UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[LaCroix]

I'm a bit mixed about the loss of avdiivka, but it wasn't really a win for Russia, if you are looking at the facts.

A town under siege since 2014.

Even at the begin of these 4 months, the city was already surrounded on 3 sides, and the supply lines were the shortest Russia could dream of.

4 months of an all-out assault with pretty much all ressourced concentrated.

The tally as of now is about 140-220 tank killed, 250-350 APV kills (some of them may be repairable if they did not completely blew up).
And the bodycount is somewhere in the 40-50k losses region.
The loss rate was about 7:1 (at times evn up to 13:1) in Ukraine favor.
The time holding them back was used to create additional massive lines of entrenchments, similar to the russian lines in the south.

The only reason they finally got it was an all-out aerial bombardment with gliding bombs, which cost them two Su34 and one Su35 during the retreat.

For a gain of a 38 sq. km city of ~10k inhabitants before it was reduced to a pile of rubble.

This city is all the Russian offensives have to show since the last year, when they captured Bakhmut. We are counting their Sping offensive, their summer counter offensive after the end of the Ukrainian one, their offensive in northern Luhansk, and the Autumn/Winter offensive in Avdivka.

If Russia keeps winning like this, they are welcome to it.

[LaCroix]

By the way, there is light on the ammo horizon...

Chechia has found a source of ammunition that only needs to be paid...
So there is a way to use those frozen Russian assets while the EU/NATO keeps upping their capacity.
https://english.radio.cz/president-pave ... ne-8808818

[Ralin]

I really, honestly, cannot believe you managed to post that with a straight face, when IN THIS VERY THREAD SEVERAL PAGES BACK we have sources about Russia no longer offering incentives to prisoners in jail, they're just conscripting them, including non-Russians who're being sent straight to the front lines with minimal training.

And you wonder why EnterpriseSoveign is calling you a Russian bot?

Yeah see that's how conscription generally works. When you hear stories like that you have to take into account what's not being mentioned, and last I heard they were still applying conscription much more lightly to the relatively important parts of the population like Moscow and Saint Petersburg residents.

I hadn't known this before all this started, but due to a combination of size, economic and cultural importance combined with proximity to people with actual power Russia's the percentage of the population who the national leadership needs to give a shit about the feelings of is heavily weighted towards those cities. That means that Russia still has big chunks of potential manpower that it hasn't started tapping in earnest yet and are consequentially still being productive in other ways. The same isn't true with Ukraine (because they are the ones being invaded and occupied).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... population

Check the population of Moscow and Saint Petersburg and compare that to the next several largest Russian cities. It should drive the contrast home.

[madd0c0t0r2]

On the other point: I acknowledge that GDP portion based on tourism and hairdressing isn't going to be much direct help in production. Still, I really cannot emphasize strongly enough how little effort NATO is putting in. The fact they haven't so far is I think equal parts complacency and contempt.
You want to see UK MIC running at capacity? Look at the nightingale hospitals. Multiple complex COVID hospitals and hospices delivered in 2 weeks. Two fucking weeks.
And no offence, while I'm not a milspec buff, I'd be willing to bet I know more about factory setup than you do.
https://www.building.co.uk/comment/afte ... 84.article

There's around a dozen countries in the world which make almost all the heavy machinery and machine tools which are used in industrial mass production for civilian & military use. Most of those countries are in Asia, with the US and Germany being the only ones in NATO. Russia of course also has all those goodies thanks to the Soviets.

The UK doesn't have any of that industry, there's no UK equivalent of Heller, DMG-Mori, or the now defunct Mesta Machine company. You don't have the heavy presses which are needed for making key parts of both production machinery and finished products, nor do you have the industry to even make those presses. In other words, the UK is completely dependent on imported tooling if it wants to ramp up military production. Did I mention that it's closing down the last of its blast furnaces this year so it won't even be able to make new steel? By this time next year, the UK will be completely dependent on imports of both tooling and raw materials, that's not how you scale up production. It will take the UK years to scale up military production even if it wanted to.

Russia on the other hand is already buying up every machine tool it can get its hands on from China, Taiwan, and other nations while getting its own tooling industry geared up. They've already invested billions into their own industry since the war started and domestic production of heavy machinery & tools is already ramping up. This is why a single country is out-producing all of NATO put together. People keep forgetting that Russia inherited most of the Soviet Union's massive state owned industries, it's not the "gas station with nukes" which western propaganda claims it is. In reality it's one of the most heavily industrialized nations on Earth, right up there with China, Japan, Germany, and South Korea.

There's a flaw in your argument - you are saying Russia is buying up tool presses from 3rd parties and that's fine, but the UK has to produce everything domestically from iron ore? Why, you expect Russia to branch out into U-boats and piracy? Why the double standard?

As an aside, one of the closing furnaces is local. We're keeping the rolling mills and just replacing the furnace with electric arc recycling. Since we were importing ore and coke, and also exporting 8million tonnes steel scrap while importing ~6-7million tonnes semifinished steel, we're really not in a different position.
Turkey steel recycling is loosing out.

[madd0c0t0r2]

Has anyone seen/made a timeline of approx military losses?

There's one for civilian deaths which is showing massive decreases with time, but that's just a function of the freezing front lines. Still trying to figure out if my suspicion that the stagnant lines are also resulting in steady intensity reduction of the war.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Denmark to send its 'entire artillery' to Ukraine, the country's prime minister says

Denmark is sending all of its artillery to Ukraine, the Danish prime minister has said.

Mette Frederiksen made the announcement while speaking at the Munich Security Conference.
It comes as Ukraine faces severe munitions shortages.

Denmark is sending its "entire artillery" to Ukraine, the Danish prime minister has said.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Mette Frederiksen appealed to other European nations to do more to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invading forces.

"They are asking us for ammunition now. Artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery," she said.

"I'm sorry to say, friends, there are still ammunition in stock in Europe," she continued. "This is not only a question about production, because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defense that we don't have to use ourself at the moment, that we should deliver to Ukraine."

It comes as Ukrainian forces withdrew from the key eastern town of Avdiivka amid severe munitions shortages.

The Danish announcement will come as particularly welcome news in Ukraine as its military has been starved of artillery shells, forcing it to scale back some operations, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi told Reuters in December.

"There's a problem with ammunition, especially post-Soviet (shells) - that's 122 mm, 152 mm. And today, these problems exist across the entire front line," he said.

Meanwhile, in more positive news to alleviate the ammo famine, the Czech Republic says it could supply 800,000 shells to the Ukrainian military.

Czech President Petr Pavel said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference on 17 February that it had a stockpile of about half a million 155 mm and 300,000 122 mm shells, which can be on the Ukraine frontline in a few weeks "if funding is found quickly."

Denmark has been a key supporter of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the Nordic country's military aid commitments increased by 3.5 billion euros, or around $3.8 billion, since November — making it one of the biggest military donors by percentage of GDP, the institute says.

Denmark has pledged 8.4 billion euros, around $9 billion, in military aid.

With a crucial $60 billion US aid package stalled in Congress, European support is becoming ever more important for Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the European Union agreed to a new 50 billion euro, or around $53.9 billion, aid package for Ukraine.

"This locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine. The EU is taking leadership and responsibility in support for Ukraine; we know what is at stake," President of the European Council Charles Michel said at the time, per Reuters.

[aerius]

There's a flaw in your argument - you are saying Russia is buying up tool presses from 3rd parties and that's fine, but the UK has to produce everything domestically from iron ore? Why, you expect Russia to branch out into U-boats and piracy? Why the double standard?

Russia still has a heavy machine industry capable of making every tool needed for every last step of their military production. They've plowed billions into that industry so they can crank out more tools of their own in addition to buying up everything they can on the world market. Which means they can expand their production more & faster than the UK which needs to import everything.

Also, many of the machine tools, especially heavy presses have lead times which are measured in many months or even years. Russia's got a 2 year head start from a much larger industrial base, have fun catching up.

This is what Russia's factories look like. Heavy machinery everywhere, lots of older manual machines but also a ton of modern CNC machining centres. Factories like this don't pop up overnight.

[Vympel]

I really, honestly, cannot believe you managed to post that with a straight face, when IN THIS VERY THREAD SEVERAL PAGES BACK we have sources about Russia no longer offering incentives to prisoners in jail, they're just conscripting them, including non-Russians who're being sent straight to the front lines with minimal training.

We literally just saw a posted Guardian article talking about the wide transformative effect of massive soldier payouts in Russia a few pages back, actually. Did you read that article? If you really think that the Russian army in Ukraine is somehow made up of mostly unwilling prisoners with minimal training you're simply deluding yourself.

There is on the other hand article after article after article attesting to Ukraine's manpower shortage and complaints about Ukrainian conscripts getting sent to the front with minimal training.

And - you know - again - the endless political football about Ukraine carrying out an urgent mobilisation.

So yeah, I can say it with a straight face, because its the truth. Have you noticed any of this suff? Not a rhetorical question.

Even if you were to pretend - against all reason - to handwave and pretend the Russians and Ukrainians were both doing the same thing to the same extent, then Ukraine would still be more fucked than Russia because Russia has more men than Ukraine.

It's terribly good of you Vymple to give such a lovely example of cope after telling ES you know what it means.

If you're going to be smarmy you should make double-plus sure you're not about to get chided for ignorance before you do so.

Afghanistan was a satellite state sharing a border with the USR. It was invaded to prop up a puppet government to keep buffer zones of influence active after the US tried to win over the region (kajaki damn ect). It was planned as a quick in-out operation and turned into a quagmire that exhausted men and treasure until the Soviets gave up and went home, with the exhausted USSR falling apart 12 months later.

Of course, in the Afghanistan invasion, they actually took all the cities, instead of a few cities, a coal field and a naval port that can't even be used safely. And your copium is interesting, in that you say it was unimportant peripheral stuff with no win condition; that nevertheless exhausted the USSR. I'm not sure why you think a conventional war and occupation with no win condition isn't going to exhaust Russia. These conditions have wrecked every great power. Why will it be different this time?

If you seriously think the war in Afghanistan caused the USSR to collapse I don't know what to say other than thats a completely ridiculous argument that elides massive structural and political issues that were endemic long before Afghanistan started.

Ukraine is not Afghanistan. Ukraine is not full of hordes of young willing insurgents willing to fight to the end to eject occupying Soviet troops. And Russia does not need to seize all of Ukraine to achieve an acceptable win condition in the first place. And Ukraine is simply more important to Russia than Afghanistan ever was to the USSR.

On the other point: I acknowledge that GDP portion based on tourism and hairdressing isn't going to be much direct help in production. Still, I really cannot emphasize strongly enough how little effort NATO is putting in. The fact they haven't so far is I think equal parts complacency and contempt.
You want to see UK MIC running at capacity? Look at the nightingale hospitals. Multiple complex COVID hospitals and hospices delivered in 2 weeks. Two fucking weeks.
And no offence, while I'm not a milspec buff, I'd be willing to bet I know more about factory setup than you do.
https://www.building.co.uk/comment/afte ... 84.article

On the tanks, I think you may be out of date: https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events ... rom%202027.

No, you just don't know what you're talking about. The Challenger 3 is just a refit of a few hundred Challenger 2 hulls. It is not a new production vehicle. That capability has been lost.

Finally, on the conscription, I can only assume you have had a lapse of memory: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 023-09-29/
Do you not expect the two annual conscriptions to go ahead in 2024? Can the russian selling dodgy chocolate to cafe goers in da nang Vietnam go home now?

You are clearly totally ignorant on this issue and its honestly quite ridiculous you are presuming to speak on this issue at all. No one ever said Russia's not conducting conscription. It conducts conscriptions every damn year on a schedule, as it has for its literal entire history. Russia's regular conscripted troops do not, by law, fight in Ukraine. The conscriptions for Ukraine Russia has conducted are not from those pools, but from military reservists.

[LadyTevar]

I really, honestly, cannot believe you managed to post that with a straight face, when IN THIS VERY THREAD SEVERAL PAGES BACK we have sources about Russia no longer offering incentives to prisoners in jail, they're just conscripting them, including non-Russians who're being sent straight to the front lines with minimal training.

We literally just saw a posted Guardian article talking about the wide transformative effect of massive soldier payouts in Russia a few pages back, actually. Did you read that article? If you really think that the Russian army in Ukraine is somehow made up of mostly unwilling prisoners with minimal training you're simply deluding yourself.

There is on the other hand article after article after article attesting to Ukraine's manpower shortage and complaints about Ukrainian conscripts getting sent to the front with minimal training.

Why... NO. I didn't. Why don't you pull those articles out of your ass like you do the rest of your commentary?

On the other point: I acknowledge that GDP portion based on tourism and hairdressing isn't going to be much direct help in production. Still, I really cannot emphasize strongly enough how little effort NATO is putting in. The fact they haven't so far is I think equal parts complacency and contempt.
You want to see UK MIC running at capacity? Look at the nightingale hospitals. Multiple complex COVID hospitals and hospices delivered in 2 weeks. Two fucking weeks.
And no offence, while I'm not a milspec buff, I'd be willing to bet I know more about factory setup than you do.
https://www.building.co.uk/comment/afte ... 84.article

On the tanks, I think you may be out of date: https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events ... rom%202027.

No, you just don't know what you're talking about. The Challenger 3 is just a refit of a few hundred Challenger 2 hulls. It is not a new production vehicle. That capability has been lost.

Of the two of you, I'm inclined to believe to MadDoctor over you. Unless you want to pull out SOURCES on how "Capability has been lost" to make new tanks?

Finally, on the conscription, I can only assume you have had a lapse of memory: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 023-09-29/
Do you not expect the two annual conscriptions to go ahead in 2024? Can the russian selling dodgy chocolate to cafe goers in da nang Vietnam go home now?

You are clearly totally ignorant on this issue and its honestly quite ridiculous you are presuming to speak on this issue at all. No one ever said Russia's not conducting conscription. It conducts conscriptions every damn year on a schedule, as it has for its literal entire history. Russia's regular conscripted troops do not, by law, fight in Ukraine. The conscriptions for Ukraine Russia has conducted are not from those pools, but from military reservists.

Oh.. Really?
SOURCE ASSHOLE.
Because the Ignorant one and the one that's already showing youself to be a Putin-kissing Tanksie is YOU.

[Vympel]

Why... NO. I didn't. Why don't you pull those articles out of your ass like you do the rest of your commentary?

I've posted plenty of articles in this thread, and you know I have. You're just mad that you find their implications distressing, and are lashing out with snark as a consequence. I won't take it personally.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/worl ... draft.html

A crowd angry about the draft blocked a road outside a western Ukrainian village last week in a rowdy confrontation with drivers and the police that illustrated the political risks of expanding mobilization.

Villages in the west have been a primary source of soldiers for the Ukrainian army, and support for the war has been higher in the country’s west than overall in Ukraine. But the loss of male loved ones has taken a toll on many families.

The roadblock took place on Tuesday in the village of Kosmach, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, and began with unfounded rumors in local chat groups that draft officials were coming to find the village’s remaining men, the police said in a statement. About 100 women blocked a road, and the protest turned violent when they mistook a woman from a neighboring village for a draft official, police officers said.

The woman, Ivanna Vandzhurak, wrote on Facebook that the crowd had yelled that she was a “spotter” for the local military recruitment office. The accusation echoed widespread worry in Ukrainian society that spies in their midst, known as spotters, are helping Russia identify missile targets, but in this case, the source of the anxiety was the military recruitment system.

The above story is just part of the article and the main thrust is talking about Ukraine's recruitment issues, but its in there to illustrate the overall point the article is making. As the initial blind euphoria of certain victory for Ukraine has faded, the willingness for the populace to entertain endless rounds of mobilisation is in decline.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/01/opin ... index.html

We must acknowledge the significant advantage enjoyed by the enemy in mobilizing human resources and how that compares with the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve the manpower levels of our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... ry-russia/

The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.

In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.

One battalion commander in a mechanized brigade fighting in eastern Ukraine said that his unit currently has fewer than 40 infantry troops — the soldiers deployed in front-line trenches who hold off Russian assaults. A fully equipped battalion would have more than 200, the commander said.

https://kyivindependent.com/avdiivka-de ... ification/

Among the most serious issues reported all along the front line is that Ukraine is facing a major personnel shortage – particularly in the infantry.

To reinforce infantry units after heavy losses, Ukraine has transferred soldiers from units specialized in artillery or logistics to infantry positions, according to the soldiers interviewed by the Kyiv Independent. This means soldiers deployed on the first defensive line may not even know the basic survival skills of an infantryman, which results in even more casualties.

Serhii, a 20-year-old artilleryman with the 59th, said that his originally 64-man artillery group had sent 15 men to the front line. He said most of them had been killed in their first days there. He attributes it to the fact they "knew almost nothing" about being in the infantry. Only four out of 15 survived.

A similar way of repurposing soldiers was previously reported by multiple soldiers in the Bakhmut sector, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Avdiivka, during Ukraine’s costly defense of that city last year.

Hrabskyi says that circumstances force Ukrainians to use such "non-standard methods."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... r-planners

he Kazan gunpowder plant, one of the country’s largest, took on more than 500 workers in a December hiring spree that increased average monthly salaries at the plant more than threefold, from 25,000 roubles (£217) to 90,000 roubles (£782), according to Alexander Livshits, the plant’s director. Job adverts offer night shifts from midnight to 8am and protection from military service for those trying to avoid the frontlines.

Many of those hired had to be lured from neighbouring regions, evidence of the severe shortage of skilled labour across Russia. In a twist, the main competition for workers at the factories can come from the military, which promises a salary of more than 200,000 roubles (£1,730) a month to those who sign up to fight in the war.

In regions across Russia, that kind of money can be transformative. “The war has led to an unprecedented redistribution of wealth, with the poorer classes profiting from government spending on the military-industrial complex,” said Denis Volkov, the director of the Levada Center, a polling and sociological research firm in Moscow. “Workers at military factories and families of soldiers fighting in Ukraine suddenly have much more money to spend. Their income has increased dramatically.”

Levada’s polling showed that 5-6% of those who “previously did not have enough money to buy consumer goods like a fridge now have moved upwards towards the middle classes”.

Maybe you'll actually read all this stuff, this time, IDK.

Of the two of you, I'm inclined to believe to MadDoctor over you. Unless you want to pull out SOURCES on how "Capability has been lost" to make new tanks?

Of course you are. Nevermind that just a few weeks ago maddoctor was claiming there was no artillery shell shortage in the west, NATO was instead doing "just in time" delivery.

Maddoctor's attempt to refute my statement was based entirely on the existence of the 'new' Challenger 3. Except the Challenger 3 is just a remanufactured Challenger 2 hull. They're not actually building a new vehicle. Here:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-face ... -upgrades/

They also can't even make heavy gun barrels anymore.

https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/land ... ms-admits/

aerius has already explained why this is so.

Oh.. Really?
SOURCE ASSHOLE.
Because the Ignorant one and the one that's already showing youself to be a Putin-kissing Tanksie is YOU.

Based on what? Not euphorically waving Ukraine pom poms as their situation gets worse and worse? All you're doing is shouting at me constantly while clinging to any other poster in here like a life raft and insisting they are right and I am wrong. But here, since you ask, from 2022, shortly after the mobilisation was announced.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-does ... ation-mean

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 023-07-25/

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were in theory exempted from a limited mobilisation last autumn that gathered at least 300,000 men with previous military training to fight in Ukraine - although some conscripts were sent to the front in error.

None of this stuff is esoteric knowledge, its been reported by western sources. You just don't know any of it because you've been inhabiting an echo chamber.

Russia has a manpower advantage over Ukraine based off of:

1. Well paid contract soldiers (refer to the Guardian article);
2. Mercenary units;
3. Stop loss of contract soldiers whose contract term has ended under the partial mobilisation law; and
4. Conscription of military reservists under the same partial mobilisation law.

That's the main composition of its force. Its actual 'official' conscript force is in the main entirely uncommitted, by law.

[Steve]

Sucks, yeah. The Cold War peace dividend had a cost and we're paying it,, plus the costs of a bunch of other short-sighted decisions.

[Gandalf]

Shock, anger and war fatigue: Ukraine’s two years of agony

Close to the frontline in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a bumpy road passes through half-abandoned hamlets. It morphs into a muddy track, snakes through fields, and eventually leads to an army base hidden in a forest.

There, as a kettle boiled on a gas heater, a weary 39-year-old soldier, who wished to be known only by his callsign, Titushko, spoke about the problems of fighting the Russians amid a serious ammunition shortage, as the sound of fire from nearby positions echoed around the base.

In November, Titushko’s men, part of an artillery division in Ukraine’s First Tank Brigade, received a supply of about 300 shells every 10 days, but they now have a firing limit of just 10 a day. “Back then, we could keep them on their toes, fire all the time, aim every time we saw a target. Now we fire exclusively for defence,” he said.

The ammunition reserves at the base are thin, and partly made up of Iranian shells – part of a shipment seized in the Gulf apparently en route to Houthi rebels in Yemen. They are “extremely problematic and don’t work well,” another soldier at the base said.

Along the frontline, Ukraine is on the defensive, short of ammunition and soldiers. On Saturday, Ukraine’s military command announced it was withdrawing from Avdiivka, further east in Donetsk region, handing Russia its first major territorial gain since May last year. Ukrainian officials have described the loss as a direct consequence of the shortage of ammunition from the west.

The grim news, as the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, is another sign that the third year of the war could be the hardest yet for Ukraine. The mood is very different from that of a year ago, when amid the horror Ukrainians remained buoyed up by the extraordinary consolidation of national society, and looked forward to the swift liberation of all territories occupied by Russia.

In Kyiv, the cultural historian Natalia Kryvda attributed the remarkable coming-together in the first year of the war to Ukraine’s past as a nation that lacked the infrastructure of a state. “Because we have this long history of a stateless nation, we organised these horizontal links to start the defence. People took responsibility, they didn’t wait for orders,” she said.

Those first months saw almost all segments of society unite, said Kryvda, creating a powerful new Ukrainian identity and a pride in being Ukrainian after years of denigration of the concept from Russia. “It was something very beautiful, but I’m worried that this unity is starting to crack now,” she said.

On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reminded the Munich security conference of just how much Ukrainian society had achieved over the past two years: “Ukrainians have been holding [out] for 724 days – 724 days, would you have believed 725 days ago that this was even possible?”

But with casualties mounting, army ranks and artillery supplies depleted and US financial aid stalled – and with the potentially devastating prospect of a Donald Trump presidency on the horizon – Ukrainians greet the second anniversary with trepidation about what the future might hold, as well as with increasingly visible divisions in society.

At the base in Donetsk region, Titushko talked about the unease he felt on his recent two-week home leave. In peacetime, he worked as a combine harvester driver in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, before he signed up to fight in the first days after the invasion, in February 2022. He spent half of January this year back at home – his first break from the front for more than a year, giving much-needed respite from the nightly artillery and air attacks, the winter cold, and the giant rats that make life in the trenches hard to bear.

But instead of finding the experience rejuvenating, Titushko found the sight of civilians enjoying a semblance of normal life in cafes and restaurants difficult to stomach, and the questions they asked when they saw his uniform to be irritating.

“They ask you stupid things. ‘What’s it like there? How many Russians have you killed? How many of ours are dead?’” he said. He looked around at life back home, and wondered why the men he saw on the streets were not with him, at the front.

“I don’t really understand it. There’s enough work here, even if you don’t want to be firing a gun. You could dig a trench, cook the meals. Everyone helped at the start, everyone cared, but now it’s a different time. You look at these people and you want to say, ‘What will you do if the Russians come back and come to your towns? Do you think they’re going to be handing out Chupa Chups?’”

At this stage of the war, finding people who will go willingly to fight is becoming ever harder. It was one thing to sign up when it seemed like the Ukrainian army might advance and retake all the lost territory swiftly and triumphantly. Now, the calculation looks different.

Kyiv has been mobilising men for the war effort constantly over the past year, and there are plans to add hundreds of thousands more over the next year. Some are willing to go if called on, but many more stay in hiding at home for fear of receiving a summons in the street, or try to escape the country.

“Mobilisation is unpopular in society. The self-preservation instinct, the understanding that the war is going to drag on – nobody wants to risk the lives of their close ones,” said the Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko. “On the other hand, there is no doubt that we need mobilisation, so it’s a difficult situation.”

He said he expected the authorities to solve the problem on a month-to-month basis, rather than by mobilising a large number of people at once. “The resources to call up half a million people at once simply aren’t there, plus it would hit the economy hard, and there’s already a problem with labour reserves,” he said.

There is also the question of how well newly mobilised soldiers can fight. An army source said plans were under way to increase the training period from one month to two, but this is still not long to prepare for trench warfare. “It’s more a question of psychological problems than skills,” said Valentyn, the deputy commander of the artillery division. “People from civilian life have no experience of being at the front, of being away from home and loved ones for so long.”

Millions of Ukrainians who are not fighting still help the war effort with volunteer work or donations, but the divide between people who have had very different experiences over the past two years is growing more notable.

Anastasiia Shuba, a lawyer who sits on the defence ministry’s anti-corruption council – and who frequently travels to the front as a volunteer to bring supplies to troops and visit her husband, a commanding officer in the east – said she had cut off contact with friends who seemed indifferent to the war effort. After visits to the frontline, she finds the contrast in Kyiv – where, despite frequent Russian missile attacks, shops and restaurants are open and the streets are bustling – to be jarring.

“My husband says to me: ‘We are here exactly so you can all live normally.’ He tells me to go shopping, to go on holiday to the sea with our son,” she said. “But it’s hard. Of course not everyone can fight or volunteer, and we need a functioning economy. But when your country is in such a difficult situation, only a parasite would go on living without thinking how to help.”

She added, however, that she refused to buy into the prevailing pessimism about the direction of the war. “If you believed everything you read on TikTok and Instagram, then the only option would be to cover yourself in a blanket and crawl to the cemetery. Being pessimistic just burns up so much energy, and I could use that energy for useful things instead. If I really start to believe that we’ll lose, then I will collapse and won’t be able to get up again.”

There are certainly some bright spots amid the gloom – Ukraine’s recent military dominance of the Black Sea, despite not having a navy, and its audacious special operations behind Russian lines, as well as the massive ramping-up of domestic drone production, which has played a key role in the fighting.

But the international backdrop makes it hard to be confident about longer-term prospects for liberating territory. The EU finally overcame opposition from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and ratified a €50bn funding package, but a huge US package is still stalled. Even if it passes, Trump is likely to change the tone of the debate just by becoming the Republican nominee, let alone the president.

In the third year of the war, the domestic political scene may also fracture. The unity of the first year has been steadily dissolving over recent months, with political opponents of Zelenskiy becoming increasingly vocal and a sense that politics has returned. The fatigue so visible in society is also palpable in the corridors of power. “Everyone is exhausted, physically and emotionally. Everyone’s fuse is very short,” said one diplomat based in Kyiv, of conversations with political leaders.

Ordinarily, a presidential election would have been due this spring, though there is a broad consensus that holding one at the moment is impossible. But there is concern that Zelenskiy has not found a new way of ruling after the initial period of consolidation, in order to bring more people into the tent.

“There are only two people who make decisions in this country,” said another diplomat, referring to Zelenskiy and his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

The dismissal of army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi earlier this month was widely seen as being at least partly motivated by Zaluzhnyi’s high popularity ratings. The change has passed without significant protest for now, with most Ukrainians understanding that internal turmoil would only play into Russia’s hands, but many see Zaluzhnyi as a potential future challenger to Zelenskiy.

As the 24 February anniversary approaches, Zelenskiy’s team will be keen to remind western leaders of those first days of the war, when Russian troops bore down on Kyiv and many in the west assumed Ukraine’s days as an independent state were numbered. Despite the slow western response, Ukraine stood firm, and few now believe Russia has the capability to launch a renewed assault on the capital.

On a breezy recent morning not far from Ukraine’s border with Belarus, digger trucks clawed muddy earth from the ground, and a group of men toiled with spades, working to add to a network of sturdy trenches and concrete fortifications as part of a formidable new defensive line.

Two years ago, columns of Russian armour sped through this area meeting little resistance as they headed towards Kyiv. “There were a few guys with Javelins [anti-tank missiles] at the border but otherwise they just went straight through,” said Oleksandr, a Ukrainian soldier working on the fortifications. “That won’t happen again.”

Total defeat for Ukraine now looks like an impossible dream for Vladimir Putin, but total victory – including the reclaiming of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 – is also harder to imagine in the near term. Negotiations with Russia have long been a taboo subject, mainly because nobody believes Moscow would keep any agreement and would simply use it as a pause for breath before pushing again.

But fighting on indefinitely is also hardly sustainable. “If we can survive the next year, then we will probably be forced to negotiate some kind of ceasefire,” said Fesenko.

For many at the front, agreeing to a fragile and imperfect peace would be an unthinkable concession after the efforts and losses of the last two years. At the frontline, Titushko said the thought of returning home to peaceful life once more, only to be called up again when Russia recommenced hostilities, was too much to bear. “In 2014, we thought it was over and they came back. This time we have to finish them off for good,” he said.

There's a lot of different things in here on which to remark, but none of it's really good for the people of Ukraine. Wild that they're apparently using seized Iranian ammunition, because of shortages.

[Elfdart]

Sucks, yeah. The Cold War peace dividend had a cost and we're paying it,, plus the costs of a bunch of other short-sighted decisions.

What "peace dividend"?

[Steve]

Sucks, yeah. The Cold War peace dividend had a cost and we're paying it,, plus the costs of a bunch of other short-sighted decisions.

What "peace dividend"?

Heh, yeah. I meant things like the rolling back of production of certain types of military goods because with the Cold War over we didn't see as much need for them and figured our stockpiles would be mor than sufficient in an emergency. Obviously the MIC kept finding new and exciting ways to acquire taxpayer money.

[Vympel]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/worl ... iivka.html

Article on Avdiivka's fall. Nestled within the gloom, again on the topic I was just talking about:

“One of the key events from 2023 was that Russia was able to recruit a large number of volunteers,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, which is based in Philadelphia. “The flip side is that this is happening right as Ukraine is facing mobilization problems.”

Ukrainian leaders responded to the gathering pressure by rushing in a medley of special units and the Third Separate Assault Brigade, an experienced infantry unit with a far-right heritage, to plug the gap and eventually help the retreat. A soldier with the brigade said they had been taken off the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut in recent months and had only a short time to recuperate before being sent to Avdiivka as firefighters.

The exhausting of one of Ukraine’s best units during a time of crisis, military analysts said, points to a growing problem in Ukrainian ranks: There are simply not enough troops to go around on the front.

“Ukraine sent in their best units because the force in Avdiivka was being steadily depleted and needed to withdraw,” Mr. Kofman said. “Besides a lack of ammunition, Ukraine has serious manpower issues, particularly when it comes to infantry.”

Though Ukrainian officials keep casualty numbers a secret, a recent push by military officials to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops highlights the toll of a war that looks far from ending. Morale, too, is dwindling, Ukrainian soldiers have said in recent weeks, compounded by shortages of troops and ammunition, mounting casualties and shorter times off the front.

But exactly how and where that may show on the battlefield is anyone’s guess.

[Elfdart]

Sucks, yeah. The Cold War peace dividend had a cost and we're paying it,, plus the costs of a bunch of other short-sighted decisions.

What "peace dividend"?

Heh, yeah. I meant things like the rolling back of production of certain types of military goods because with the Cold War over we didn't see as much need for them and figured our stockpiles would be mor than sufficient in an emergency. Obviously the MIC kept finding new and exciting ways to acquire taxpayer money.

I pointed out roughly the same thing a page or two back: the War Department wasting trillions on useless toys while pushing aside useful equipment. This has zilch to do with the slight decreases in "defense" spending during the 1990s.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/U ... nse-budget

[The Sisko]

Will the US stop trying to meddle in other countries' spheres of influence and couping neighbors after this, or do you think we'll just do it even harder? This entire war is the USA's fault, then it not immediately ending and dragging on for years with bloody casualties and eventually a Ukrainian defeat anyway is going to be more or less the USA's fault, and there will have been nothing gotten for the venture. Woo-eee, we forced Russia to waste equipment they can afford to make more of while we're leaving the entire Western world disarmed and disadvantaged in a future arms race! That sure showed them. Thank god no Americans were harmed!

Like, what is the US going to do when this goes the way it's going? What are the odds the people in Washington and NATO learn anything from this humiliation? Everyone seems so focused on what Russia will do after the war either way, but what happens when Ukraine is cut to pieces, rendered inert and broke, and we're forced to rebuild the ruined nation we created by meddling in Russia's backyard in the first place?

[Dominus Atheos]

Your side-

That you're analysing this as if I'm on the Russian's "side" for stating the obvious - that Ukraine is losing - is probably Exhibit A in why so many people can't think about the extremely obvious way this war is going rationally.

I can start a poll if you like, "is Vympel on Russia's side" if you actually don't believe you are on Russia's side.

said the same thing about Bakhmut, but Russia haven't moved an inch out of there since taking it.

This is such a profoundly silly argument. Quick questions:

1. If Bakhmut was so meaningless, why did the Ukrainians hold on there for so long dying en masse to hold it? Was it in service against winning an attritional war against the enemy with way more manpower, materiel and resources than them?

It was a great place to kill Russians and make them waste materiel. Russia would send a squad of hapless mobniks forward, Ukrainians would shoot them in the face and immediately pull back 100 or so meters, then Russia would spend the rest of the day pounding the place where the Ukrainians used to be with hundreds or even thousands of artillery shells. This led to the 5-1 kill ratio even russia admitted to:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces had suffered more than 1,100 deaths in the past few days, with many more seriously injured.

Russia said it had killed more than 220 Ukrainian service members over the past 24 hours.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64935449

2. What happened in between Bakhmut's fall and now? Anything significant? Like Ukraine's much hyped counteroffensive being commenced and then defeated after achieving nothing?

That was over by the end of October, and your side has assaulted Avdiivka so don't pretend they've only been on defense. I ask once again, when and where do you predict Russia is going capitalize on it's successes in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and the wider counter-offensive?

Were they any articles, perhaps, in the aftermath of that talking about how many Western analysts complained that the Ukrainians wasted huge resources trying and failing to defend Bakhmut, which directly impacted the counteroffensive?

There wasn't a single western tank or vehicle Western analysts admitted to losing, so no.

What towns do you expect Russia to take after the "key lynchpin" Avdiivka falls and when?

Speaking of Bakhmut, it took your side 9 months of fighting to take it, and that was a little less than 9 months ago. At the rate they're going, 1 medium city every 9 months, they should have all of Ukraine conquered in only 50 years.

And this is even sillier. 9 months ago, the Ukrainians were just starting off their counteroffensive and were flush with resources. Which are all gone now. Including - most importantly - men.

If you think the way you think the war went at one predetermined point is the way its always going to go, you're simply deluding yourself. And there's sadly a lot of that going around.

I guess Zelenskyy better sue for peace now or he won't have a country left.

So what's your theory of Ukrainian victory? What's going to happen to turn the trajectory of this war around? Anything real, or are we just gonna clap for tinkerbell until the part of the movie happens when King Theoden blows his horn?

What specific outcome are Ukrainian troops being pressganged and slaughtered at the front for, at this point? Victory? What's that look like? How's it going to be acheived? What's the plan??

As I've said before, the war is stalemated and nothing is going to change unless something external changes. Ukraine and Russia are going to lay down minefields and shoot artillery shells at each other uselessly for at least another 10 years.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Will the US stop trying to meddle in other countries' spheres of influence and couping neighbors after this, or do you think we'll just do it even harder? This entire war is the USA's fault, then it not immediately ending and dragging on for years with bloody casualties and eventually a Ukrainian defeat anyway is going to be more or less the USA's fault, and there will have been nothing gotten for the venture. Woo-eee, we forced Russia to waste equipment they can afford to make more of while we're leaving the entire Western world disarmed and disadvantaged in a future arms race! That sure showed them. Thank god no Americans were harmed!

Like, what is the US going to do when this goes the way it's going? What are the odds the people in Washington and NATO learn anything from this humiliation? Everyone seems so focused on what Russia will do after the war either way, but what happens when Ukraine is cut to pieces, rendered inert and broke, and we're forced to rebuild the ruined nation we created by meddling in Russia's backyard in the first place?

Any future war between NATO and Russia is going to involve nukes, and I don't know of any western nations that have given up that capability.

How the fuck did you arrive at the conclusion that the war is the USA's fault and not, say, the guy who actually ordered his troops to invade Ukraine?

[Dominus Atheos]

Will the US stop trying to meddle in other countries' spheres of influence and couping neighbors after this, or do you think we'll just do it even harder? This entire war is the USA's fault, then it not immediately ending and dragging on for years with bloody casualties and eventually a Ukrainian defeat anyway is going to be more or less the USA's fault, and there will have been nothing gotten for the venture. Woo-eee, we forced Russia to waste equipment they can afford to make more of while we're leaving the entire Western world disarmed and disadvantaged in a future arms race! That sure showed them. Thank god no Americans were harmed!

Like, what is the US going to do when this goes the way it's going? What are the odds the people in Washington and NATO learn anything from this humiliation? Everyone seems so focused on what Russia will do after the war either way, but what happens when Ukraine is cut to pieces, rendered inert and broke, and we're forced to rebuild the ruined nation we created by meddling in Russia's backyard in the first place?

This is actually my biggest problem with Tankies: no other countries beside Russia and the US have agency (maybe China sometimes). Russia has a "sphere of influence" that are naturally entitled to, and no country wants to leave that voluntarily, only because the US "meddled" in it.

Why is it so hard for your type to even conceive the idea that all of the countries that Russia considers part of it's "sphere of influence" are in fact scared of Russia, and scared specifically of Russia invading them and forcing them into it's sphere of influence?

[Vympel]

I can start a poll if you like, "is Vympel on Russia's side" if you actually don't believe you are on Russia's side.

You can do that, but it wouldn't actually change anything about what I believe and why. Engaging in wishcasting and mass delusion isn't a virtue.

It was a great place to kill Russians and make them waste materiel. Russia would send a squad of hapless mobniks forward, Ukrainians would shoot them in the face and immediately pull back 100 or so meters, then Russia would spend the rest of the day pounding the place where the Ukrainians used to be with hundreds or even thousands of artillery shells.

LOL so yeah, again, the argument is Ukraine stayed there because it thought it could win an attrition battle against an enemy with many times the resources. Bakhmut wasn't a defeat actually, it was a ... brand of Ukrainian victory! Amazing!

This led to the 5-1 kill ratio even russia admitted to:

That's laughably disingenuous, come on dude. President Zelensky isn't Russian, so how is this Russia admitting a kill ratio?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64935449

That was over by the end of October-

Not the point, and you should know that. The point was, and this has been raised umpteen different times in news reports and analyses - that Ukraine wasted huge amounts of resources first defending Bakhmut, then trying to retake Bakhmut, and those resources were better spent in the south. The other point of course is that the Russians weren't going to go over to the attack after Bakhmut because the Ukrainians were foolishly smashing themselves against their fortifications to no result.

There wasn't a single western tank or vehicle Western analysts admitted to losing, so no.

Do you think the only resource the Ukrainians had to waste was western tanks. Jesus Christ - how about troops, and ammunition, and AFVs and on and on and on?

Do you guys read anything about this war that you think will make you sad? Or do you just avoid all of it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/us/p ... a-war.html

Ukraine’s continued focus on Bakhmut, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, has perplexed U.S. intelligence and military officials. Ukraine has invested huge amounts of resources in defending the surrounding Donbas region, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, does not want to appear as though he is giving up on trying to retake lost territory. But U.S. officials say politics must, at least temporarily, take a back seat to sound military strategy.

American strategists say that keeping a small force near the destroyed city is justified to pin down Russian troops and prevent them from using it as a base for attack. But Ukraine has enough troops there to try to retake the area, a move that U.S. officials say would lead to large numbers of losses for little strategic gain.

American officials have told Ukrainian leaders that they can secure the land around Bakhmut with far fewer troops and should reallocate forces to targets in the south.

Spoiler alert: Ukraine never retook the city.

I mean for fuck's sake, its not even about reading things you may not like to know. Just common sense about what shit gets burnt up in war.

The fact of the matter is this - the idea that Bakhmut was some sort of masterful Ukrainian attrition action is complete nonsense. It exists entirely among the online commentariat. Western officials and military analysts were calling time on the defence on the city months before it fell, and watched in bafflement as the Ukrainians spread ridiculous fairy tales that they would soon encircle the Russians in the city and take it back.

The reason they stayed there beyond all reason is because of political imperatives that should never have been allowed to influence military affairs.

As I've said before, the war is stalemated and nothing is going to change unless something external changes. Ukraine and Russia are going to lay down minefields and shoot artillery shells at each other uselessly for at least another 10 years.

No, they're not. Because Ukraine doesn't have the state capacity to sit there and do that for 10 years. They're losing already.

[Elfdart]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/worl ... iivka.html

Article on Avdiivka's fall. Nestled within the gloom, again on the topic I was just talking about:

“One of the key events from 2023 was that Russia was able to recruit a large number of volunteers,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, which is based in Philadelphia. “The flip side is that this is happening right as Ukraine is facing mobilization problems.”

Ukrainian leaders responded to the gathering pressure by rushing in a medley of special units and the Third Separate Assault Brigade, an experienced infantry unit with a far-right heritage, to plug the gap and eventually help the retreat. A soldier with the brigade said they had been taken off the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut in recent months and had only a short time to recuperate before being sent to Avdiivka as firefighters.

The exhausting of one of Ukraine’s best units during a time of crisis, military analysts said, points to a growing problem in Ukrainian ranks: There are simply not enough troops to go around on the front.

“Ukraine sent in their best units because the force in Avdiivka was being steadily depleted and needed to withdraw,” Mr. Kofman said. “Besides a lack of ammunition, Ukraine has serious manpower issues, particularly when it comes to infantry.”

Though Ukrainian officials keep casualty numbers a secret, a recent push by military officials to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops highlights the toll of a war that looks far from ending. Morale, too, is dwindling, Ukrainian soldiers have said in recent weeks, compounded by shortages of troops and ammunition, mounting casualties and shorter times off the front.

But exactly how and where that may show on the battlefield is anyone’s guess.

On Breaking Points last week, Ryan Grim said that as many as half a million Ukrainian men of fighting age have either fled the country or refused to return from abroad out of fear of being drafted and fed to Russian artillery. The fact that just over 100,000 Americans fled to Canada and Sweden from 1965-73 was considered a huge detriment for the war effort in Vietnam and a major indictment of Johnson and Nixon. Proportionately that makes sense given that Ukraine has lost more men in the last two years than the US lost in ten years in Vietnam -and America had five times the population at the time.

[The Sisko]

Will the US stop trying to meddle in other countries' spheres of influence and couping neighbors after this, or do you think we'll just do it even harder? This entire war is the USA's fault, then it not immediately ending and dragging on for years with bloody casualties and eventually a Ukrainian defeat anyway is going to be more or less the USA's fault, and there will have been nothing gotten for the venture. Woo-eee, we forced Russia to waste equipment they can afford to make more of while we're leaving the entire Western world disarmed and disadvantaged in a future arms race! That sure showed them. Thank god no Americans were harmed!

Like, what is the US going to do when this goes the way it's going? What are the odds the people in Washington and NATO learn anything from this humiliation? Everyone seems so focused on what Russia will do after the war either way, but what happens when Ukraine is cut to pieces, rendered inert and broke, and we're forced to rebuild the ruined nation we created by meddling in Russia's backyard in the first place?

This is actually my biggest problem with Tankies: no other countries beside Russia and the US have agency (maybe China sometimes). Russia has a "sphere of influence" that are naturally entitled to, and no country wants to leave that voluntarily, only because the US "meddled" in it.

Why is it so hard for your type to even conceive the idea that all of the countries that Russia considers part of it's "sphere of influence" are in fact scared of Russia, and scared specifically of Russia invading them and forcing them into it's sphere of influence?

That's part of how 'spheres' work. One nation has the cards the others don't, and uses that to exert its power in a region. The US tried to effect an economic and then by extension de facto military takeover of Ukraine. EU entrance talks were a stepping stone to NATO entry, something that has been the case since the 90's for every new member. Then the US got impatient and instead of waiting for the Ukrainian President to be legally removed, he was chased out of his own country by an angry mob and they sort of just appointed the guy the US wanted. Sounds legit to me! Euromaidan has been litigated to death in this thread and elsewhere, but suffice to say that with regards to military intervention to protect our power in a region we've done this shit before, too, and for reasons that are arguably much worse than our next-door neighbor beginning the process of joining a military alliance whose sole existence in the post-war world seems to be to fuck with us, specifically. Yes, Poland is scared, though one wonders why. Which is it: is Russia going to collapse economically in two more years, or can they afford a World War over fucking Kaliningrad? The narratives are impossible to follow.

I'm no fan of the Russians, but I'm equally less a fan of the US creating situations that make the world less safe and lead to mass destruction.

[Vympel]

On Breaking Points last week, Ryan Grim said that as many as half a million Ukrainian men of fighting age have either fled the country or refused to return from abroad out of fear of being drafted and fed to Russian artillery. The fact that just over 100,000 Americans fled to Canada and Sweden from 1965-73 was considered a huge detriment for the war effort in Vietnam and a major indictment of Johnson and Nixon. Proportionately that makes sense given that Ukraine has lost more men in the last two years than the US lost in ten years in Vietnam -and America had five times the population at the time.

This is the reason you've got warmongers in Europe and the US talking about somehow forcing Ukrainian military age refugees to go back to Ukraine, which is abhorrent and also flagrantly illegal. So far European countries have flatly refused, AFAIK.

Uncritical support to everyone everywhere who doesn't want to get slaughtered in a war like this.

[Gandalf]

Also, in Ukraine, military aged men are forbidden to leave the country. Was any such restriction ever imposed in the US during Vietnam?