- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@lemmit.online
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For context, about 55,000 American troops died in Vietnam over about 12-15 years. Russia lost 40,000 in a single month, and they’ve lost well over a million in just a couple years.
That’s the definition of a Meat Grinder War.
It really is an incomprehensible loss, there are voids now in russian society that will never be filled in, missing lifetimes piled up in ghostly stacks, and there are the innumerable international connections russia has destroyed from crudely extracting human bodies to use as grunts on the frontline that don’t know they are being sent there until the last moment…
Which isn’t to dwell on the tragedy of russians, they can stop this war at any time and yet they fight on like cowards devoted to licking the boot until the very end… it is rather to point out the scale of human loss here is solemn.
The title of this article is bad. Further down they reference that ISW estimates 40,000 casualties for June. So killed and wounded. Still horrific, but even with Russia’s atrocious killed to wounded ratio more like 10-20k killed.
Recent statement of Rubio was that Russia now has more killed than wounded. That would mean they are down to not even pre-WW1 but medieval casualty levels. And its not unlikely as their casualties would be on the offensive infiltration operations where there’s no chance of evacuation. - As per Perun.
I’ve had this sense building for a while that the world is returning to medieval times. Or that, that’s what the powerful people in control everywhere want to happen to normal people while they control all the tech and everything. I hope I’m wrong. But all it would really take is one big grid failure the world over. One big solar flare from the sun. It’s probably an outlandish feeling but eh.
since the beginning of this “3 day operation” they’ve lost 1.4 million soldiers. They have an estimated population of like 140million. They can throw a few more million at this thing and likely will. I just don’t feel the typical ruskie tactic of “throwing enough bodies at something until it goes away” is going to work this time. I mean it clearly isn’t working.
They can absolutely not afford to throw a few million more into this, which is why they’re already farming out to foreign armies and mercenaries.
Population is not evenly distributed in military participation, it’s weighted very heavily towards the age and class demographics that you most need to effect economic growth (that is to say, young and working-class). Losing 1.4 million young citizens is already a huge hit to their economic and social prospects.
They’re going to turn the aging populace crisis they’re already in into a full-blown population collapse in some areas, and their social structures around population movement can amplify this impact (basically, most Russian people do not tend to move around geographically, so population declines in neighboring regions aren’t counteracted by diffusion as easily).
Mechanized warfare requires a core of veteran troops and russia cannot figure out a formula where frontline soldiers, artillery and armor crews aren’t disposable one or two time use assets. Ukraine is chewing through russian frontline forces faster and more thoroughly than ever.
You can bullshit most of your frontlines with relatively unexperienced troops, but you need an actual proficient core that knows how to win reliably when they are given proper support and russia just doesn’t have it.
Meanwhile compared to russia, Ukrainians tend to survive and learn more often. Ukrainians come back from the frontlines more often. Ukrainians injured in combat are evacuated and recover more often. Disabled Ukrainian veterans have better accomodations in civilian life. These are the things that matter.
There is a quality to quantity but there is also a potential quality to a single person’s genius that can make raw quantities irrelevant… If you toss that potential away and use it as a vessel to carry an assault rifle with no training in a meatwave… can you afford to throw human lives away when your opponent is not so wasteful?
The answer is no, no you cannot.
The literal definition of “war of attrition”
I would take those numbers with a grain of salt but russia the agressor is definitely struggling
observers suggest 1.4 million Russian soldiers have been killed since the war began
What a terrible article. It’s 1.4 million casualties. Also russian deaths in June is very high (26k), but not 40k. Again, those are casualties.
40k you say?!?!? (Im sorry i know the way to hell already, i’ll see myself out)
