Everyone dies when killed. There'd be no propitiation for sin otherwise. Staying dead is another matter.Unless it's Jesus lol!
Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
- Start date
So,another 24 months on Ukraine,and then war with NATO?
I think,that it is still less bad option.Becouse worst what could happen is killing Putin now,replace him with some "liberal" ,lift all sanctions - and after 10 years our "liberal" would attack with new army.
Becouse that is how it always worked between Moscov and West -
1.West do not belived in Moscov crimes
2.Belives and did nothing.
3.Start opposing,Moscov economy was fucked,leader die
4.New leader is hailed as liberal
And then we starting again.
Russia's already at the point they can't really fight anymore...
Their entire northern axis collapsed, their southern axis is pinned down and being run out of what few supplies they have left in Kherson, and the only reason the eastern axis is still even remotely intact is that Ukraine is focusing most of it's efforts on the north and south.
Russia is fucked.
Their military is literally falling apart through death, ineptitude, desertion, or their just surrendering en masse, and their economy has basically collapsed by this point.
Ukraine is on the verge of literally counter-invading Russia itself, once they've taken back all their occupied territory.
Putin, I think, is going to be shot in the back of the head soon because he's pissed off all of the oligarchs running Russia. It won't come to nuclear weapons of any sort because they'd rather kill him than risk a Judgement Day scenario.
Even after this war concludes, Russia is going to be mauled with investigations and ongoing sanctions.
It wouldn't surprise me if various areas, like Chechnya, try their hand at independence again, and Russia begins to break-up.
So, yeah. Putin's aims of creating a mini-Soviet Union 2.0 have backfired spectacularly, and he may have spelled doom for the country itself.
Their military is literally falling apart through death, ineptitude, desertion, or their just surrendering en masse, and their economy has basically collapsed by this point.
Ukraine is on the verge of literally counter-invading Russia itself, once they've taken back all their occupied territory.
Putin, I think, is going to be shot in the back of the head soon because he's pissed off all of the oligarchs running Russia. It won't come to nuclear weapons of any sort because they'd rather kill him than risk a Judgement Day scenario.
Even after this war concludes, Russia is going to be mauled with investigations and ongoing sanctions.
It wouldn't surprise me if various areas, like Chechnya, try their hand at independence again, and Russia begins to break-up.
So, yeah. Putin's aims of creating a mini-Soviet Union 2.0 have backfired spectacularly, and he may have spelled doom for the country itself.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
They can definitely get back in the game if they do a full mobilization. Right now they are fighting only with the people who can be enticed or browbeaten into joining up. It will be a different story if Russia can use all the coercive power of the state to force people into the army.
Mind you, this doesn't mean Russia can really win. Their new troops are already barely trained, and increasing the throughput by ten times will only worsen that problem, not to mention the need to equip them which is also already not going well.
So no, while I'd agree that Russia's strength is pretty much spent as far as their volunteer forces go, if they shift to a conscript army they can keep pushing for a while, at the cost of incredible carnage, mostly of their own people. But there is no sign that Ukrainians' morale is cracking, either on the front or in the population, and all they would have to do is keep holding on while the war supplies roll in for them to throw at the poor damned souls they have to keep killing. After a time, when Russia has squandered all their strength, again, Ukraine will crush the demoralized foe, again.
Then chopped his head off with his own sword.
Well, given Ukraine is stealing all of Russia's shit and then using it against its former owners...
History does not repeat but it sure does rhyme.Well, given Ukraine is stealing all of Russia's shit and then using it against its former owners...
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
The thing is, can the government actually leverage that coercive authority effectively?
Estimates are that 20-40% of the forces already active are refusing to fight. Even if it's only half the low end, or ten percent, those are people who (mostly) willingly signed on board.
Putin hasn't been avoiding engaging conscription for no reason. There are historical and cultural reasons to expect the Russian people to react very poorly to attempts to put it into force.
On top of that, it takes time to spin up a conscription program. If the Ukrainians have managed to choke the Russians north of the Dneipr off from effective resupply, that force will probably collapse in a month optimistically, a week or two more realistically.
If that happens, it is entirely possible that Russians will be in a position where both flanks are collapsing, and when morale is already bad enough that integer percentages of your population refuse to fight?
That says that total collapse of the military's willingness to fight is not far away.
All of this combined, basically trying to go for general conscription/mobilization might not make any difference at all.
At this point they're not talking about conscripting and training new people from scratch, but about calling up reservists - people who've already done the initial national service.
As for the military moral part - which is no doubt important - I suspect part of the problem is the "we've been sent out here with not enough backup" factor.
Last edited:
History Learner
Well-known member
I had surgery and am in the process of switching jobs, so I wasn't able to reply until now.
To answer your question, probably Spring to Summer; really depends on how bad this winter is for them and it's looking really bad now. We are consistently getting reports of 5:1 losses on the Kherson axis and it was recently revealed by one of their own mouth pieces that they've taken 10,000 KIA between that and the recent Kharkov success:
Based on self admitted casualty rates in the Summer from Ukrainian authorities, that would suggest another 30,000 WIA, PoWs, MIA, etc to the KIA total. So, if we take the official starting figure of 700,000 mobilized for Ukraine, these two recent offensives alone would represent a 6% loss in manpower. On top of the existing estimates I had from July I already linked to, this matches with what I said back in late May/early June of Ukraine being on track to exhaust its manpower in less than a year.
Outside of that, there are credible reports Ukraine has expended 40% of its accumulated Western stocks in the recent offensives. This is bad because Ukraine had previously mostly ran through its Soviet stocks, it's industrial base is in collapse and there is no realistic prospect for the West to made up for this shortfall:
The recent mobilization really just seals Ukraine's fate; there has never been a case in the history of modern warfare extending throughout its history of a conventional war being lost by the power that an overwhelming dominance in manpower and industry. Russia has 5x the people of Ukraine even before the refugee outflow and 10x its economy prior to February. End result of this is that it is inevitable Moscow wins, and the delusions of people like @LordsFire in this thread are just that.
Yep can't read that tweet any other way...
Illia Ponomarenko: Almost 9000 Dead between February and August.
Also Illia Ponomarenko: 10,000 Dead between August and half of September.
🤷♀️
Numbers all over the place with that account.
Last edited:
History Learner
Well-known member
Yes, you really can't take it any other way because the official Ukrainian admitted losses in June was already 10,000. Did the Ukrainians suddenly invent necromancy between then and August to reduce their KIA by 1,000?
Notice also the particular wording; what suddenly made the other 9,000 KIA dying to prove Ukraine could win by losing Severdonetsk and Mariupol? It also fits with the other reports I linked in that post.
Why is that statement:
More official then this statement from the same paper that Illia Ponomarenko works for that you are cited as gospel?
And why is your estimates way higher for April then Illia Ponomareko's were back in April? Your using the citation of up to 11,000 dead in April and Ponomarenko cited only three thousand dead.
Did something change in the reliability of reporting from then and now?
But now your interpreting Illia Ponomarenko is stating that Ukraine has suffered ten thousand dead and forty thousand overall casualties in three weeks, more then doubling the total casualties and eclipsing the previous six months of the War based off of comments made by Arestoyvych "Something like that" while discounting comments made by the Armed Forces of Ukraine of 9000 a month ago?
"Yes something like that" doesn't sound like an official statement of losses beyond an official stating it off the cuff. Doesn't seem like a reliable metric to use, which is probably why (present company excluded ofc) everyone is making "low confidence" estimates.
History Learner
Well-known member
For exactly the reason I said: Did Ukraine suddenly invent necromancy? If you're wanting to lean on the second estimate, read onto into the next point:
Because he wasn't my source for that and if you had bothered to actually read the posts before attempting to argue on it, you would know this. NYT in April was citing U.S. intelligence for that estimate; this gives further credence to Arestovych. Finally, we can turn to Zelensky himself saying in late July that casualties were at 30 KIA a day.
From July 5th, when I stopped my original calculation, to September 5th would mean another 2,000 KIA alone using that metric. In other words, again, all evidence leans to Arestovych.
Yes, we got more data; that's how things work in the real world. For further examples:
Kyiv Independent is claiming they've destroyed 239 Russian planes. Sounds ground for them but the problem is the Pentagon came out a week later to say actual losses are only 55 planes. That's a ~75% over-estimate; we saw them do the same with body counts of Russian casualties a few months ago.
No, I'm actually using him as a single data point among many others, which you've curiously left out. Given you've linked my own post, which shows Ukrainian losses were actually far higher than even the 10,000 claimed by Arestovych even then, I'm not really sure what this weak gotcha attempt is supposed to be. Total AFU losses in July were probably around 150,000 or so; I didn't include MIAs, PoWs, etc. We've had another two months then for the casualties to go even further up.
Ah yes, present company excluded, which would include U.S. intelligence, Zelensky, three of his top advisers, etc. I've already shown how much you get duped in the other thread, so take this as a lesson to do better and try to learn what you're arguing about before you do.
Finland's position relative to the USSR in 1939-1940 was likewise very bad, but in that war, the Soviet Union only managed a relatively Pyrrhic victory, no?
Also, what about Greece's position relative to Italy in 1940-1941, before the Nazis helped the Italians?
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I don't put much stock in any of the numbers being released, Twenty years after the conflict ends we might have something relatively accurate but right now its all likely bullshit.
History Learner
Well-known member
Given, even if we take this at face value, you're conceding the Soviets still won, what does that say about the current war? In reality, I think you need to consider the fact the Soviets achieved their territorial goals, which led to the cession of ~10% of Finland's territories.
And the Nazis helped the Italians because the Brits were helping the Greeks. Why? Because the Greeks were in danger of collapse; they had exhausted their munition stocks and Italians had moved reinforcements in for a Spring campaign. Sounds a lot like 2023 is shaping up, no?
And let's not even mention Israel vs Arab League in 1947...
To those who throw around numbers with zero understanding of the many devils in their details this would seem like a reality breach.