Ukrainian War Developments

Coalescence said:

Uhh... but the crux of the argument is because its an existential war that volunteers will start pouring in. The amount they can recruit is irrelevant here, Ukraine even tried recruiting foreign troops as well. Also you do know that Russia only sent in like 200k troops against 600k active Ukraine troops right?

Most of the issues Ukraine is having right now stems from not having advanced weapons and vehicles to do major successful counterattacks. Now its not clear but they might not have enough weapons and fuel left, and had to resort to supply deliveries from EU and US.

Edit: Also Russia still has around 80% of their troops stationed at home, so we wouldn't see them needing to conscript atm.

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Meet the kettle, pot.

"Ukraine even tried recruiting foreign troops as well."

So has Russia. Look at Russia's recruiting of supposedly experienced soldiers from Syria.
Note that Russia had promised its conscripts that they would not be sent to fight in this supposed 'existential war'.

Lapin said:

So has Russia. Look at Russia's recruiting of supposed experienced soldiers from Syria.
Note that Russia had promised its conscripts that they would not be sent to fight in this supposed 'existential war'.

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Yes, so do you agree that Russia is fighting an existential war, and had to resort to recruiting foreign troops like Ukraine? As for the note, that might change later, for now they still have like 80% of their troops that can be deployed into the the war. Conscription should really be for last resort as they are inexperienced and can be liabilities in war.

Coalescence said:

Yes, so do you agree that Russia is fighting an existential war, and had to resort to recruiting foreign troops like Ukraine? As for the note, that might change later, for now they still have like 80% of their troops that can be deployed into the the war. Conscription should really be for last resort as they are inexperienced and can be liabilities in war.

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Is this a failure in reading comprehension or in basic reasoning?

"Yes, so do you agree that Russia is fighting an existential war"

Of course not. Russia's NOT fighting an 'existential war'.
Russia's existence does not depend upon Putin saving face. Russia will live long after Putin's gone.

Some writers here seem deluded enough to fantasize that this war is like the Great Patriotic War for Russia.

Bill Blazo said:

And the biggest reason why it's a flawed analogy is because so much of the Russo-Japanese War hinged on naval confrontations and operations, with the Battle of Tsushima being the prime example. There's basically none of that in this war, by which I mean no major naval confrontations; there have certainly been some important amphibious operations by the Russians. Obviously all analogies are flawed and imperfect, in any domain of human knowledge, but the Winter War is a much better guide to what's happening here than the conflict in 1905.

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First of all, I never compared this war between Russia and Ukraine to the Russo-Japanese War.
But if anyone did, I would submit that a more charitable interpretation would be NOT about its military operations,
but about its political consequences.

I would criticize this analogy, but someone else could suggest:
Putin is like Tsar Nicholas II. If Russia fails to win its war against Ukraine, then, just like when Russia failed to win its war
against Japan, Russia's leader will lose a lot of face and his grip upon power could be seriously weakened.
The Russian Revolution of 1905 followed the Russo-Japanese War.

"The 1905 revolution was primarily spurred by the international humiliation as a result of the Russian defeat in
the , which ended in the same year."
--Wikipedia

Abominable said:

The Nazi battallions seem to be mainly based in ethnic Russian cities, not on the frontline. It probably won't work, but its worth a try.

What? My father used to say the same about the Japanese as your relative did. America should have nuked Japan once more after they surrendered just to make sure.

America didn't care about Chinese civilians, they just wanted to control Japan. If anything it was worse for China, America killed a bunch of Japanese civilians and kept the fascists alive to be used against China. It would have been better if America stayed out of the way to let China defeat Japan. We wouldn't see the problems we have today.

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You are severely underestimating how the disparity in strength between Japan and China in WWII. It was an industrialized military facing off against an impoverished agrarian society. It was a miracle China lasted as long as it did considering the only thing it had was size and numbers.

Lapin said:

Is this a failure in reading comprehension or in basic reasoning?

"Yes, so do you agree that Russia is fighting an existential war"

Of course not. Russia's NOT fighting an 'existential war'.
Russia's existence does not depend upon Putin saving face. Russia will live long after Putin's gone.

Some writers here seem deluded enough to fantasize that this war is like the Great Patriotic War for Russia.

Click to expand...

The point that is being argued is that if that if its an existential war for one of the side, then volunteers will start pouring for the war. Both sides have shown to be using coercive and alternative means to recruit troops for the war, showing that just because its existential doesn't mean volunteers are going to be plenty or start pouring in.

But I do agree though that Ukraine has to do conscription because its an existential war, though I think the number of troops Ukraine has and the amount Russia deployed is lopsided to Ukraine's favor, so this is more of an issue of experienced troops and lack of weapon supply. We may see Russia do the same if the war goes really badly for them.

Also yes Russia's existence doesn't depend on Putin saving face, but their existence and sovereignty depends on their security which you don't agree the war is about. Now that the war happened, the result of this war will likely end with Russia having to defend their borders against Ukraine, so if its not security now, then its security later thanks to Putin.

I've also seen some videos of the military advisor of Ukraine about developing missiles with NATO to target Russia, but I don't know if its real or the intentions is just for deterrence, but judging by the amount of anti-Russia fervor in Ukraine before and now this war happen. They might see it as a security issue, but yeah I guess its sorta self-fulfilling prophecy.

Also can you name some of the writers that think its some sort of "Great Patriotic War for Russia"? so far all I've just seeing are pro-Russian users cheering for Russia's victory in the war.

Lapin said:

"It would have been better if America stayed out of the way to let China defeat Japan."

There's no way that a disunited China alone could have won its war against Japan in 1937-45.
At best, China could have stopped Japan from completing its conquest.
China really needed the USA to do the main work of destroying Japan's naval and air power.

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Ok, that's offensive and shows how much you know about China. I'm not even going to address that. Off topic.

If you're here to find out why most people here don't care about the Ukraine and support Russia, it's not because of that business deal which they stole money or what Azov battallion did during the Hong Kong riots. I didn't know about that until during this war.

It's because they chose to become a US lapdog. If they had remained neutral like Finland and Russia invaded they would have sympathy. But they have no self respect for themselves and tried to attach themselves to NATO. Worse then that, they were happy to be used to provoke Russia in a political chess game, thinking that America would save them. It was a region that developed great things in Soviet times, but they squandered everything and turned their country into a cheap wh*re for America to make money. I don't like Putin's Russia but at least Russia has respect for itself.

Of course now we know that Finland isn't really neutral and no European country can be trusted, so we are grateful to the Ukraine for showing us that at least. Whatever type of European you are you should learn that lesson from this war. If you want to fight America's war you will just be a pawn.

Hey there, folks. It is that time. As I write, it is nearly dawn in Ukraine. The start of the 42nd day of the war. I never would have thought the war would go on this long, never mind take the course it has. I marvel, am horrified and fascinated all at once.

I thought I would do an update and share a few thoughts. These are all my thoughts and you should not hold them in high regard. I certainly don't. They are worth as much as you paid for them and if you paid nothing, it's still too much.

tldr; war not going well for the Russians. I'm overly full of myself. Read on if you like overstuffed verbage worthy of a particular poster from academia.

Wow. Here we are. The end of the sixth week of the Russo-Ukrainian War. I would have never thought this war would have ever lasted this long. It is clear any claims Russia would conquer Ukraine in set time frames are, well, wrong. Not in 72 hours. Not in 15 days. Not in 42 days. The next goal post is May 9th, Victory Day. Can Russia win by then? Not in the sense of conquering Ukraine, no. I don't think they can. If we move goal posts, say take the Donbas? Potentially, yes.

However, I am wavering as to whether or not they will do so. The actions, behavior and success of the Russian army so far make me question the possibility of success. I am not saying they will fail. I am just not certain they will succeed. Why? Let's look at some figures for losses and my own guessimate of deaths.

At the start of the war, the Russians are said to have had 130 BTG at the border of Ukraine. The Russian army has lost sufficient IFVs+APCs for a total of over 17 BTG worth: over 13%. In addition, the Russians have lost about another 8 (and change) tank battalions worth of, well, tanks. It has never been made clear (to me) how many tank battalions the Russian army went into Ukraine with separate from the BTGs, but if we assume (almost assuredly wrongly) there were none, the Russians have lost almost 33% (1/3) of the number of tanks that would have been assigned to the estimated 130 BTG. That's awful.

My guessimate of Russian soldiers killed is based again, on Oryx. I am taking only the APCs, IFVs, tanks and MT-LB (that variant only) and using the crew and passenger counts. It does NOT match the total equipment lost by the Russians, just the outright destroyed. This number has far, far higher uncertainty than the others. Infantry on the ground, cannon cockers and REMFs are not included. Even so, the number I could up with is almost 3,800 dead and (using the 3x rule), 11,400 wounded. That gives us over 19 BTG worth of casualties, but the BTG only make up part of the force as that would have made the Russian army massed at 104,000 troops. Almost twice that was reported as being massed on the Ukrainian borders: 190,000. Effectively, the Russians had over 237 BTG worth of troops at the border. 19 BTG dead doesn't sound that bad from that POV, but the guessimate is concentrated in the actual combatants, which is percentage wise, will be worse.

To be fair, I am using Oryx for the analysis and I give myself error bars of 20%. However, it is just as likely to be 20% under as over: why? Because even with the faked, repainted and duplicate photos, it's entirely unreasonable to assume Oryx is close to tracking every last bit of equipment the Russian Army has lost. It could be the Russians have lost only 12 BTG and 6 tank battalions (still sucks), but it could also mean the Russians have lost as much as 21 BTG and 10 tank battalions.

I'd be skeptical even then, except for one thing: the withdrawal from Kiev, Sumy and more. If the Russians thought they could hold out even defensively until the Raputitsa had passed, then I suspect they would have and then gone on the offensive to Kiev. However, the withdrawal strongly suggests the 60ish BTG there were mauled and need to be reconstituted and reequipped. Likewise, it also suggests there are not enough other troops to have simply relieved those mauled units with fresh troops. Hold the ground, rotate troops back and restart the offensive once the original troops are rested, fed, and losses replenished.

And, yet, that was not done.

To be fair, the Russians could hope to entice the Ukrainians into moving East and then attempt another attempt to take Kiev once General Mud retires from the field. It's not a bad strategy, tbh, but that assumes the Russians are not shifting east. And it appears many units are being shifted to the Donbas. Not the ones mauled, to be sure, but those in better shape are.

well, crap. I need to break this up. That's what I get for being a wind bag. if anyone wants me to put up the rest, say so. Otherwise, I'll leave it here with just this.

Mariupol is 95% under the control of the Russian Army and Allied forces. The point in the battle for the city will be set at the Azovstal plant, the ring around it has shrunk. Russia will gain full military control over Mariupol in the coming days. Heavy artillery has already started firing direct fire, an ACS 2C3 "Acacia" with a 152-mm caliber firing direct fire was seen on the streets. The mass surrender of Ukrainian army soldiers began in Mariupol.


Footage of the shooting of the Russian Tor-M2 SAM at a Ukrainian UAV has been published. According to the calculation of the SAM, during the special operation in Ukraine, they fired 20 missiles, hit 11 targets, among them seven Bayraktar TB2 Turkish-made UAVs. "Tor-M2" is a representative of a new generation of short-range air defense systems.


The mass surrender of Ukrainian army soldiers began. On April 5, at night, 267 Ukrainian soldiers from the 503rd battalion of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Naval Forces of Ukraine surrendered in Mariupol near the village of Sartana.

Lapin said:

In fact, many writers here--who apparently are Chinese nationalists--have insisted that China must support,
perhaps even unconditionally, Russia's war on Ukraine because China's security needs such a Russian victory.
Do you ignore the fact that many writers here have tied Russia's war on Ukraine with China's security needs?

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Your underlining logic is shaky. You specifically said "many writers here--who apparently are Chinese nationalists--have insisted that China must support", that statement is not at all strong enough to imply a causal relationship. In this case, you will NEED a causal relationship to justify your claims. Correlation will NOT do.

Unless you have evidences showing that "all writer in who is a Chinese nationalist, insist that China must support Russia", you can NOT make an argument in the form of:
A => B; given A,
therefore B

A => B is implied by observing that CN is a subset of CSR. CN: Chinese Nationalists. CSR: People who believes China should support Russia.

Obviously, it is evident that NOT all Chinese Nationalists insists that China must support Russia. This is because I am a Chinese nationalist, and I don't insist that China must support Russia. I believe China should stay neutral. Of course, there are definitely other Chinese Nationalists here who believes the same as me. But my own stand is enough to show the statement in bold.

This is the hole in your underling logic and foundation. You were lazy if you think just some kind of statistic correlation is enough here.

If you don't believe what I am saying, I have another example:

The majority of people here is men, therefore, the many writers here who have insisted that China must support Russia are most men. You see the correlation of the male gender and the their insistence of insisting that China must support Russia.

And if by the same lazy lousy logic you have lay as the foundation, should you also formulate a theory how male chauvinism is a problem you are trying to advocate against?

Oh, wait, it seems that you are already doing it....