[mopsi]

> War started in 2021, we are now in 2025, that's 4 years, estimated size of Russian army is ~1 500 000, which means they should have a minus 100 000 soldiers, that does not add up.

The war started in February 2022, not 2021. I do not recall saying that Russia has seen 400 000+ casualties for each of the three years. Quite the opposite: in the initial weeks of the invasion Russia made large gains with relatively tiny losses, estimated at low thousand a month. That progress has stalled and casualty rate has now grown tenfold to 48 670 dead and wounded for December 2024 (worst month of the entire invasion). January 2025 is narrowly behind with 48 240. The running total is estimated 850k+. The first year contributed 85k. The second year 300k. The third year 400k. Even if the pace of losses stops growing and remains where it currently is, Russia will lose another 12x48=576k this year.

How is this not a disaster? I'd appreciate if you answered with a coherent paragraph instead of sniping every single sentence with a oneliner.

[voidr]

> I do not recall saying that Russia has seen 400 000+ casualties for each of the three years.

Thought you meant to say it was every year, my bad, I had no intention to misinterpret it.

> I do not recall saying that Russia has seen 400 000+ casualties for each of the three years. Quite the opposite: in the initial weeks of the invasion Russia made large gains with relatively tiny losses, estimated at low thousand a month. That progress has stalled and casualty rate has now grown tenfold to 48 670 dead and wounded for December 2024 (worst month of the entire invasion). January 2025 is narrowly behind with 48 240. The running total is estimated 850k+. The first year contributed 85k. The second year 300k. The third year 400k. Even if the pace of losses stops growing and remains where it currently is, Russia will lose another 12x48=576k this year.

> How is this not a disaster? I'd appreciate if you answered with a coherent paragraph instead of sniping every single sentence with a oneliner.

Not sure what your source is, but in general it's only the Russian Ministry of Defence that know the actual casualty numbers, but they aren't telling, other than that it speculation and depending who you ask you can get wildly different results.

Casualties include wounded and typically you have 4 wounded for each dead, which with your numbers would mean 170k deaths over 3 years, considering what they are up against this is to be expected, so in military terms I would not call this a disaster because if both sides are well equipped, it's just unavoidable. You can look at the Vietnam war for comparison.

Is it bad for society to lose this much of the male population? Of course it is, but one possible alternative scenario is that they get into an Israel - Gaza situation, which one can argue is even worse.

Do you think the US would have been willing to absorb similar levels of casualties if Mexico decided to join a military alliance with Russia or China?

[mopsi]

> Do you think the US would have been willing to absorb similar levels of casualties if Mexico decided to join a military alliance with Russia or China?

No, certainly not. Russian losses are totally insane. The US lost 107 903 killed in action and 208 333 wounded in the entire Pacific theater of WWII, over four years that saw massive aerial and naval battles, unrestricted submarine warfare, large-scale amphibious operations, and savage fighting in the jungles across Southeast Asia.

Mediazona, which tracks Russian losses through open sources like obituaries in newspapers, has identified over 90 000 dead Russians by name and estimates the true number of deaths to be in the range of 138 500 to 200 000. Each death is accompanied by several wounded and permanently disabled cases, so as unbelievable as the Ukrainian estimates initially seemed to everyone, they appear to be roughly correct.

The consensus among military analysts is that after the initial months of 2022, Russia has seen only tactical-level successes, at best operational victories. There have been no strategic gains. For this, Russia has paid a higher price than the US did for fighting its way across the Pacific to Japan and forcing its surrender.

[voidr]

> No, certainly not.

I think we can agree to disagree on that one, we are talking about a country that started wars for far less.

> Russian losses are totally insane. The US lost 107 903 killed in action and 208 333 wounded in the entire Pacific theater of WWII, over four years that saw massive aerial and naval battles, unrestricted submarine warfare, large-scale amphibious operations, and savage fighting in the jungles across Southeast Asia.

You don't have as many men on the ships as you need to cover ground.

You should check the Russian losses in WWII, compared to that, this is just a walk in the park.

> There have been no strategic gains.

If they keep categorizing all Russian gains as non strategic then of course there are none. The problem with this narrative is that it makes the Ukrainians look incompetent for sacrificing so much for these unimportant places.

Either the Ukrainians were complete morons for defending these places for so long or they were actually important and the media just likes to spin it the other way when the truth is inconvenient for their narratives.

> US did for fighting its way across the Pacific to Japan and forcing its surrender

You kind of forgot to mention one other player in that game and a certain type of weapon.

Warfare has also changed a lot since WWII.

[mopsi]

> You should check the Russian losses in WWII, compared to that, this is just a walk in the park.

Indeed, let's check them:

  Battle of the Dnieper (Aug-Dec 1943): 1 200 000 killed and wounded
  Dnieper-Carpathian offensive (Dec-Apr 1944): 900 000
  Lvov-Sandomierz offensive (Jul-Aug 1944): 300 000

Russia has already exceeded German losses from 1941-1942 for capturing Ukraine (including Crimea). At a rate of less than 1% of territory gained for 400k+ casualties per year, Russia would exceed the total Soviet losses for all of Ukraine before even reaching the halfwaypoint at the Dnieper river. Russia hasn't even reached the hardest part yet: major urban areas like Kharkiv (pop. 1.7m) and Zaporizhzhia (840k), where the heaviest fighting could be expected, remain in Ukrainian hands.

Note the timeframe too. Both Germany and the USSR rolled through Ukraine in 12 months. In a week, the Russian war against Ukraine will enter its fourth year.

I think you've mistaken a cemetery for a park.

[voidr]

> At a rate of less than 1% of territory gained

Capturing Texas wouldn't enlarge Russia too much percentage wise, because it's already massive, not that this metric matters at all.

You keep assuming that Russia needs more territory that's why this war is happening, whereas in reality Russia does not want a powerful Ukraine armed to the teeth with NATO gear right next door, that's it, that's what the Russians have been saying all along, their position has never changed, you can look up the Mins k agreement.

> 400k+ casualties per year

It's not per year.

> Russia would exceed the total Soviet losses for all of Ukraine before even reaching the halfwaypoint at the Dnieper river.

You are assuming that Ukraine has their forces uniformly distributed across it's territory which would make it the dumbest army in the universe, in reality most of it's armed forces are near the front, if they are gone, there won't be much left to defend the rest of Ukraine.

> Russia hasn't even reached the hardest part yet: major urban areas like Kharkiv (pop. 1.7m) and Zaporizhzhia (840k), where the heaviest fighting could be expected, remain in Ukrainian hands.

They don't have to, they can bleed the Ukrainian army by dragging them into a meat grinder elsewhere, Russia does not want Ukraine, they just want to destroy the Ukrainian army and permanently make sure Ukraine will never have an army that is a threat to Russia. The crazy thing is Zelensky is doing the work for the Russians with his media stunts like Kursk and Krynky.

> Note the timeframe too. Both Germany and the USSR rolled through Ukraine in 12 months. In a week, the Russian war against Ukraine will enter its fourth year.

Wonder how well both would have done with drones and HIMARs involved.

[mopsi]

  > You are assuming that Ukraine has their forces uniformly distributed across it's territory which would make it the dumbest army in the universe, in reality most of it's armed forces are near the front, if they are gone, there won't be much left to defend the rest of Ukraine.

I fully understand that you hope to see sudden breakthroughs, but they are clearly not happening anytime soon. In the early months of the war, we saw large armoured spearheads, such as the one destroyed at the Siverskyi Donets river crossing in May 2022, which consisted of 80-100 vehicles. Advancements in drone warfare on the Ukrainian side and equipment shortages on the Russian side have made it impossible to assemble such spearheads anymore. So even if there are breaches in Ukrainian frontlines, they cannot be (and haven't been) exploited on a massive scale as they were earlier in the war.

Besides that, any rapid Russian advancements in Ukraine would likely be countered by the deployment of a multinational European force. This seems to be currently in preparation even without any breakthroughs.

  > You keep assuming that Russia needs more territory that's why this war is happening, whereas in reality Russia does not want a powerful Ukraine armed to the teeth with NATO gear right next door, that's it, that's what the Russians have been saying all along, their position has never changed, you can look up the Minsk agreement.

Europeans are expected to officially announce a 700bn defense package after the German elections on Sunday. 700bn is many times more than has been provided to Ukraine so far, by the entire world, combined. The longer the war drags on, the more modern equipment Ukraine will receive to replace the destroyed Soviet stocks and the more closely it will be aligned with NATO countries.

This is another measure by which the Russian invasion has been a complete failure. We went from Obama refusing to provide lethal aid to Ukraine in 2014, to Ukraine's air force flying F-16s and Mirages in 2025 while Rheinmetall is building arms factories in Ukraine.

This is far more than any NATO ally has received since the Cold War.