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Old 03-05-2023, 07:01 AM
Bestbrian Bestbrian is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus View Post
My concern is that The Russians might be able to afford to continue to "fight dumb and get wrecked" and still win. It's not just me.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/11596...rainian-troops

The author of the piece spoke to a Ukrainian sniper named Andriy. Here's what Andriy has to say about Russia's raw conscript soldiers:

"'The Russian mobilizational reserve is pretty much infinite', says Andriy, 'which means that they have the luxury to make mistakes. They can lose a brigade or they can lose a platoon, and some of those people are going to survive and they can share experience with the new conscripts.'"

He's got a point. Regarding his own [Ukrainian military], Andriy says,

"'Most of the people that were ready to take guns and fight, they came in the first two months and those people care coming to an end.' He means that they are mostly dead. He says the quality of the new soldiers is much lower. 'Some of them, they don't know how to hold a rifle.'"

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That's the popular view of Russia that's been burned into our head since the Napoleonic Wars and WWII through the Cold War, but current Russian demography is pitiful(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia).

Pair that with an authoritarian system that's trying to fight a war while hiding it from its urban population centers (which precludes drafting large numbers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc) and there aren't endless waves of Ivans to throw at the trenches anymore, especially of 18-49 year old males from rural backwaters. They might very well run out of men to crew their mothballed T-62s long before they run out of the vehicles themselves.

Keep in mind that Ukraine's demographics aren't much better, but the circumstances of this conflict allows them to mass mobilize a military backed by a highly motivated civilian population with a direct stake in the outcome, which gives them a higher percentage of a smaller pool. We'll have a better idea where this is all heading when the Ukrainian counteroffensives begin.
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