Ukraine plinking a Russian GPS-jammer with a GPS-guided bomb. Ukrainian drones blowing up Russian drone-jammers. Ukraine’s cruise missiles striking Russian air-defense sites whose missions include, you guessed it, shooting down cruise missiles.
Russia’s 23-month wider war on Ukraine has seen a lot of ironic, darkly-hilarious clashes. The latest was also one of the quickest between setup and punchline.
On Tuesday morning, Russian media announced the deployment, to Ukraine, of Russian forces’ latest high-tech counterbattery radar. A few hours later in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainians blew it up … with artillery rockets.
The irony deepens. In theory, a Russian Yastreb-AV radar would help to protect Russian troops from Ukraine’s American-made High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers—its HIMARS. Now guess what the Ukrainians used to destroy that first Yastreb-AV.
That’s right: HIMARS.
Why? Because they’re defending against massive waves of badly trained unsupported conscripts right now with extremely favorable loss ratios?
Because ultimately, Ukraine cannot support a stalemate forever. Eventually, they’ll lose international support and just won’t be able to replace the troops.
Even a casual history buff would understand Russia is culturally willing to accept losses far beyond what any other modern country(with the exception of China) would ever consider or whose populace would support. Russia has historically thrived in attrition scenarios.
Honestly, their only real hope is for either Putin to die and resulting political shake up to be favorable. Or to start winning decisive victories and force Russia to the table (more unlikely).
It’s not a stalemate, though. Russia is suffering way more attrition than Ukraine. That said yes things would look nicer if western support was more extensive, though then you also have the issue of training capacity on the Ukrainian side. But it’s not like Russia is winning in the current situation, currently Putin is holding out in the hopes of US support collapsing which, in his mind, would mean western support drying up (because something something they’re ruling us or something. KGB minds also run on geopolitical realism). The opposite would happen: That’d prompt the EU to switch the economy into first war gear (which will be plenty), not just because it’s the right thing to do but also because it’ll be the only way to keep the Poles from putting boots on the ground right away.
The problem is, Putin doesn’t care.
Yes, they are suffering way more losses, but they still got plenty of troops to throw against.
The Russians have gone through the conscripts. They’ve gone through the criminals. They’re now on to Ukrainian PoWs and international conscripts.
The Ukrainian force is still Ukrainian.
Not at these loss ratios, it’s legitimately unsustainable even with more mobilisation. And mobilisation is really bad for his domestic stability, so he’ll avoid it if he can.
At the moment there’s not really much anyone can do to change his mind. There’s people who are saying that western long-term contracts would help, but I doubt it: He’d see it as just another propaganda move, thinking the rule of law is a front. It would help with gearing up production, though, especially when it comes to ammunition: No producer is going to build a factory for a low-volume contract, gotta be at least five years worth of production or such.
No, they’re in big trouble. Putin is gambling that he can hang on long enough for Trump to save him, but Russia is already facing demographic collapse as well as a massive brain drain from the younger generations. Things are pretty dire and there are a lot of powerful people in Russia who know it.
Not even close, the ratio doesn’t matter. Look at how many Stalin lost in WW2, Putin absolutely seems willing to accept that level of losses…
That was a defensive war (modulo Molotov-Ribbentrop etc. point being the war was largely on USSR soil), also, maybe more importantly, vastly different demographics: Back then losing half of your military age population was an option, nowadays it means that there’s not enough people to earn pensions for the elderly.
Wrong again. Russia is already facing demographic collapse together with a massive brain drain from the younger generations. Putin has convinced people like yourself that he is strong, but as was true of the USSR immediately before its fall, he is in fact very weak and increasingly desperate. His regime is brittle and only becoming more so as he continues to suck the life out of the country. When he does finally lose power, it’s going to happen very fast, almost overnight, and the Ukrainians will rout the Russian military in a bloodbath of unfortunate though understandable vengeance.
I don’t think the Chinese government would accept that loss ratio of han people
The US may lose interest but Europe won’t. This is their backyard and WW2 is still in living memory and physical evidence across the continent. It’s not some abstract idea like it is for us North Americans. It’s still very present and it’s recognized that Putin cannot and will not be allowed to win, regardless of what the Americans decide to do. Germany, France or the UK alone could easily fund the war if they had to. Together they will ensure that there can be no win for Putin. I am constantly surprised that this is not more widely known.