed state approved propaganda and nothing more. They’re also plastered constantly which kills motivation for political upheaval.
Good thing Obama made propaganda legal and protected here in the US.
So you’re back into a corner and can’t answer it.
The answer is that neither the US nor Russia is a good place to live, but right now we’re talking about Russia, so bringing up the US is irrelevant. Like it always is with whataboutism, because what else could the answer possibly be?
It depends on who is saying what and why to determine "whata boutism
It’s you. You said ‘what about Obama’ like it made you relevant in any way.
It didn’t, and you’re not.
Did you ask a question?
You done commenting “what about the US”?
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You sound like a well adjusted adult, so go on
I am indeed. So far, the pacifist doormat tactic isnt working.
Well you know how it is. Everyone who knows what’s going on left, everyone else just watches TV and believes them because why wouldn’t they.
Protest is met with swift arrest and long prison sentences.
While the army may be extremely disorsgnized, unfortunately, putin has made internal security extremely solid. Add to that the fact that a great amount of people in russia are politicaly passive or pro Z, I don’t think a revolution is coming from the people anytime soon.
Give it time. It took 3 years of war for the 1917 revolution to start.
I feel like Ukraine needs to take the fight to Russia for that to work, but that runs the risk of galvanizing the population against Ukraine as well
One thing I would add is that the Russian people do want change but any attempt at changing the leadership is met with poisoning and/or long prison sentences. I would highly recommend reading about Alexei Navalny or watching the fascinating documentary
It’s not indifference they are ok about it, it’s called democracy.
They’d have to have a democracy in order for it to be called a democracy
They just don’t have the American democrazy…
You think that’s weird, you should see how Americans ignore their corruption.
Whataboutism is a moron’s contra-argument.
If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we’d have a limitless supply of energy.
Imagine telling any conservative, during the Cold War era, that we could completely fuck Russia’s military power and readiness, for years to come, by sending weapons to a relatively small country. They would be rushing to arm anyone and everyone they could, unintended consequences be damned. And yet, here we are with the GOP blocking exactly that sort of activity. And even better, there is a very real possibility that we aren’t arming future terrorists this time around. Maybe that’s the GOP’s problem, Russia losing in Ukraine won’t create an excuse in 20 years to kill more brown people.If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we’d have a limitless supply of energy.
I had always thought the same thing about Nixon, after he sees what Trump gets away with.
Ya, it’s pretty bad when you can look at Nixon as a “stand up guy” compared to Trump. He at least had the decency to recognize that he had been caught in his bullshit, resign and go away.
Nixon is really interesting as a president it’s kind of a shame how he’s only remembered for Watergate and the drug war now. Most people don’t think “created the EPA” or “desegregation” when they picture Nixon, he also ended the Viet Nam war and draft. Definitely a complex person above a lot of other presidents, poor Quaker upbringing and looked down on by his elite classmates, could have rejected the draft on his Quakerism but became a lieutenant commander, insanely respected as he rose through the ranks and commended by almost everyone he worked with. Did terrible things with Kissinger in South America as a staunch anti-communist. It’s like every stark judgement on him has some extreme counter example. The guy basically was the USA at an insane time in history, definitely a man who fully embodied that period of history.
Say what you will about the Boomers, but at least they knew when it was time to leave.
Trump is literally a boomer.
Way to ruin a joke.
Ain’t that literally why they supported the Mujahideen?
Bingo! You get the prize :)
Religious fanatics.
Not religious fanatics this time.
They don’t want to hurt the feelings of anyone they made friends with on their last 4th of July holiday in Moscow
You won’t their are wild cards at play.
There*. Also, mind elaborating? Or are these wild cards pulled from your rectum?
In the world of politics you never give something for free. The Republicans are asking for more stringent border security and more border funding. If democrats were truly committed to supporting Ukraine then they would have made those concessions all ready. The problem is democrats love exploiting brown people for their cheap sweat shop labor.
The problem is democrats love exploiting brown people for their cheap sweat shop labor.
You could build an IMAX theater with all that projection.
Border security wouldn’t stop migrant workers. The whole “invasion of the border” thing is never talking about those people, as was proven by farmers lamenting their absence in Florida.
I wasn’t referencing migrant workers with work visas, I was referencing all the people entering illegally. Of course farm owners are upset, their source of cheap labor dried up.
Yes, hence my first sentence.
You know what would actually put a dent in illegal immigration? Fixing their country that we broke. They come here because being undocumented and working under the table with potentially dangerous conditions is better than their home country. Maybe we shouldn’t have destabilized so many democracies in South America.
If you expect us to take responsibility for our actions, then we’d have to have real solutions, and it’s just easier to complain about things, plus we’d have to arrest a looooooot of war criminals.
Bad news, Sparky: some of us actually lived through all the decades that conservatives imported exploitable brown people to boost profits. The shit you gargle from talk radio shows does not trump our lived experience.
Bullshit. You pass a law because it’s the right thing to help the country not because you got something for it.
I agree with you, Maggoty, and that why neither one of us will get very far in National politics.
That’s cute that you think the world works that way.
The existence of bad people does not invalidate morality.
The existence of morality does not change how politics works.
That’s demonstrably untrue. Otherwise we’d still be operating under monarchies.
Many monarchies were overthrown by people some ceeded power so they wouldn’t get overthrown.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
Or the Dems know that letting the GOP get their shitty ideas through just because Dems want something isn’t a good idea and are going to try to do it without the traitors’ party’s help
If democrats were truly committed to supporting Ukraine then they would have made those concessions all ready.
They have been, some substantial compromises actually. The Republicans still wanting more, in a non-compromising sort of way.
Personally I’m hoping the FBI actually does checks on everyone in Congress, to make sure they’re not being compromised to vote in certain ways that certain countries wants.
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I hope you have a wonderful day.
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You fucking off would certainly go a long way to making your hopes a reality.
George W. Bush set the precedent that The US does not negotiate with terrorists. Even when those terrorists are in Congress. They should stop setting precedents they don’t really mean.
Or is it that the Democrats understand the rhetorical danger of equating an actual war in Europe involving a major nuclear power, with the ego driven pet project of a fascist demagogue?
Oh yes, more money to fix the perpetual, nebulously defined “border problem”.
Sometimes compromise is not the solution. This is one of those times. I’m tired of Republican fearmongers getting rich off my tax dollars by funneling it into the border security slush fund.
Russia had a total standing military of approximately 900,000 active-duty troops
Of the 360,000 troops that entered Ukraine, including contract and conscript personnel, Russia has lost 315,000 on the battlefield, according to the assessment.
So roughly 87.5% of the initial troops was lost, like the article said so that checks out.
900,000 - 315,000 still means 585,000 troops remaining, and that’s outside the conscription efforts.
Russia has announced plans to increase the size of the armed forces to 1.5 million.
Still a considerable force, as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
Brutal numbers. Let’s not forget that Russia can’t just move all its troops west, they still need to protect other borders and regions.
I really hope the US passes a proper aid, and even more so that EU gets themselves together and continues support. Infuriating to see that while Ukrainians are fighting for their lives (and unintentionally also for the safety of Europe), the politicians are haggling over fucking pocket change.
The only way Russia can win if the west stops Ukraine’s support, and they grind them up over the next years. This would be a catastrophic strategic failure, and would mean the end of global US/NATO influence, motivating the start of many more annexations (definitely Taiwan as a start).
Yes, for all the people saying “it’s not that many”, this is a huge number. No military campaign can withstand 80% losses. That’s like the losses Napoleon took invading Russia. Or Hitler, invading Russia…
Guys, I’m thinking this invading thing is hard in this part of the world.
There are plenty of people that have had success invading Russia.
On horseback.
From the east.
Mongolia, what’s up? You’ve had a good break, now’s your time to shine again.
throat singing intensifies
You want an unstoppable raping, pillaging, murdering force rolling West over every opposition, against all odds, and only stopped by the logistical impasse that is the sea and the festering attrition of greed?
Because, that’s how you get an unstoppable raping, pillaging, murdering force rolling West over every opposition, against all odds, and only stopped by the logistical impasse that is the sea and the festering attrition of greed.
edit: sorry for the historical caricature, kiddos. Lighten up, FFS.
We already have a raping, pillaging, murdering force rolling west. It’s called Russia. It’s not unstoppable though. The Ukrainians have proved that. Let’s give them more aid. Lots and lots of aid.
All the aid, I completely agree! 🤘🏼🇺🇦
It’s 2023, I’m sure if we ask nicely they’ll just loot and pillage this time.
What’s part of the reason Russia wants to occupy Ukraine. Its a lot easier to defend - against what enemy Russia thinks it needs to defend itself. Its not like someone is seriously planning to attack a nuclear power.
Until they are, of course.
Hamas has entered the chat.
as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
The amount of heavy lifting this clause is doing cannot b overstated
The thing is, Ukraine has no real possibility of interrupting the supply chain, since it doesn’t have the weapons to do so, or is not allowed to use on Russian soil in case of western weapons. All it can do is himarsing the last few dozens of kilometers around the front.
And Russia can produce or dig up WW2-level shit from storage for a very long time.
Russia hurts its own supply chain because the entire state apparatus functions via corruption at every possible level.
Also Ukraine has absolutely already struck targets on Russian soil with US weapons.
Not to my knowlege except for some very minor cases, like those incursions into Belgorod. GMLRS, ATACMS, Storm Shadow etc have exclusively been used inside (occupied) Ukraine, as far as I know. The long range drone strikes inside Russia are all claimed to have used only domestic Ukrainian weaponry. Can you give me a source?
I was wrong! They were formerly sovet ballistic missiles. I am less good at remembering missile names than I thought
I can’t even imagine what 300,000 human corpses does to a place. How do you even manage that over a short period and fairly small location?
It’s not 300,000 corpses. It’s 300,000 casualties. That includes KIA, MIA, POW, Injured, etc.
You build mobile crematoriums.
Russian use of those is contested, but it is an efficient way to deal with a problem like that. There was some media buzz about those things about a year ago or so.
More likely mass graves as it currently seems
But how many of the 585,000 are front line troops? I imagine most of them are support staff. It’s like a 3:1 ratio or higher support to front line.
Russia was putting its support troops on the front line.
So, support is holding the line? Seems like working as intended! 😂
Estimates are they need to lose 500K before they even begin to falter.
Mid 2024 then. They’ve been around 1,000 a day recently.
how much of that 900000 is true?
You know, sometimes I feel bad about gambling some money away on the stock market and feel a bit like a failure. But then I come across posts like these and I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
There is always Thomas Midgley, who invented leaded gasoline and Freon (CFC).
Not only invented them, but poisoned the hell outta himself trying to prove they were safe.
And then when he was too bedridden to do anything, he invented an automated bed to help him move around and strangled himself to death in the ropes.
Truly an inspiration.
Sounds like he won a magical monkey paw from that weird stall at the fair that nobody else seems to remember.
Oh, I bet the shareholders would beg to disagree
An unfortunate fact is that we’re never going to beat Russia primarily by killing russians. Russians should be killed when they try to steal and rape our countries and peoples in order to immediately stop them from doing that, but the only way to properly win this is to somehow get to the leaders or their wallets.
While I agree with the sentiment, it’s not like “we” are trying to beat Russia, right? Ukraine is defending itself. I’d imagine the story would be a little different if the goal was to beat Russia(like a full effort), rather than defend Ukraine.
This can be both, and it’s CHEAP.
For less than 1/10th the direct cost of the Iraq war and at the cost of zero American servicemember lives we’ve set back Russia’s military by decades, strengthened NATO, and actually done something positive for a change.
I don’t disagree from a purely American standpoint, but I’d caution against calling a war where Ukrainians are being so heavily impacted daily and Ukrainian soldiers are fighting and dying “cheap”. It’s an inexpensive investment in the security of the region and the world on the US’s part, but no war is cheap.
Those of us who believe Ukrainian lives and freedoms are worth preserving don’t need convincing.
Those that think it’s too expensive to do the right thing need to be shown that even when discounting the moral necessity of the relief, the return on investment is excellent.
Putin has declared that his “special operation” continues until all the goals have been met, and the goals are “demilitarisation, denazification and Ukraine’s neutrality”. The first two don’t mean anything, and Ukraine doesn’t want to do the third one. So if this stubborness continues, I cannot see any other way forward except “beat Russia”.
Oh yeah, and I’d imagine if something like NATO decided to take that path forward in the future, it would probably be possible to beat Russia by killing Russians. I also imagine it would be relatively quick tbh.
But for humanities sake, I hope they can put together a better, more surgical way to remove the cancer from Russia.
Exactly. The US technically can end the Russo-Ukrainian War any time it wants. All they gotta do is go “boots on the ground”, but that carries problems of its own. Mainly that Russia is a nuclear power and Putin himself has said he’s not afraid to launch.
I don’t care enough to risk American lives.
That insight makes the large loss of life in this war even more tragic. Fuck war. Fuck Putin for sending these men to kill and die.
I think the hope is that eventually things get bad enough for Russia that a revolution starts within. Because of the threat of nukes, Russia will only fall from its own population.
Good, now let’s make them lose the rest. Slava Ukraini!
Heroyam Slava
With amount of human reserves Russia has, it is practically impossible.
This war simply can’t be won by brute force and total extermination.
Due to putin’s lack of qualms about sacrificing civilian men, these numbers may not be militarily very relevant if the professional army and cannon fodder are not segregated.
Hmm, Ukraine must be in a really bad way if it’s losing against militarily irreverent cannon fodder, despite all the advanced western weapons it’s been given.
This cannot be true lol. If it is, russians must be feeling this a lot more at home and international news hasnt reported the shock yet
0.2% of population and they have had mobilizations since then so it’s not that big a deal
Like if 120 people died in a city of 60 000. Not really noticeable
And most of that 0.2% are poor people from racial groups that Moscow wish didn’t exist. So it’s all working out.
Of the total population it may be small but the deaths are not a random sampling of the population. They are almost exclusively young men. If we define fighting age as 18-45 Russia has roughly 25 million men. 315k casualties is 1.26% of that population. That alone is a massive amount to lose in such a short period of time. Even before this Russia was in a demographic crisis.
And that 18-45 range is probably too generous. Soldiers are usually young, particularly front line infantry. In the US military like 45% of service members are under 25 and 65% are under 30. When you factor in the number of Russians who fled the country to avoid mobilization (~1 million) 10% of the men between 18 and 30 in 2021 being currently in the military, dead, or fled is a realistic estimate. That’s crazy. Those are numbers we haven’t seen since WWI. And the conflict isn’t over, more will die.
Those 120 people have family and friends. A workplace or a school. So if 120 people die, nearly everyone in a city of 60000 would have known one of the dead.
It’s not hard to do body counts. Satellites don’t have to do much for getting counts of troops. And counting the dead isn’t hard either at this point with constant drones and videos recording 24/7. I’m sure you aren’t arguing the numbers just being surprised, and it’s more shocking that russians haven’t overthrown putin at this point.
They can’t or won’t leave. And even if they try, the die.
According to wikipedia they have ~1.2 million people in the military. that includes reserve, and paramilitary etc.
Many of them are spread out garrisoning such a big country and its military facilities. Even if all of them would be engaged, there still would be 50% active military forces, while the other 50% would be the support and officer assets. So we’re looking at a maximum of 5-600.000 soldiers actually fighting on the frontlines
13% …we can do it guys.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.
Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable.
A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.
Russia has been able to keep its war effort going despite the heavy losses by relaxing recruitment standards and dipping into Soviet-era stockpiles of older equipment.
“Since launching its offensive in October, we assess that the Russian military has suffered more than 13,000 casualties along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis and over 220 combat vehicle losses-the equivalent of 6 maneuver battalions in equipment alone,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson told CNN.
Russia has also leaned heavily on convicts marshaled to the fight by the Wagner Group and has increased the age limit for certain categories of citizens to remain in the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The original article contains 651 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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It is incredibly had to believe the news after yesterday they said if we don’t give money to Ukraine, Russia would win.
Wow, Ukraine must be really incompetent then, how else could they be losing to such a diminished force?
What caused the force to become so diminished?
Ah, I see. So Ukraine has taken similar losses then.
No, Ukraine had munitions reserves. Which are, y’know, an expendable resource. And they expended them.
So Ukraine is out of munitions? Shouldn’t that not be a problem though? I remember that Russia ran out about a year ago.
I remember Russia having issues sourcing munitions some time ago, yes. What is your point exactly? That Russia doesn’t have munitions??? They clearly do…
That sounds like a Kremlin talking point; it was well reported that Russia exhausted their munition a long time ago. There’s a reason they’ve been fighting with shovels and rocks since then.
That sounds like a Kremlin talking point
Really? Because it seems like Russia would be more incentivized to have westerners believe that Ukraine will be just fine without U.S. aid.
There’s a reason they’ve been fighting with shovels and rocks since then.
You know that’s not literally true right? Otherwise Ukrainian casualties would be in the single digits…
Is it possible you could spell out exactly what you think the U.S. and Ukraine should do? I genuinely cannot tell what point you’re trying to make here.
Maybe you should take your brain out of that box and back in your skull.
Alright Vatnik
Lol. Vatnik. 🤡
Good. Now we can stop flushing our money down this toilet.
You do realize that the U.S. hasn’t spent an excess dollar on the Ukraine war, right? The budget was $700-some-odd billion whether that goes to shipping or storage costs.
You’re not. Neither is the USA.
But you don’t understand what money is, where it is going, or how this war or its possible results affects the USA.
