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.
Putin has declared that his “special operation” continues until all the goals have been met, and the goals are “demilitarisation, denazification and Ukraine’s neutrality”. The first two don’t mean anything, and Ukraine doesn’t want to do the third one. So if this stubborness continues, I cannot see any other way forward except “beat Russia”.
Oh yeah, and I’d imagine if something like NATO decided to take that path forward in the future, it would probably be possible to beat Russia by killing Russians. I also imagine it would be relatively quick tbh.
But for humanities sake, I hope they can put together a better, more surgical way to remove the cancer from Russia.