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On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
What part of my post are you responding to?
In times of relative peace then your army will be roughly the demographic you're looking for, within budget constraints. In times of war you'll compromise a lot more on that stuff. It's not a complicated premise. In March 2022 it was a smaller professional regular force because the war had literally just started.
The implication of the "of course" being that Ukraine isn't actually struggling to fill its ranks and this is a typical/expected demographic shift (which legislating drafting women in Ukraine would not be) if I misinterpreted that (and this post), my apologies.
Of course putting a million men in uniform during wartime is more of a struggle than putting a thousand in uniform during relative peace. I’m really confused by what point you and Nettles think is being made. Is it a simple observation that war looks different to peace? Because if so I think we all already knew that.
While I appreciate hyperbole as much as the next person, Ukraine didn't 1000x their troop numbers so I think that's a bit of a red herring.
You're not confused. The point is that there's increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks, you disagree with that observation and support that position with hyperbole and your observation about how wartime military demographics expectedly shift from peacetime demographics.
You’re very confused, probably because you didn’t bother to read either the article or my response to it and instead skipped to responding. Incidentally, you should stop doing that.
Nettles linked an article that compared the demographics of the wartime army at the end of October 2023 with the regular army in March 2022. It noted that they were different.
I respond with the “No shit Sherlock, there was a big event that happened during that period”.
I didn’t say that filling uniforms during a war wasn’t harder than at peace. I didn’t say that there wasn’t a struggle. I said the opposite, that of course the demographics changed.
For some reason you really struggled with this.
You’re also really struggling with making it fit a narrative that just isn’t there. You’re attempting to argue that these two data points taken from completely incomparable scenarios can be extrapolated to form a straight line of increasing struggle over time. That’s not how it works. Would you argue that because 60,000,000 years ago dinosaurs dominated earth and today they don’t then logically dinosaurs have been increasingly struggling over the last 60,000,000 years, possibly as a result of US foreign policy and their failure to implement socialism? Probably, but you shouldn’t. Not when there was an incredibly important event right at the time of one of the measurements.
We have two data points. One is the regular peacetime army, the other is the army in a desperate struggle for national existence. Their demographics look different. My hypothesis for the cause of this difference is the existential apocalyptic war forced upon them by Russia right around the time the first data point was measured.
The struggle increased very suddenly and very dramatically around the time it became extremely dangerous to be a Ukrainian soldier and they needed to increase the size of their army 10x. So around March 2022. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder for them to fill ranks, it got much much harder, and it’s evident why.
No, not confused. I didn't say that you said "filling uniforms during a war wasn't harder than at peace". I said you used extreme hyperbole and that bit of information to counter the observation that there are increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill their ranks which is supported by their recent expansion of their draft legislation, their military skewing decidedly older, reports like this:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
etc.
You can reject those as sufficient if you wish. I agree that the context of an existential war certainly clouds what can be reasonably extracted from those bits of information in isolation, but I would disagree on whether it sufficiently accounts for the signs that Ukraine's ability to replenish and rest their troops is waning.
2 datapoints is not enough for a trend line when there are known significant events that were contemporaneous with the measurement. You may think otherwise, being wrong has always been your prerogative.
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t. His country is fighting for survival.
The demographics changed since peacetime, it’d be weird if they didn’t. You can’t dramatically increase the size of an organization without changing the intake.
Test your own hypothesis for falsifiability. Assume that the inverse was true, that Ukraine was somehow crushing Russia with ease, would the average age of their army have dropped ten years? Or would dramatically expanding the size of the army have still required compromises on quality?
On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
What part of my post are you responding to?
In times of relative peace then your army will be roughly the demographic you're looking for, within budget constraints. In times of war you'll compromise a lot more on that stuff. It's not a complicated premise. In March 2022 it was a smaller professional regular force because the war had literally just started.
The implication of the "of course" being that Ukraine isn't actually struggling to fill its ranks and this is a typical/expected demographic shift (which legislating drafting women in Ukraine would not be) if I misinterpreted that (and this post), my apologies.
Of course putting a million men in uniform during wartime is more of a struggle than putting a thousand in uniform during relative peace. I’m really confused by what point you and Nettles think is being made. Is it a simple observation that war looks different to peace? Because if so I think we all already knew that.
While I appreciate hyperbole as much as the next person, Ukraine didn't 1000x their troop numbers so I think that's a bit of a red herring.
You're not confused. The point is that there's increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks, you disagree with that observation and support that position with hyperbole and your observation about how wartime military demographics expectedly shift from peacetime demographics.
You’re very confused, probably because you didn’t bother to read either the article or my response to it and instead skipped to responding. Incidentally, you should stop doing that.
Nettles linked an article that compared the demographics of the wartime army at the end of October 2023 with the regular army in March 2022. It noted that they were different.
I respond with the “No shit Sherlock, there was a big event that happened during that period”.
I didn’t say that filling uniforms during a war wasn’t harder than at peace. I didn’t say that there wasn’t a struggle. I said the opposite, that of course the demographics changed.
For some reason you really struggled with this.
You’re also really struggling with making it fit a narrative that just isn’t there. You’re attempting to argue that these two data points taken from completely incomparable scenarios can be extrapolated to form a straight line of increasing struggle over time. That’s not how it works. Would you argue that because 60,000,000 years ago dinosaurs dominated earth and today they don’t then logically dinosaurs have been increasingly struggling over the last 60,000,000 years, possibly as a result of US foreign policy and their failure to implement socialism? Probably, but you shouldn’t. Not when there was an incredibly important event right at the time of one of the measurements.
We have two data points. One is the regular peacetime army, the other is the army in a desperate struggle for national existence. Their demographics look different. My hypothesis for the cause of this difference is the existential apocalyptic war forced upon them by Russia right around the time the first data point was measured.
The struggle increased very suddenly and very dramatically around the time it became extremely dangerous to be a Ukrainian soldier and they needed to increase the size of their army 10x. So around March 2022. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder for them to fill ranks, it got much much harder, and it’s evident why.
No, not confused. I didn't say that you said "filling uniforms during a war wasn't harder than at peace". I said you used extreme hyperbole and that bit of information to counter the observation that there are increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill their ranks which is supported by their recent expansion of their draft legislation, their military skewing decidedly older, reports like this:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
etc.
You can reject those as sufficient if you wish. I agree that the context of an existential war certainly clouds what can be reasonably extracted from those bits of information in isolation, but I would disagree on whether it sufficiently accounts for the signs that Ukraine's ability to replenish and rest their troops is waning.
2 datapoints is not enough for a trend line when there are known significant events that were contemporaneous with the measurement. You may think otherwise, being wrong has always been your prerogative.
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t. His country is fighting for survival.
The demographics changed since peacetime, it’d be weird if they didn’t. You can’t dramatically increase the size of an organization without changing the intake.
You're free to spin it however you'd like, but I suspect it'll become clearer one way or the other over the coming year.
On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
What part of my post are you responding to?
In times of relative peace then your army will be roughly the demographic you're looking for, within budget constraints. In times of war you'll compromise a lot more on that stuff. It's not a complicated premise. In March 2022 it was a smaller professional regular force because the war had literally just started.
The implication of the "of course" being that Ukraine isn't actually struggling to fill its ranks and this is a typical/expected demographic shift (which legislating drafting women in Ukraine would not be) if I misinterpreted that (and this post), my apologies.
Of course putting a million men in uniform during wartime is more of a struggle than putting a thousand in uniform during relative peace. I’m really confused by what point you and Nettles think is being made. Is it a simple observation that war looks different to peace? Because if so I think we all already knew that.
While I appreciate hyperbole as much as the next person, Ukraine didn't 1000x their troop numbers so I think that's a bit of a red herring.
You're not confused. The point is that there's increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks, you disagree with that observation and support that position with hyperbole and your observation about how wartime military demographics expectedly shift from peacetime demographics.
You’re very confused, probably because you didn’t bother to read either the article or my response to it and instead skipped to responding. Incidentally, you should stop doing that.
Nettles linked an article that compared the demographics of the wartime army at the end of October 2023 with the regular army in March 2022. It noted that they were different.
I respond with the “No shit Sherlock, there was a big event that happened during that period”.
I didn’t say that filling uniforms during a war wasn’t harder than at peace. I didn’t say that there wasn’t a struggle. I said the opposite, that of course the demographics changed.
For some reason you really struggled with this.
You’re also really struggling with making it fit a narrative that just isn’t there. You’re attempting to argue that these two data points taken from completely incomparable scenarios can be extrapolated to form a straight line of increasing struggle over time. That’s not how it works. Would you argue that because 60,000,000 years ago dinosaurs dominated earth and today they don’t then logically dinosaurs have been increasingly struggling over the last 60,000,000 years, possibly as a result of US foreign policy and their failure to implement socialism? Probably, but you shouldn’t. Not when there was an incredibly important event right at the time of one of the measurements.
We have two data points. One is the regular peacetime army, the other is the army in a desperate struggle for national existence. Their demographics look different. My hypothesis for the cause of this difference is the existential apocalyptic war forced upon them by Russia right around the time the first data point was measured.
The struggle increased very suddenly and very dramatically around the time it became extremely dangerous to be a Ukrainian soldier and they needed to increase the size of their army 10x. So around March 2022. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder for them to fill ranks, it got much much harder, and it’s evident why.
No, not confused. I didn't say that you said "filling uniforms during a war wasn't harder than at peace". I said you used extreme hyperbole and that bit of information to counter the observation that there are increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill their ranks which is supported by their recent expansion of their draft legislation, their military skewing decidedly older, reports like this:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
etc.
You can reject those as sufficient if you wish. I agree that the context of an existential war certainly clouds what can be reasonably extracted from those bits of information in isolation, but I would disagree on whether it sufficiently accounts for the signs that Ukraine's ability to replenish and rest their troops is waning.
2 datapoints is not enough for a trend line when there are known significant events that were contemporaneous with the measurement. You may think otherwise, being wrong has always been your prerogative.
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t. His country is fighting for survival.
The demographics changed since peacetime, it’d be weird if they didn’t. You can’t dramatically increase the size of an organization without changing the intake.
You're free to spin it however you'd like, but I suspect it'll become clearer one way or the other over the coming year.
There's no world in which the demographics of the intake do not change when Russia invades Ukraine. The challenge of filling a wartime army is a greater struggle than the challenge of a smaller peacetime army. It would always look like this, whether Ukraine was winning, losing, or drawing. I'm not spinning anything, you're trying to spin a narrative out of air. You have a single statistic, that the intake has changed since peacetime, and are attempting to extrapolate a trend out of it. I'm simply saying that you can't do that, it doesn't work that way. My argument is that you don't have one, that's not spin, that's marking your homework and assigning a F.
On November 25 2023 02:22 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote] They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
What part of my post are you responding to?
In times of relative peace then your army will be roughly the demographic you're looking for, within budget constraints. In times of war you'll compromise a lot more on that stuff. It's not a complicated premise. In March 2022 it was a smaller professional regular force because the war had literally just started.
The implication of the "of course" being that Ukraine isn't actually struggling to fill its ranks and this is a typical/expected demographic shift (which legislating drafting women in Ukraine would not be) if I misinterpreted that (and this post), my apologies.
Of course putting a million men in uniform during wartime is more of a struggle than putting a thousand in uniform during relative peace. I’m really confused by what point you and Nettles think is being made. Is it a simple observation that war looks different to peace? Because if so I think we all already knew that.
While I appreciate hyperbole as much as the next person, Ukraine didn't 1000x their troop numbers so I think that's a bit of a red herring.
You're not confused. The point is that there's increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks, you disagree with that observation and support that position with hyperbole and your observation about how wartime military demographics expectedly shift from peacetime demographics.
You’re very confused, probably because you didn’t bother to read either the article or my response to it and instead skipped to responding. Incidentally, you should stop doing that.
Nettles linked an article that compared the demographics of the wartime army at the end of October 2023 with the regular army in March 2022. It noted that they were different.
I respond with the “No shit Sherlock, there was a big event that happened during that period”.
I didn’t say that filling uniforms during a war wasn’t harder than at peace. I didn’t say that there wasn’t a struggle. I said the opposite, that of course the demographics changed.
For some reason you really struggled with this.
You’re also really struggling with making it fit a narrative that just isn’t there. You’re attempting to argue that these two data points taken from completely incomparable scenarios can be extrapolated to form a straight line of increasing struggle over time. That’s not how it works. Would you argue that because 60,000,000 years ago dinosaurs dominated earth and today they don’t then logically dinosaurs have been increasingly struggling over the last 60,000,000 years, possibly as a result of US foreign policy and their failure to implement socialism? Probably, but you shouldn’t. Not when there was an incredibly important event right at the time of one of the measurements.
We have two data points. One is the regular peacetime army, the other is the army in a desperate struggle for national existence. Their demographics look different. My hypothesis for the cause of this difference is the existential apocalyptic war forced upon them by Russia right around the time the first data point was measured.
The struggle increased very suddenly and very dramatically around the time it became extremely dangerous to be a Ukrainian soldier and they needed to increase the size of their army 10x. So around March 2022. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder for them to fill ranks, it got much much harder, and it’s evident why.
No, not confused. I didn't say that you said "filling uniforms during a war wasn't harder than at peace". I said you used extreme hyperbole and that bit of information to counter the observation that there are increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill their ranks which is supported by their recent expansion of their draft legislation, their military skewing decidedly older, reports like this:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
etc.
You can reject those as sufficient if you wish. I agree that the context of an existential war certainly clouds what can be reasonably extracted from those bits of information in isolation, but I would disagree on whether it sufficiently accounts for the signs that Ukraine's ability to replenish and rest their troops is waning.
2 datapoints is not enough for a trend line when there are known significant events that were contemporaneous with the measurement. You may think otherwise, being wrong has always been your prerogative.
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t. His country is fighting for survival.
The demographics changed since peacetime, it’d be weird if they didn’t. You can’t dramatically increase the size of an organization without changing the intake.
You're free to spin it however you'd like, but I suspect it'll become clearer one way or the other over the coming year.
There's no world in which the demographics of the intake do not change when Russia invades Ukraine. The challenge of filling a wartime army is a greater struggle than the challenge of a smaller peacetime army. It would always look like this, whether Ukraine was winning, losing, or drawing. I'm not spinning anything, you're trying to spin a narrative out of air. You have a single statistic, that the intake has changed since peacetime, and are attempting to extrapolate a trend out of it. I'm simply saying that you can't do that, it doesn't work that way. My argument is that you don't have one, that's not spin, that's marking your homework and assigning a F.
He says "I'm not spinning anything" while also turning:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
into
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t.
On November 25 2023 06:21 KwarK wrote: [quote] What part of my post are you responding to?
In times of relative peace then your army will be roughly the demographic you're looking for, within budget constraints. In times of war you'll compromise a lot more on that stuff. It's not a complicated premise. In March 2022 it was a smaller professional regular force because the war had literally just started.
The implication of the "of course" being that Ukraine isn't actually struggling to fill its ranks and this is a typical/expected demographic shift (which legislating drafting women in Ukraine would not be) if I misinterpreted that (and this post), my apologies.
Of course putting a million men in uniform during wartime is more of a struggle than putting a thousand in uniform during relative peace. I’m really confused by what point you and Nettles think is being made. Is it a simple observation that war looks different to peace? Because if so I think we all already knew that.
While I appreciate hyperbole as much as the next person, Ukraine didn't 1000x their troop numbers so I think that's a bit of a red herring.
You're not confused. The point is that there's increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks, you disagree with that observation and support that position with hyperbole and your observation about how wartime military demographics expectedly shift from peacetime demographics.
You’re very confused, probably because you didn’t bother to read either the article or my response to it and instead skipped to responding. Incidentally, you should stop doing that.
Nettles linked an article that compared the demographics of the wartime army at the end of October 2023 with the regular army in March 2022. It noted that they were different.
I respond with the “No shit Sherlock, there was a big event that happened during that period”.
I didn’t say that filling uniforms during a war wasn’t harder than at peace. I didn’t say that there wasn’t a struggle. I said the opposite, that of course the demographics changed.
For some reason you really struggled with this.
You’re also really struggling with making it fit a narrative that just isn’t there. You’re attempting to argue that these two data points taken from completely incomparable scenarios can be extrapolated to form a straight line of increasing struggle over time. That’s not how it works. Would you argue that because 60,000,000 years ago dinosaurs dominated earth and today they don’t then logically dinosaurs have been increasingly struggling over the last 60,000,000 years, possibly as a result of US foreign policy and their failure to implement socialism? Probably, but you shouldn’t. Not when there was an incredibly important event right at the time of one of the measurements.
We have two data points. One is the regular peacetime army, the other is the army in a desperate struggle for national existence. Their demographics look different. My hypothesis for the cause of this difference is the existential apocalyptic war forced upon them by Russia right around the time the first data point was measured.
The struggle increased very suddenly and very dramatically around the time it became extremely dangerous to be a Ukrainian soldier and they needed to increase the size of their army 10x. So around March 2022. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder for them to fill ranks, it got much much harder, and it’s evident why.
No, not confused. I didn't say that you said "filling uniforms during a war wasn't harder than at peace". I said you used extreme hyperbole and that bit of information to counter the observation that there are increasing signs that Ukraine is struggling to fill their ranks which is supported by their recent expansion of their draft legislation, their military skewing decidedly older, reports like this:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
etc.
You can reject those as sufficient if you wish. I agree that the context of an existential war certainly clouds what can be reasonably extracted from those bits of information in isolation, but I would disagree on whether it sufficiently accounts for the signs that Ukraine's ability to replenish and rest their troops is waning.
2 datapoints is not enough for a trend line when there are known significant events that were contemporaneous with the measurement. You may think otherwise, being wrong has always been your prerogative.
Zelensky wishes for more men. Obviously. It’d be weird if he didn’t. His country is fighting for survival.
The demographics changed since peacetime, it’d be weird if they didn’t. You can’t dramatically increase the size of an organization without changing the intake.
You're free to spin it however you'd like, but I suspect it'll become clearer one way or the other over the coming year.
There's no world in which the demographics of the intake do not change when Russia invades Ukraine. The challenge of filling a wartime army is a greater struggle than the challenge of a smaller peacetime army. It would always look like this, whether Ukraine was winning, losing, or drawing. I'm not spinning anything, you're trying to spin a narrative out of air. You have a single statistic, that the intake has changed since peacetime, and are attempting to extrapolate a trend out of it. I'm simply saying that you can't do that, it doesn't work that way. My argument is that you don't have one, that's not spin, that's marking your homework and assigning a F.
He says "I'm not spinning anything" while also turning:
Even if the US were to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it promised, a Zelenskyy aide told Time, Ukraine simply doesn't "have the men to use them."
I’m not really sure what you guys are arguing over, or what it would mean for one of you to be right and the other wrong. If a more concrete claim was made, like “Ukraine is no longer able to recruit enough soldiers to plausibly win the war” it’d be easier to interpret. As it is, “Ukraine is struggling to get more troops” Is trivially true, they’ve obviously been trying to recruit as aggressively as they can for a good long time now.
Here’s something maybe more concrete. This conflict has gotten a fair amount of comparison to WW1, in particular because modern surveillance and artillery capabilities tend toward a big defensive advantage, which leads to stalemate. That means a war of attrition, both of supplies and soldiers. If that’s the case, won’t Ukraine have to be unbelievably efficient with their troops’ lives to win? The Allies won WW1 partly because they just had larger raw population numbers to draw from; I don’t know the population statistics off the top of my head but I have to imagine the disparity between Russia and Ukraine on total population is enormous.
On November 25 2023 11:27 ChristianS wrote: I’m not really sure what you guys are arguing over, or what it would mean for one of you to be right and the other wrong. If a more concrete claim was made, like “Ukraine is no longer able to recruit enough soldiers to plausibly win the war” it’d be easier to interpret. As it is, “Ukraine is struggling to get more troops” Is trivially true, they’ve obviously been trying to recruit as aggressively as they can for a good long time now.
Here’s something maybe more concrete. This conflict has gotten a fair amount of comparison to WW1, in particular because modern surveillance and artillery capabilities tend toward a big defensive advantage, which leads to stalemate. That means a war of attrition, both of supplies and soldiers. If that’s the case, won’t Ukraine have to be unbelievably efficient with their troops’ lives to win? The Allies won WW1 partly because they just had larger raw population numbers to draw from; I don’t know the population statistics off the top of my head but I have to imagine the disparity between Russia and Ukraine on total population is enormous.
No. There are a few issues with your conclusion. The main is the assumption that troop needs and affordable losses are comparable.
Ukraine is fighting a war of national survival against a genocidal conquerer. The last time Ukraine fought a struggle like this was against Germany in WW2. The last time Russia fought a struggle like this was in the 80s against Afghanistan. The idea that they have a similar tolerance for casualties is simply false. For Ukraine they fight because they have seen generations of Ukrainians slaughtered, starved, exiled, and “deported” (to Siberian camps with no facilities allowing for their survival). They fight because they’ll die either way. A Russian population motivated by money isn’t comparable.
The direct comparison of populations to calculate available manpower is also not a good comparison. Russia’s manpower demands are very different to Ukraine’s. Russia nominally has commitments in Africa, Syria, and so forth. Russia has a nuclear force, a satellite program, a “navy”, and a vast amount of land to secure. It also needs internal security as the regime already suffered one major mutiny. Ukraine has exactly one war to fight on one front. The pool of men may be higher but Russia diverts men on a number of other streams that Ukraine does not. Russia cannot simply go allin on the front the way Ukraine does because this is not a war of national survival to Russia.
We must also consider the logistical and industrial tail ratio differences. Russia’s war is a largely in-house affair. For every man at the front they need more doing supply, manufacturing, and simply paying taxes. You can’t put every man on the front because someone has to make the shells they’re firing. Ukraine’s population for the purpose of the war effort includes an awful lot of Americans. Where Russia uses Russian satellite analysts Ukraine uses Americans. Where Russia uses Russian logistics Ukraine uses Poles. Where Russia uses large state borrowing, deficit spending, and central economic planning Ukraine has German taxpayers. The ratio of Ukrainians that ca be devoted to direct front line activities is higher than that of Russians because they have allies that will help shoulder the burden.
That is not to say that Ukraine has more men to fight, only that “Russia is bigger making them the inevitable victor” is an oversimplification that ignores an awful lot of counter examples through history.
You might also want to remember that the large and populous Russian empire lost WW1. WW1 ended when German industry collapsed and the industrial might of America was brought to bear.
Sure, and for the record I didn’t make any claims about “inevitable victor.” Certainly it is true that this war is existential for one side and not the other, and that’s certainly significant.
As far as industrial capacity, my limited understanding is that Western production of, say, artillery shells is expected to outpace Russia’s eventually, but probably not within the next year. So if industrial capacity winds up being the limiting factor, Ukraine has hope of winning that fight, but not necessarily very soon. If manpower is the limiting factor… I mean as you say, there’s reasons Russia would not be able to achieve the level of mobilization as a percentage of population that Ukraine can, but I still have to imagine that is ultimately less favorable. I was hoping Russian internal politics would be such that there would be more limits to what the Russian population will sacrifice in the name of an illegal war. Of course it’s not binary like that; there are ways to spend more lives to conserve resources, and ways to spend more resources to conserve lives.
My impression (not that I’m any military analyst, but from reading people who might be) is that Ukraine is going to have to operate pretty defensively next year, barring some major technological or strategic sea change. Total victory is still on the table, but it’ll be a long-term affair. Is that not your impression of the current state of the war?
On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
Men 18-60 legally could not leave the country (although many young men did indeed sneak out, to avoid the draft).Women could leave, because equality.Feminists have been very quiet about it, for good reason.
The point of the article is obvious, Ukraine can no longer fill it's ranks.The makeup of the Ukrainian army is becoming inferior by the day.It's obvious how the flow of things is headed, especially with money for Ukraine really starting to dry up now.
On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
Men 18-60 legally could not leave the country (although many young men did indeed sneak out, to avoid the draft).Women could leave, because equality.Feminists have been very quiet about it, for good reason.
The point of the article is obvious, Ukraine can no longer fill it's ranks.The makeup of the Ukrainian army is becoming inferior by the day.It's obvious how the flow of things is headed, especially with money for Ukraine really starting to dry up now.
That isn’t what the article says at all. It gives two datapoints, peacetime regular army demographics and wartime conscript demographics, and observes that they’re different. They would never not be different. It doesn’t come close to supporting your conclusion.
On November 25 2023 16:20 ChristianS wrote: Sure, and for the record I didn’t make any claims about “inevitable victor.” Certainly it is true that this war is existential for one side and not the other, and that’s certainly significant.
As far as industrial capacity, my limited understanding is that Western production of, say, artillery shells is expected to outpace Russia’s eventually, but probably not within the next year. So if industrial capacity winds up being the limiting factor, Ukraine has hope of winning that fight, but not necessarily very soon. If manpower is the limiting factor… I mean as you say, there’s reasons Russia would not be able to achieve the level of mobilization as a percentage of population that Ukraine can, but I still have to imagine that is ultimately less favorable. I was hoping Russian internal politics would be such that there would be more limits to what the Russian population will sacrifice in the name of an illegal war. Of course it’s not binary like that; there are ways to spend more lives to conserve resources, and ways to spend more resources to conserve lives.
My impression (not that I’m any military analyst, but from reading people who might be) is that Ukraine is going to have to operate pretty defensively next year, barring some major technological or strategic sea change. Total victory is still on the table, but it’ll be a long-term affair. Is that not your impression of the current state of the war?
It is looking increasingly like neither side can overcome the defensive challenges faced by mines without air power or replenishment issues from their adversary.
That leaves a number of win conditions still on the table for each. Russian replenishment is threatened by the approaching exhaustion of their Soviet inheritance while Ukrainian replenishment is threatened by the quisling Republicans. Russia may face an economic crisis resulting from the colossal wartime spending and the collapse of revenues due to their reduced labour force (lots of the most productive demographic are dead or emigrated) and lost hydrocarbon sales. Ukraine is dependent on foreign aid and the use of EU export infrastructure to keep their economy going. Ukraine has a small number of aging airframes keeping the skies contested while Russia has the threat of modern platforms to contend with.
Basically there’s a lot of cards still to be dealt.
On November 25 2023 00:30 KwarK wrote: In March 22 the Ukrainian army was still largely their regular army so of course it skewed younger then than now.
They didn't start drafting women because of feminism. Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fill it's ranks and it doesn't do anyone any good to live in denial of that fact.
Men 18-60 legally could not leave the country (although many young men did indeed sneak out, to avoid the draft).Women could leave, because equality.Feminists have been very quiet about it, for good reason.
The point of the article is obvious, Ukraine can no longer fill it's ranks.The makeup of the Ukrainian army is becoming inferior by the day.It's obvious how the flow of things is headed, especially with money for Ukraine really starting to dry up now.
That isn’t what the article says at all. It gives two datapoints, peacetime regular army demographics and wartime conscript demographics, and observes that they’re different. They would never not be different. It doesn’t come close to supporting your conclusion.
Didn't Ukraine call up the reserves, which are notably older than the people participating in the war prior to Feb 2022?
Ukraine has reportedly taken control of the left bank of the Dnipro.
Ukrainian forces have gained control of the Dnipro left bank’s floodplain in Kherson Oblast, forcing the Russians to build new defensive lines on hills farther from the river, former Aidar Battalion company commander Yevhen Dykyi told Radio NV.
"In fact, the Dnipro floodplain is effectively under Ukrainian control. And now the Russians are trying to prevent any further steps. They have essentially ceded the floodplain to us, but they are trying to dig in and fortify themselves where the terrain begins to rise. Although it's not accurate to call them hills, there is a slight elevation compared to the mostly flat terrain. At the moment, they are trying to dig in, fortify themselves, and establish some sort of defensive line along this elevation," Dykyi said, noting that the Russians have nothing similar to the so-called Surovikin defensive line.
"They built the Surovikin line for nine months, and now no one is giving them that much time, not even close. That's why, if we use World War II comparisons from time to time, we can say that our ’Normandy landing’ has already happened, and now, let's say, our Ardennes is ahead of us. That is, to break through from the beaches, so to speak, ‘from Normandy,’ in our case, from the Dnipro River floodplain, to break through into a wide operational space."
There have been reports of successes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and advancements on the left bank of the Kherson region since mid-October. There were also reports of a breakthrough across the Dnipro into the occupied region near the villages of the Oleshkivska community.
Judging by the reaction of Russian "war correspondents," this operation could be more significant than previous similar raids by the AFU, the Institute for the Study of War said.
Analysts reported progress toward the village of Krynka in late October, and on Nov. 10 there were signs of a likely expansion of the foothold and the cutting of a key road from Nova Kakhovka to Oleshky.
Ukrainian forces have successfully deployed three brigades on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast as the broader southern counteroffensive culminated, The Guardian reported on Nov. 16, citing unnamed Western officials.
The marine infantry officially confirmed on Nov. 17 that Ukrainian fighters had secured several beachheads on the occupied left bank of the Dnipro. More than a thousand occupiers and dozens of pieces of equipment were destroyed during the operation.
I don't understand how people still get excited by news about Ukrainian activity on Dnieper banks. Which """Normandy""" landing was that this year? Fourth? Seventh?
It is of course good that Ukraine is making some minor gains in the South, but the way those are presented in Western news is extremely clickbaity.
On November 26 2023 06:58 Sent. wrote: I don't understand how people still get excited by news about Ukrainian activity on Dnieper banks. Which """Normandy""" landing was that this year? Fourth? Seventh?
It is of course good that Ukraine is making some minor gains in the South, but the way those are presented in Western news is extremely clickbaity.
They made gains in the south and are also counter-attacking in the east, relieving some pressure on Avdiivka by assaulting major settlements outside of it and sabotaging key infrastructure which makes delivering reinforcements to the front by Russians much more dangerous and harder in general.
Their gains might be small but they're not irrelevant, considering that the Russian side is losing a lot of men and equipment with virtually nothing to show for it in the past months.
I guess it's still just a last effort before any real movement will have to be halted for the winter season so they can dig in and be in a bit better position come spring/summer.
Winter will be hard on Russia since the use of heavy equipment will be limited and their troops don't really have proper winter gear (last year they lost 10% of the invasion force to frostbite and cold), unlike Ukrainians who I assume will take this time to take a breather and replenish their numbers.
Also, regarding previous discussion, no one is saying Russia can't win it. They probably can do it like they typically do by throwing bodies at the problem. The question is: can Russia actually survive itself even if it wins?
Just look at some stats from the war in Chechnya:
[...] at least 70% of the estimated 1.5 million Chechnya veterans suffered CS ("Chechen syndrome", PTSD). Many of the veterans came back alcoholic, unemployable and antisocial. Thousands were also physically disabled for life and left with very limited help from the government.
That's a lot of people who come back from the war and then become a burden on the society that's already strained after enduring the war effort.
Another thing to consider is that Russia has extremely low life expectancy for a developed country and that their retirement age on average is 10 years earlier than almost anywhere else. This isn't really good when you want to rebuild after the war.
Russian Ministry of Finance has posted a report for the first 10 months of this year. This video goes over the key points in more details but the prime takeaways would be: - oil & gas revenue down over 60% from pre-invasion (showing that sanctions are working) - non oil & gas revenue up over 50% from pre-invasion (showing that Russia managed to pivot some of its economy) - total revenue in 2023 is actually higher than in 2022 (but still about 25% lower than in 2021) - total expenditure is 25% higher than in 2021 - overall, unlike in previous 2 years where for the most part of the year Russia was showing actual net profit in 2023 every month has been a pretty big deficit
We'll have to wait until January for final figures since judging from the provided data Russia typically shows a big dip in profit/deficit at the end of the year. In 2021 it went down over 1 trillion rubles (but still staying at almost 10 trillion in profit), in 2022 it went down almost 4 trillion rubles (from 743b profit in November to 3,295b deficit in December), in 2023 they're at 1,235b deficit already.
That must be pretty harsh year-over-year to go from 10t profit in 2021 into 3t deficit in 2022 and now this deficit continues throughout whole 2023.
On November 26 2023 15:12 KwarK wrote: I don’t see any point taking any of their numbers at face value.
I think, while of course, numbers are manipulated to reflect for the best, you can always find some correlation between numbers and you can also see where the manipulation happens when things that use to correlate well suddenly won't.
They might be lying always, but old lies usually still needs to be replaced by new ones. Like if you tell "you produce this amount of barrels and that is the source of the profit", if the barrel price collapses, you can just make up that you sold twice the amount (hence, other industries magically picks up the "lack" of revenu.
However, sometimes, reality moves faster than the lies can be made up. Which is when communication is just disconnected from the reality and you have a system such as the North Korean one, which has never been the Russian/Soviet style, which has lies that are borderline that leaves room for interpretation while everybody knows they are fabricated, we all discuss to what degree this time they did.
So here we are, with only one person taking russian numbers at face value, and it was not the guy from Poland
Perun made a new video in which he spends 20 minutes highlighting the compared losses of Ukraine and Russia in Zaporizhia and Avdiivka. He spends almost 5 minutes painstakingly describing the difficulties in assessing losses and making sure it's correctly attributed. And then with all of the filters applied he shows the numbers which seem, to me, as correct as one can expect it to be.
I wonder if @zeo would find this analysis critical enough and do these numbers seem reasonable enough from the Russian perspective?
Here's the video with the timestamp starting at the assessing losses section:
On November 26 2023 15:12 KwarK wrote: I don’t see any point taking any of their numbers at face value.
Do you think Russia would intentionally downplay their numbers to feign weakness? IMO if they were falsifying the numbers they'd probably want to prop them up to have the narrative of laughing at sanctions and farting in the general direction of EU and NATO. If the released numbers are propped up and it still looks bad for them then the actual situation is even worse.
So, any potential falsification would have to be downplaying the numbers but then again Russia would seem weak and it would be harder to project strength and resort to the standard bullying.
Obviously we won't know the truth until later but for now it doesn't look that great for Russian economy either way.
EPT
