Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[FunkMonk]

58 thousand American troops died in Vietnam.

So the number of Russians killed in just the first month of fighting is roughly a sixth of the total American dead in all the years of American involvement in Vietnam?? Jesus Christ.

[PDH]

Yeah, the Russians will have to bring in a lot more foreign volunteers to keep up this pace.

[Razgovory]

Another claim about casualties, this including Russian mercenaries. 

A former internal affairs minister of #Ukraine
@AvakovArsen
 shared the intercepted Russian military summary for March 18: Rus. Army troops killed 12,814. Private company Liga (former Vagner) troops killed 4,451. Total number ofservicemembers killed at war in Ukraine: 17,265

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1505961677371621379

How big of an operation is Liga/Vagner? 4K in mercenaries seems quite large

Another claim about casualties, this including Russian mercenaries. 

A former internal affairs minister of #Ukraine
@AvakovArsen
 shared the intercepted Russian military summary for March 18: Rus. Army troops killed 12,814. Private company Liga (former Vagner) troops killed 4,451. Total number ofservicemembers killed at war in Ukraine: 17,265

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1505961677371621379

This probably includes casualties from the war in the Donbass.

[Threviel]

Sweden had a much different WWII experience than Denmark and has never been a front line state.  Sweden's free riding has been pretty rational.

It's complicated. Sweden did the exact same thing the last time around. In WWI we had a good army, well trained and equipped for its time. In the twenties we disassembled it to almost nothing, peace forever and all that. When it started to heat up for WWII we armed up and by '48 we were ready.

But this time we kept that. We had a huge air force and army and a respectable navy for the entire cold war. In the eighties Sweden was one of the most militarized societies in the world. We had one of the worlds largest air forces and an army of 800.000. Norway and Denmark had noting comparable.

Our foreign policy was based on being out of alliances and staying neutral brokers between the great powers and we backed up that velvet glove with an iron fist.

Economic crisis in the nineties and the end of the cold war meant savings on defence. By 2004 almost nothing was left and focus shifted from territorial defence to anti-terrorism and peace-keeping. We couldn't even compare to Norway and Denmark.

The right wing government elected in 2006 continued to save on defence and when the leftist won in '14 there was just shambles left. They, being less retarded, have since then increased spending greatly, but far too slow even so.

So now we have a velvet glove with a jelly fist and our politicians believe that it was the velvet part which kept us safe during the cold war.

It's so frustrating, it's like they've never opened a history book. It's like they believe the world is made up of care bears.

And that is why I would not volunteer on defence. We have a safe exit, but our leaders choose to not take it.

[Jacob]

Yeah I vaguely recall Sweden having a solid military when I was growing up in the 80s... armed neutrality and all that. A bit surprising that it all went away... but maybe not.

[jimmy olsen]

58 thousand American troops died in Vietnam.

So the number of Russians killed in just the first month of fighting is roughly a sixth of the total American dead in all the years of American involvement in Vietnam?? Jesus Christ.

For comparison, US and other allied non Vietnamese forces lost 4,124 killed
19,295 wounded during phase one of the Tet offensive (January 31 – March 28, 1968)

[Sheilbh]

58 thousand American troops died in Vietnam.

So the number of Russians killed in just the first month of fighting is roughly a sixth of the total American dead in all the years of American involvement in Vietnam?? Jesus Christ.

Yeah - or the USSR suffered 15,000 casualties in ten years in Afghanistan. It didn't bring down the regime, but it was a huge contributing factor.

Getting to (conservatively) two-thirds of that within a month is pretty catastrophic.

[The Brain]

58 thousand American troops died in Vietnam.

So the number of Russians killed in just the first month of fighting is roughly a sixth of the total American dead in all the years of American involvement in Vietnam?? Jesus Christ.

Yeah - or the USSR suffered 15,000 casualties in ten years in Afghanistan. It didn't bring down the regime, but it was a huge contributing factor.

Getting to (conservatively) two-thirds of that within a month is pretty catastrophic.

Wasn't it 15k KIA in Afghanistan? The number of casualties was a lot higher I think.

[Sheilbh]

Yes, sorry - that's what I meant

[The Brain]

Yes, sorry - that's what I meant

I'm sorry for being a bit dickish. It's just that you often see journalists confusing these things, which I find annoying.

[alfred russel]

58 thousand American troops died in Vietnam.

So the number of Russians killed in just the first month of fighting is roughly a sixth of the total American dead in all the years of American involvement in Vietnam?? Jesus Christ.

For comparison, US and other allied non Vietnamese forces lost 4,124 killed
19,295 wounded during phase one of the Tet offensive (January 31 – March 28, 1968)

Are Vietnamese lives less important in your eyes? why didn't you include them?

Also, wasn't Tet something of a military victory for the US/South Vietnamese?

[The Larch]

Interesting Twitter thread on a rare Zelensky faux pas when adressing foreign countries regarding his appeal to Israel, which apparently denoted a particular/incomplete understanding of the Holocaust stemming from his Soviet era upbringing and education:  https://twitter.com/JewishWonk/status/1505977116600455175

Summary/Highlights:

Soviet policy after the war was one narrative: the Soviet people suffered greatly. The government would not acknowledge that the Nazis targeted the Jews specifically for extermination. They punished Soviet Jews who did not toe the party line.
(...)
Soviet state policy did not permit depictions of the Holocaust. The Jews who survived it lacked the framework to discuss it, and were punished even for trying to honor their loved ones who were murdered by the Nazis.

As a result of Soviet persecution and limiting the distribution of information about the Holocaust, later generations of Soviet Jews came to understand their family history as part of the war, even if it didn't sound like other experiences.

Were any of you guys aware of this (Soviet view on the Holocaust)? It'd be interesting to know the view or opinion of our Jewish members with roots in that area.

[DGuller]

I grew up during the perestroika era, so I don't know how representative that is of the Soviet education, but I don't recall it being a secret that Jews were especially targeted by the Nazis.  It wasn't probably emphasized as much as in the West, as many in the West think of Hitler as the guy who was murdering Jews and maybe some others, whereas in the USSR he was a guy murdering pretty much everyone he came across with a specific emphasis on exterminating certain kinds (which is closer to being a true depiction).  I also recall some Russian "Holocaust skeptic" quite a bit older than me explaining that he became skeptical of Holocaust because of being bombarded with education about Holocaust in school, which he took as an evidence that it was a made up propaganda.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting to see if this is right - but unconfirmed reports that Russian forces in the Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel area are surrounded and cut off from supplies.

[Berkut]

Russia has lost this war.

It is not a stalemate. Or rather, a stalemate for Russia is exactly what losing looks like.

The next few months are going to be very dangerous.