Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.
Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable. A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.
The assessment, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday, comes as some Republicans have balked at the US providing additional funding for Ukraine and the Biden administration has launched a full-court press to try to get supplemental funding through Congress.
That’s doesn’t seem sustainable
Frankly I don’t care. The US wastes trillions of dollars on military spending. We have the most advanced military in the world by a mile but all too often it ends up using it to defend someone else’s financial interests or to pad the pockets of people that make their money through a war economy.
Russia can get fucked. Every cent spent on the defense of Ukraine is a fully realized fuck you to our enemy. Ukraine did what we could never do. They essentially removed Russia from the equation. Yeah they have many poorly maintained nukes but they know we will fuck their ass if they touch them. They will not be posing a real threat to anyone for generations.
We aren’t spending this money on the American people and we never were going to do that anyway. Our choices are we fund people actually fighting for their life or we allow that money to get sucked into the military industrial complex for no real return. They’re already getting theirs out of this, the only question that remains is do you back Republicans that have made up a nothing burger about this money because they’ve arbitrarily decided this is the 96th hill they’ll die on, or do you you want to see the money you pay in taxes actually get put to a meaningful purpose.
Saying that it doesn’t go to the American people isn’t strictly true. It’s not like it’s cash shipped across the Atlantic. The money spent on weapons to Ukraine is injected into local American economies where weapons are produced, as wages that let people consume products which goes to the wages of people who sell those products wages in turn.
Frankly, it may come to be seen as, in terms of bang for the buck, the single most effective use of US military funding in history.
Think about it: Russia went from being considered a peer-state of the US to the second most effective army currently conducting combat operations in Ukraine. That’s embarrassing any way you spin it. They have utterly destroyed any real vestige of conventional military power they had, and Ukraine is the one who shattered not only that reputation, but also the capability.
And not just in terms of physical assets - Putin called up training officers and sent them to the front. You just… you don’t do that. It means that instead of taking another year or two to train a new generation of officers to competence… it takes 10, and even then they’re not very good, because all the institutional knowledge those instructors had was lost. The only reason they’re even considered these days is because they’re a nuclear state.
Russia had a total standing military of approximately 900,000 active-duty troops
Of the 360,000 troops that entered Ukraine, including contract and conscript personnel, Russia has lost 315,000 on the battlefield, according to the assessment.
So roughly 87.5% of the initial troops was lost, like the article said so that checks out.
900,000 - 315,000 still means 585,000 troops remaining, and that’s outside the conscription efforts.
Russia has announced plans to increase the size of the armed forces to 1.5 million.
Still a considerable force, as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
The amount of heavy lifting this clause is doing cannot b overstated
The thing is, Ukraine has no real possibility of interrupting the supply chain, since it doesn’t have the weapons to do so, or is not allowed to use on Russian soil in case of western weapons. All it can do is himarsing the last few dozens of kilometers around the front.
And Russia can produce or dig up WW2-level shit from storage for a very long time.
Russia hurts its own supply chain because the entire state apparatus functions via corruption at every possible level.
Also Ukraine has absolutely already struck targets on Russian soil with US weapons.
Not to my knowlege except for some very minor cases, like those incursions into Belgorod. GMLRS, ATACMS, Storm Shadow etc have exclusively been used inside (occupied) Ukraine, as far as I know. The long range drone strikes inside Russia are all claimed to have used only domestic Ukrainian weaponry. Can you give me a source?
So, if i must believe this, those 13% left in Ukraine are very capable, very effective troops, able to move over that gigantic front in minutes, seconds even to fill the gaps. They must have some kind of teleportation device. It must be possible, since startrek’s Chekov is Russian after all. He knows how it works.
Or maybe these figures are just pulled out of someone’s ass. Like everything else in this war.
If 45,000 are left in Ukraine and Ukraine is approximately 400 miles wide, that’s still 112 Russian troops per linear mile to push west.
Obviously they aren’t spaced in one line across the country like that, but it gives some perspective on how many are left and how much space they could fill.
Do really really believe that?
If yes then
A) the Russians must have some supertech to hold back the Ukrainian push of the last few months. Just 112 men per mile againsts those columns of Bradley’s and Leopards. Wow.
Or
B) the Ukrainians are truly shit fighters.
I go for C). These figures which are spoon fed to us are bullshit.
Just look at the numbers of the past year or so. If we believe them the Russian army is no more and has been defeated 6 months ago.
But they aren’t. They’re still there.
I think you should read the full article in order to really understand what these numbers mean and what they don’t mean.
This cannot be true lol. If it is, russians must be feeling this a lot more at home and international news hasnt reported the shock yet
0.2% of population and they have had mobilizations since then so it’s not that big a deal
Like if 120 people died in a city of 60 000. Not really noticeable
Those 120 people have family and friends. A workplace or a school. So if 120 people die, nearly everyone in a city of 60000 would have known one of the dead.
