At best they had around 600 000 personnel total at the start of the operation. Where you are taking this million from I don't know.
Any other number is speculation. And counting civilian fighters other than meat shields is kinda eh.
I wonder how mobile this army is at this point, hmm.
Okay but you are ignoring the fact that the country has essentially pressed into every man they can into service, they're handing out rifles like candy to anyone who wants them still. I mean this is a war the real deal and you have large amounts of paramilitary soldiers who are very angry and motivated in this war. You look at the Russian perspective you're quickly becoming outgunned, outmanned, and at risk of becoming encircled by Ukraine's army in the Donbass region. Whatever could go wrong for Russia has gone wrong for Russia.
They can't afford to scrap it. It's the only carrier they have, if they scrap it without a replacement it could be decades before they regain the capability for carrier operations, if ever. Once you've lost the capability to do some things, it's a massive pain in the ass to remain them, it's almost as bad as starting from scratch.
carriers really are only good in asymmetric wars post smart missiles. When one side has a full technological advantage.
That won't be the case for Russia or China given any wars they fight will be enemies pumped full of NATO support. Honestly it would be likewise for NATO if we were living in a not-nuclear icbm/sbcm world who engaged them directly.
At best they had around 600 000 personnel total at the start of the operation. Where you are taking this million from I don't know.
Any other number is speculation. And counting civilian fighters other than meat shields is kinda eh.
I wonder how mobile this army is at this point, hmm.
Another point is how many of that 600,000 are combat capable troops and not for logistics and support and given their oil depots getting hit, probably not very mobile.
Okay but you are ignoring the fact that the country has essentially pressed into every man they can into service, they're handing out rifles like candy to anyone who wants them still.
That's actually a very bad idea and there is plenty of footage already to support that.
I mean this is a war the real deal and you have large amounts of paramilitary soldiers who are very angry and motivated in this war. You look at the Russian perspective you're quickly becoming outgunned, outmanned, and at risk of becoming encircled by Ukraine's army in the Donbass region. Whatever could go wrong for Russia has gone wrong for Russia.
I find it fascinating how you've convinced yourself that the Ukrainian government and military is somehow going to fall apart now after the Russians threatened the capital for a month before pulling out and moving east.
Reminds me of how people were claiming Zelensky was working from a sound stage in Florida or Poland from the very beginning of this thread.
It sure seems to me like they intended to take the capital, and that they expected to take it without any fight.
I've yet to hear an explanation of what the supposed feint was supposed to accomplish since we've now seen a two week pause that would allow all the forces around Ukraine to .... you know .... do exactly what the supposed feint was intended to stop from doing in the first place.
Yeah, sure, the surrender of a 1000 soldiers is a bigger blow than the sinking of a multi-million ship that served as an important AA and Artillery platform
It wasn't the radiation that created anime, the bombs just let the AYYs creep in from an alternate dimension. The rub is that the AYYs aren't evil, they're just super horny, that's where anime comes in to make you want to dick them. WAKE UP SHEEPLE
Another point is how many of that 600,000 are combat capable troops and not for logistics and support and given their oil depots getting hit, probably not very mobile.
Probably not that Mobile but at the same time let's not forget the Russians still don't have complete and total air surpremacy at the current moment. Don't forget how many supplies the Russians in their own glorious competent logistics have managed to lose tanks, fuel trucks, and all that gear meant for Ivan.
Okay but you are ignoring the fact that the country has essentially pressed into every man they can into service, they're handing out rifles like candy to anyone who wants them still. I mean this is a war the real deal and you have large amounts of paramilitary soldiers who are very angry and motivated in this war. You look at the Russian perspective you're quickly becoming outgunned, outmanned, and at risk of becoming encircled by Ukraine's army in the Donbass region. Whatever could go wrong for Russia has gone wrong for Russia.
There are huge difference between soldiers and forced conscripts, while they are capable to make ambushes and can do hit-and-run kinda of skirmish, in general battle they almost always end up like this.
For god's sake, don't give weapons to civi's. It's a graveyard in the making, and they don't help in war.The only thing it achieves is dead Ukrainians and trigger-happy Russians.
I find it fascinating how you've convinced yourself that the Ukrainian government and military is somehow going to fall apart now after the Russians threatened the capital for a month before pulling out and moving east.
Reminds me of how people were claiming Zelensky was working from a sound stage in Florida or Poland from the very beginning of this thread.
It sure seems to me like they intended to take the capital, and that they expected to take it without any fight.
I've yet to hear an explanation of what the supposed feint was supposed to accomplish since we've now seen a two week pause that would allow all the forces around Ukraine to .... you know .... do exactly what the supposed feint was intended to stop from doing in the first place.
The feint was to get Ukraine to commit troops to the defense of Kiev so they wouldn't be able to use them to help in the defense of the Donbas and Mariupol. I don't really think that is hard to understand.
Men at worse can take 18 years to replace, then months to train, and the greater the experience the man had the greater the loss as that can never be replaced.
Men at worse can take 18 years to replace, then months to train, and the greater the experience the man had the greater the loss as that can never be replaced.
The feint was to get Ukraine to commit troops to the defense of Kiev so they wouldn't be able to use them to help in the defense of the Donbas and Mariupol. I don't really think that is hard to understand.
Well that ain’t working now so nice job losing a bunch of your best men and equipment for a feint that didn’t even have the “main effort” accomplish its goal.
Just a feint cope is just about the best cope. Why did Russia have to withdraw everything west of Kharkov to provide the assets for the Donbass offensive (that STILL hasn't begun yet unless it did in the last hour)? Why wouldn't Russia attack from the DPR and LPR at the same time it was tying down 30,000 hohol soldiers around Kiev and Chernihiv?
Are you coping that hard or is the Russian MoD that retarded?
Have you just arrived? Attacking from the DPR and LPR is tantamount to suicide, that is one of the few areas the Ukrainians are actually going toe-to-toe with Russia and coming out on top because the entrenchments are World War 1 tier. Huge amounts of trenches, land mines, barbed wire and wide open spaces flat between them that allows ATGM to smoke any armored advance. That region has essentially been a static front since 2015 and neither side can do much more than hurl mortars and artillery over to the other side, it had become so static that both sides had lost interest in even attempting some sort of military operation and either 2021 or 2020 was the quietest year since the 2014 coup, I can't remember which exact year it was.
As for the feint, it was largely successful and remains so. Ukraine cannot just pull their troops out of Kiev and send them elsewhere because the Russian army is just encamped on the other side of the border and easily able to lurch across once again in an offensive, so their goal of tying down reinforcements is still active. Not to mention they've utterly trashed military infrastructure around Kiev. If Kiev was going to weak knee and collapse with the slightest amount of pressure then it would have been worth having the troops make that advance; Kiev didn't fold up so no point in keeping troops in contact for an outcome that will never be on the table. Russia's military has a lot of problems but they've been very pragmatic in their decision making thus far, I just don't know what their end state looks like and I fully expect this conflict to just never formally end, just taper off into some North-South Korea DMZ antics.
It seemed to me that pro-war Europeans and Americans were happy that this proxy war requires only military equipment worth million instead of fighters. So which is it soldiers or equipment?
Well that ain’t working now so nice job losing a bunch of your best men and equipment for a feint that didn’t even have the “main effort” accomplish its goal.
What the fuck are you even talking about? I said the feint was to keep them in Kiev and away from Mariupol and the Donbas and the Ukrainians have lost Mariupol and are about to lose the Donbas. How have they not been accomplishing their goals?
It seemed to me that pro-war Europeans and Americans were happy that this proxy war requires only military equipment worth million instead of fighters. So which is it soldiers or equipment?
Tbh for the purposes of this particular war, its unlikely either those men OR the warship will be replaced by the time hostilities end so we can just call it a wash on which is easier to replace.
For god's sake, don't give weapons to civi's. It's a graveyard in the making, and they don't help in war.The only thing it achieves is dead Ukrainians and trigger-happy Russians.
When you're at that point in war and asking guys who served in Iraq it's a shitshow for all sides involved. Because the occupation army is forced to crack down, the crackdown forces more people to the side against the occupiers, trigger happy Russian soldiers only emboldens and angers protesters in occupied cities.
When Fallujah happened the guys the marines were fighting were dealing with tons I mean thousands of angry armed civilians with RPKs,RPG7s, and AKs. While the US secured Fallujah and I mean we cut off the city and secured it. I can tell you that a large amount of marines took heavy casualties. One sailor told me a story about how she remembered that one Marine division took like 60-70% casualties in Fallujah. Essentially lives only being saved because of medics and body armor. Even if Russia crushes the civilians and commits war crimes its not going to lead to. Amore pro Russia Ukraine that is for sure.
There are huge difference between soldiers and forced conscripts, while they are capable to make ambushes and can do hit-and-run kinda of skirmish, in general battle they almost always end up like this.
Agreed there is a difference between the two. However angry civilians forming mass protests, insurgents creating bombs via IEDs, and ambush attacks with western anti tank weaponry can leave Russia engaged in a long term insurgency. Remember Iraq it only ended after we essentially put in a million men in Iraq, and funded basically the government to keep peace and bombs away with mass surveillance. It took us 5 years from Fallujah to an Iraq that was stable enough that we could pull troops out without creating a power vacum and we still created a vacum that thankfully or unthankfully Iran took over.
Men at worse can take 18 years to replace, then months to train, and the greater the experience the man had the greater the loss as that can never be replaced.
Agreed but combat creates experience and when it comes to street fighting you don't need specialized trained soliders to do house to house or trench fighting. In fact it's those type of scenarios that tend to favor foreign fighters, guerrillas, and conscripts while professional troops tend to be caught up, trapped and often get misused.
It seemed to me that pro-war Europeans and Americans were happy that this proxy war requires only military equipment worth million instead of fighters. So which is it soldiers or equipment?
Both you need soldiers and equipment. a poorly motivated and well trained equiped afghan soldier is still going to be a worse fighter then a poorly trained and Equipped kurd who is well motivated.
For Ukraine you're seeing men who are fairly well trained and motivated. With civilians taking up arms they're well motivated even if untrained.
To keep it simply morale in a war matters. Sides that maintain high morale, van very easily win wars. This is why the Taliban took over the country after 20 years.
The feint was to get Ukraine to commit troops to the defense of Kiev so they wouldn't be able to use them to help in the defense of the Donbas and Mariupol. I don't really think that is hard to understand.
Yeah and those troops haven't been committed to the defense Kiev for two weeks now and the roads to the eastern front are wide open.
The Russians have barely advanced in the mean time and have only just finished mopping up Mariupol, a city one third the size of Kharkiv (was that part of the supposed feint too ?) and half the size of Dnipro which a lot of those troops will be coming through.
No, this harms war efforts immensely as now the blockade can be challenged by further naval strikes, any amphibious outflanking of the lines west of the Dnipr is pretty much not happening and Ukrainian drones have a better chance of sneaking into Crimea again to blow up shit. It's also a huge slap in the face to Russia on top of all of that.
It doesn’t seem that the Russians were planning any amphibian action from the map configuration. Also, their capabilities in that regard are about as good as the Chinese ones which is to say almost nonexistent.
