Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Brain]

The Russian embassy in Stockholm asked to be allowed to use some frozen assets to pay for food and gas. They also asked that this request "be kept out of the tabloids". Even the embassy in Stockholm thinks that Sweden works the same way as Russia.

[The Brain]

Sweden will send Hellfire missiles, another 5,000 AT4s (total now 15,000), and some other stuff to Ukraine. And some more money, around $50 million (don't know the total so far).

[Legbiter]

I just hope the Ukrainians get enough timely supplies and manpower to sustain their heavy losses throughout the coming summer fighting.

[Barrister]

I just hope the Ukrainians get enough timely supplies and manpower to sustain their heavy losses throughout the coming summer fighting.

Supplies - the West can give a lot of supplies, and more is coming.

But manpower - it is what it is.  You can't get more Ukrainians.  That's what worries me.

[The Minsky Moment]

Absent Russian mobilization which it seems is not the political cards, manpower is a far more urgent problem for Russia.  They didn't bring enough troops to begin with and have little means for replacing their front line losses. Unless Russia does something to address *their* manpower issue, it seems inevitable they will be on the strategic defensive by the end of the summer.

[Berkut]

I don't think modern high intensity warfare allows for anyone to have sustainable losses.

The key is making the other side run out before you do.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well Russia has their initial force and whatever they can scape up from Wagner, Chechnya, Syria etc.  Ukraine has mobilized their entire fighting age population so I would guess that factor strongly favors Ukraine as long as morale and finances hold up.

[Maladict]

By their own estimate 100 Ukrainian soldiers are killed each day, 500 more are wounded. At that pace the entire current fighting force will cease to exist within a year.

[The Minsky Moment]

By their own estimate 100 Ukrainian soldiers are killed each day, 500 more are wounded. At that pace the entire current fighting force will cease to exist within a year.

Yes and by that rate the entire Russian fighting force will cease to exist in less than a year, assuming comparable casualty rates.  The difference is that Ukraine has mobilized its manpower reserves to provide replacements and Russia hasn't.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Absent Russian mobilization which it seems is not the political cards, manpower is a far more urgent problem for Russia.  They didn't bring enough troops to begin with and have little means for replacing their front line losses. Unless Russia does something to address *their* manpower issue, it seems inevitable they will be on the strategic defensive by the end of the summer.

Don't exactly remember where I heard it but according to that youtuber the Russians have done a backhanded mobilisation: they basically offer massive amounts of money for people to sign up. And they make that offer in the poor regions of Russia (which is basically most of it). And apparently there's quite the numbers signing up.

To what extent that is true I don't know, but the Russians may have more manpower available that it seems.

[Josquius]

Also recall reading a article about a Russian mother who says her conscript kids were made pro against their will. Given what we know about how the Russian army works it seems very believable.

[Zanza]

Ukraine has supposedly mobilized like 800k men already, about 2% of their population. But that is far away from WW2 total war level mobilization, so I doubt they will run out of manpower.

[The Minsky Moment]

If the Russian solution to their manpower problem is throwing massive wads of cash to bribe recruits and press ganging others ad hoc, it doesn't bode well for their future military performance.

[DGuller]

I think we need to be more precise with defining mobilization.  From what I'm reading, Ukraine doesn't have enough ammo to train its recruits to shoot, so do the mobilized troops with no shooting experience count as part of armed forces?  Maybe they should, you don't need to know how to shoot in order to sit in a trench and hope that the next artillery shell isn't for you, but it's probably not so simple.

[Zanza]

I think we need to be more precise with defining mobilization.  From what I'm reading, Ukraine doesn't have enough ammo to train its recruits to shoot, so do the mobilized troops with no shooting experience count as part of armed forces?  Maybe they should, you don't need to know how to shoot in order to sit in a trench and hope that the next artillery shell isn't for you, but it's probably not so simple.

That anecdote would just confirm that manpower is not the limiting factor right now.