Ukrainian military personnel on the Kurakhove front report that troop numbers have been drastically reduced — a setback more severe than the pressing need for additional weapons
I don’t quite understand the downvotes. Ukraine needs more soldiers, doesn’t it?
Russia has no regulations whom to send in battle and how many.
Ignoring the problem does not make it better.
Not only Ukraine, Russia is also hurting badly for new recruits. The people on the front for Russia come mostly from impoverished rural areas and they’re running out of cannon fodder from the farms. Ukraine is racking up the body count, sometimes thousands per day.
After putin’s last “reelection” he refused to expand his mobilization as he doesn’t want to dip into the urban centers around St. Pete and Moscow. Putin is a maniac but he understands his support lies with his oligarchs and is centered mostly in urban areas. If he starts pulling people from the street in Moscow and St. Petersburg his support will errode and his power will be compromised.
Putin is a coward. He doesn’t want to get pushed out a window himself so he needs to keep his rich patrons relatively happy. Conscripting the urban elite doesn’t align with his strategy, risks compromising his support, and could ultimately lead to his downfall.
That said even the urban elite are growing suspicious of the regime. Drone attacks in your capital will do that to you. Some of his mercenary units have also started showing signs of discontent. Puttie is walking a thin line and is in desperate need of new recruits as the recent news from DPRK highlights. Hopefully this thin line leads to his death, very soon.
People don’t want to hear that Ukraine will lose with the current level of support. Trinkets in the form of fancy weapons every couple of months do not win attritional war fought with men and artillery.
This is not Hearts of Iron IV or something alike. The pure size of an army or population is not a relevant stat when trying to predict the outcome of a war. Superiority of equipment, training, strategies, logistics, supplies etc are all far more decisive.
Equipment is absolutely important. But I’d say this fact underscores the importance of sending good equipment and weapons to Ukraine, and allow Ukraine to use it in the most effective way - and thus not having to sacrifice everyone to the meat grinder.
That it’s not a video game means also that you can’t so easily refute the entire thesis and approach of the linked article by appealing to some kind of simplistic ideal model of warfare where morale and recruitment do not matter at all to an army. Conscripting the unwilling has its costs, and here we have one attempt to describe how some of it is playing out on the Ukrainian side.
Don’t judge things just from the headlines, lemmy. It’s a bad habit. This reporting is credible enough, and El País a sufficiently respectable publication, that it deserves better than that.
Of course it isn’t the only criteria. Nevertheless Ukraine needs more soldiers, superior equipment doesn’t help you to win a war if there’s no one to use it or to few to use all of it.
And superior equipment would save the lives of ukrainian soldiers so fewer would be needed to fight back Russia. So the conclusion should be to supply Ukraine with what it needs.
However, you said
Russia has no regulations whom to send in battle and how many.
I don’t quite understand the downvotes. Ukraine needs more soldiers, doesn’t it? Russia has no regulations whom to send in battle and how many. Ignoring the problem does not make it better.
Not only Ukraine, Russia is also hurting badly for new recruits. The people on the front for Russia come mostly from impoverished rural areas and they’re running out of cannon fodder from the farms. Ukraine is racking up the body count, sometimes thousands per day.
After putin’s last “reelection” he refused to expand his mobilization as he doesn’t want to dip into the urban centers around St. Pete and Moscow. Putin is a maniac but he understands his support lies with his oligarchs and is centered mostly in urban areas. If he starts pulling people from the street in Moscow and St. Petersburg his support will errode and his power will be compromised.
Putin is a coward. He doesn’t want to get pushed out a window himself so he needs to keep his rich patrons relatively happy. Conscripting the urban elite doesn’t align with his strategy, risks compromising his support, and could ultimately lead to his downfall.
That said even the urban elite are growing suspicious of the regime. Drone attacks in your capital will do that to you. Some of his mercenary units have also started showing signs of discontent. Puttie is walking a thin line and is in desperate need of new recruits as the recent news from DPRK highlights. Hopefully this thin line leads to his death, very soon.
People don’t want to hear that Ukraine will lose with the current level of support. Trinkets in the form of fancy weapons every couple of months do not win attritional war fought with men and artillery.
This is not Hearts of Iron IV or something alike. The pure size of an army or population is not a relevant stat when trying to predict the outcome of a war. Superiority of equipment, training, strategies, logistics, supplies etc are all far more decisive.
Equipment is absolutely important. But I’d say this fact underscores the importance of sending good equipment and weapons to Ukraine, and allow Ukraine to use it in the most effective way - and thus not having to sacrifice everyone to the meat grinder.
That is trivial, I thought.
That it’s not a video game means also that you can’t so easily refute the entire thesis and approach of the linked article by appealing to some kind of simplistic ideal model of warfare where morale and recruitment do not matter at all to an army. Conscripting the unwilling has its costs, and here we have one attempt to describe how some of it is playing out on the Ukrainian side.
Don’t judge things just from the headlines, lemmy. It’s a bad habit. This reporting is credible enough, and El País a sufficiently respectable publication, that it deserves better than that.
Of course it isn’t the only criteria. Nevertheless Ukraine needs more soldiers, superior equipment doesn’t help you to win a war if there’s no one to use it or to few to use all of it.
And superior equipment would save the lives of ukrainian soldiers so fewer would be needed to fight back Russia. So the conclusion should be to supply Ukraine with what it needs.
However, you said
and that simply doesn’t matter as much.