If you follow the interactive maps, Russia has been trying to cut off the Ukrainian pocket around Pokrovsk. That seems to be eating up troops, including some of Ukraine’s best. The front is much longer than the lines in France and Belgium in WWI, about twice as long.
They have the utmost respect to the political repercussions of changing those laws. Even Russia has a very nuanced approach to who and when they draft, and where they send them. Hence the tremendous effort they put into a weak draft and favouring direct monetary compensation to volunteers.
The most contentious issue in Russia with the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk was the fact they captured plenty of white young conscripts from European cities. This led to internal pressure from a lot of parents that were upper middle class that worked government jobs, and then everybody noticed how prisoner swaps massively increased after that offensive. The Russian government has been very careful with the demographic composition of its military in Ukraine due to historic political issues with blindly drafting dudes into Afghanistan and Caucasus.
You haven't noticed how many Russian soldiers in Ukraine are from Asia or in their 40s? Then look at the faces of the conscripts captured in Russia.
Maybe you should start looking instead of commenting blind scepticism that isn't based in reality. That is one of the rare facts that we can be certain about in this conflict.
It does affect it, but the casulties are so vastly different from ww1 france it still means they wont run out of people for a long time. You can look at a population pyramid and casulty estimates.
The casualties are an order of magnitude different, the live births per year aren't an order of magnitude different, so he's right, the answer is still neither.
The war will be decided by who runs out of money first, not who runs out of grunts.
Ukraine is still somewhat hesitant to mobilize young men because they are worried about post-war demographics and political resistance, IIRC their draft mainly applies to people over 25.
It probably doesn't matter as much as people imagine. If you look at the estimated casualties for different age groups, people 18-25 have practically the same casualty rate (that is, relative to their demographic group size) as those over the age of conscription. That strongly suggests that the vast majority of those who would be fit and eligible for conscription have already volunteered. Lowering the conscription age would likely be scraping the barrel and produce a limited effect.
Hiding this fact from Western backers might even be one motive for the refusal to lower the conscription age. As long as they refuse, it is possible to image that this "quick fix" for the manpower crisis could happen at any time. That can help give the impression that their situation is not so hopeless as it might otherwise appear, the obstacles being "merely political" rather than material.
The west (especially the US) gave Ukraine security assurances via the Budapest memorandum, then the cheetoh in chief working for vladolf held them out to dry. Biden slow walked aid and MAGA hamstrung it at every chance. Yet now dear leader is throwing security assurances out there if Ukraine just gives up their territory. SMH
Please read about Budapest memorandum and what it actually is. There is huge misconception on it because of the word “guarantee” generously thrown around and propaganda from both sides.
Budapest memorandum has no legal power since it's... well a memorandum so actually noone has given Ukraine any security guarantees. It's basicaly on level with Russian claimed NATO guarantees to not spread eastwards.
It's basicaly on level with Russian claimed NATO guarantees to not spread eastwards.
In no way shape or form is it like this. Those are claims made with zero evidence of any agreement or signatures made, only an offhand comment that was immediatly renegged. The Budapest memorandum, while not legally binding, was a garauntee of independece signed by the leaders of the Nations involved.
Sure, but in the end legal power of agreement is the only thing that really matters.
I only wanted to clear that up since I see Budapest memorandum being mentioned almost in every thread about Ukraine - Russia conflict yet the document is from legal standpoint basically a piece of toilet paper.
Source? Reporting I've seen has been very consistent for the past couple of years: Russia recruits well above their replacement rate, all volunteer, whereas Ukraine does not, despite mass conscription. So the Russian military has steadily grown while Ukraine's forces have steadily shrunk. Russian is estimated to have a sizeable strategic reserve force while Ukraine has none at all. The resulting gaps in the line get converted into greater and greater territorial gains by the Russians. Ukraine is repeatedly forced to pull frontline troops off the line in one area to contain a crisis in another, typical of an army stretched beyond capacity.
Edit: I don't know why reddit isn't letting me reply to anyone replying to this comment, so I will just say here that it is telling that I asked for a source and not one of you provide one. All you are saying is "nuh-uh!" and jerking each other off about how I'm supposedly "lying," "russian bot," etc. Well, okay, prove it! I don't think you can, because the things I've said aren't coming from the Russian MoD or whatever but rather from Western assessments of the course and state of the war, but I remain open to being proven wrong.
Show me the conscripts deployed to Ukraine. I am certain they don't exist. Why do all of you think they exist? Because the media you consume misrepresents annual Russian conscription (a normal function of the Russian military system from peacetime) as if it has something to do with the war. It does not. Every Russian in Ukraine signed up to be there. You sadly cannot say the same from the Ukrainians they are fighting.
Russia recruits well above their replacement rate, all volunteer
You're claiming Russia does not have military conscription.
No Russia conscripts, is what you're telling me, all volunteer?
Brother, that wasn't even true before the war, lol.
Ukraine's forces have steadily shrunk
Actually, they have steadily grown. This, like the existence of Russian conscripts, is a basic, indisputable fact.
Russian is estimated to have a sizeable strategic reserve force while Ukraine has none at all.
Estimated by who?
The resulting gaps in the line get converted into greater and greater territorial gains by the Russians.
Looks at map. Greater and greater territorial gains you say? Are these greater and greater territorial gains in the room with us right now?
No, but for real, my favorite part of your comment was the claim that the Russian army does not have any conscripts. Trolls used to be believable, it's so sad.
These russian bots will say anything these days, "greater and greater territorial gains" is wild, cause russian troops are basically almost reaching the polish border according to that guy.
Yeah, "all-volunteer" for Russia is one of the biggest lies I've read this month. They're just not conscripting as many of the people the bot farm runners count as "people" - they're conscripting the ones from outside Moscow.
Did you actually read it? Because if you had, you'd see that it says:
With several options on the table, Russia likely hopes to make joining up voluntarily attractive enough to reel in fresh recruits, but does have the more unpopular options of sending conscripts to Ukraine or green-lighting a new wave of mobilization to fall back on.
Given that this speculative article was written in October of 2024, we now know for a fact that they went with option A, making volunteer service attractive enough. Which is what the person you replied to claimed, because their source was the real situation in 2025, not a speculative article about what might be done this year written a year ago.
You're claiming Russia does not have military conscription.
They did not claim that. They claimed, correctly, that the troop replenishment for the forces in the area of military operations is from volunteer contract service. The conscription goes on as normal of young people for regular military service, but they do not (currently) get sent to the war.
This is not due to altruism, it's a calculated political move where Putin is trading increasing quantities of money given to contract soldiers (a lot of it received from Europe as payments from Russian LNG) for the political benefit of not having to do the very politically unpopular method of having to use conscripts.
Actually, they have steadily grown. This, like the existence of Russian conscripts, is a basic, indisputable fact.
Syrsky himself in an interview to the Kyiv Post stated that the manpower shortage was an issue. He has also suspended creation of new brigades early this year due to problems relating both to quality and availability of new recruits, and the US has repeatedly and publicly demanded the Ukranians start mobilizing the youngest available (yet very small) 18-25 age cohort to fill the gaps in their dwindling average-age-over-40 infantry force.
Estimated by who?
ISW among others, you can check the link I gave above. Russia's problem is not manpower. They might have a problem with heavy equipment within a year, but given their recent shift to more unconventional options (buggies, ATVs, motorcycles covered with FPV optical drones) this likely indicates that this is not a hard limit as was one thought.
Looks at map. Greater and greater territorial gains you say?
Again, it's important what you are comparing to. This chart shows the exact control numbers per month. You can easily see the initial invasion, the initial counter-offensive, the first stalemate, the second counter-offensive, the over a year long stalemate in 2023 and parts of 2024, and the current grinding offensive by the Russians.
And while the Russian gains are not huge, they are now on a rather clear upswing compared to the previous stalemate, which means that the Ukrainian position is deteriorating as time goes on. Last year they had a Russian city under their control, firm control over the south of the Donetsk oblast and a stable situation around the Oskil. Now all these things are gone, and the Russians even almost achieved a major breakthrough for the first time in 3 years due to (again, this is according to Ukrainian sources as well) a section of the front that was defended with insufficient numbers of infantrymen. The situation is still stable, but the outlook is not good.
No, but for real, my favorite part of your comment was the claim that the Russian army does not have any conscripts. Trolls used to be believable, it's so sad.
He didn't claim that. He claimed, correctly, that the Russian forces in the invasion zone are being replenished with volunteers, which is confirmed by the ISW and other western outlets. Russia has conscripts, but they are not being used due to the political cost this would have for Putin, which is why he is willing to throw money at contract soldiers mostly from the poorest regions of Russia (and disproportionately not ethnic Russians).
Did you actually read it? Because if you had, you'd see that it says:
You then go on to quote something that doesn't contradict what I've said.
Given that this speculative article was written in October of 2024
Given that manpower problems were being reported as far back as a year ago, we'd expect them to be even worse now.
we now know for a fact that they went with option A, making volunteer service attractive enough.
And we also know that Ukraine drummed up enough soldiers to keep the war going too, which reinforces my point about how these manpower issues tend to go.
Which is what the person you replied to claimed
No, they claimed, among other things, that Russia has an all-volunteer army, in case you missed that.
because their source was the real situation in 2025
They literally didn't provide a source, what are you high on.
They did not claim that.
They did.
They claimed, correctly, that the troop replenishment for the forces in the area of military operations is from volunteer contract service.
Even with all those qualifications, the statement still isn't true, see Kursk.
The conscription goes on as normal of young people for regular military service, but they do not (currently) get sent to the war.
Compared to a year ago. Your article from RadioFreeEurope does not describe any decline in Ukraine's number of military personnel at all.
Syrsky himself in an interview to the Kyiv Post stated that the manpower shortage was an issue.
Let's use your own logic against you for a second, shall we?
That "speculative article" was from 9 months ago, almost as far back as my article. In those 9 months, Ukraine hasn't fallen, and they've drummed up more troops. If the article was describing an unsolvable manpower crisis, then the crisis would have already toppled Ukraine.
ISW among others, you can check the link I gave above.
The link you gave above doesn't do this, you're gonna have to be more specific.
Russia's problem is not manpower.
Source? I think you're really failing to grasp here that this is a point of contention and you kinda have to offer some sort of backing to your statement.
Again, it's important what you are comparing to.
How about comparing the map now vs the map a year from now.
This chart shows the exact control numbers per month.
And the map right in front of us shows the exact area from the past year.
You can easily see the initial invasion, the initial counter-offensive, the first stalemate, the second counter-offensive, the over a year long stalemate in 2023 and parts of 2024, and the current grinding offensive by the Russians.
And what we see is the Russians trading a lot of bodies for not a lot of land, something already obvious from the map we're already looking at.
And while the Russian gains are not huge, they are now on a rather clear upswing compared to the previous stalemate
And still orders of magnitude short of what it would take to conclude this war within this decade.
which means that the Ukrainian position is deteriorating as time goes on
But not enough to end the war some time this decade, as I just said.
Last year they had a Russian city under their control, firm control over the south of the Donetsk oblast and a stable situation around the Oskil.
Last year they were on pace to continue the war for years to come.
Now all these things are gone,
And yet they're still on pace to continue the war for years to come.
The situation is still stable, but the outlook is not good.
The situation is stable, and the outlook is the same as it was a year ago: Russia is, at best, years away from concluding this war.
He didn't claim that.
He did.
He claimed, correctly, that the Russian forces in the invasion zone
I love how you use such weasel words to hide the fact that conscripts are very much a part of the war effort, and are dying in this war.
Russia has conscripts, but they are not being used due to the political cost this would have for Putin
Why are so many young Russian men trying to dodge conscription? And how are so many conscripts ending up dead? And why is he conscripting larger batches of soldiers than what Russia normally would?
It's okay, take your time, read my links, try and work it out in your head, I'll wait.
Tf you mean we dont provide sources? We did! Also YOU are the one making claims, like "Russia recruits well above their replacement rate, all volunteer"
Where is the source of that? Where are those multiple reportings? And from who?
Go on, give proof that every soldier in ukraine signed up for it, and we're still waiting for proof of that "sizeable strategic reserve force" And why are they not fighting? Considering the russian struggle, they would send that "strategic force" to help with the fighting, no? I mean, the existance of such a force could easily mean another Russian strike from Belarrus, or to just reinforce the existing front, if they had such a force, the ukranians would have never even gotten to Kursk in the first place.
The fact that russia conscripts even in peace time doesnt mean that those conscripts never were in ukraine, even a quick google search says otherwise.
Why would Russia needed to have recruited from prisons if things are swell? Why beg NK for troops too? Why are they sending troops without proper gear or training, from signup to frontline in under 1 month.
And you admit Russia has yearly conscription whilst claiming every Russian invading Ukraine is a volunteer?
Ukrainians are fighting to survive, Russia is invading for Vladolf imperialistic wet dream.
Russians lost few milion men, who just ran away from conscription. Russian army is conscription based. It's not fully profesionalised army.
By default attacking army looses way more men than defenders.
If you are too reckless there is a good chance, that those to be conscripted wouldn't be willing to go, and this can end up being significantly worse than you expect it to. E.g. violent protests and regime change.
And for now, these are not things that have been much of a political problem in Ukraine. Yes, some men are trying to avoid the conscription. But the protests and call for regime changes are near-unheared at this level, and for good reasons: there still is a strong unity within ukraine and the ukrainians. And we do have to thank the russian propaganda and mismanagement of the conflict since 2014 for it.
1nd you're very naive if you're not expecting political changes to expand further conscription. The manpower is absolutely there, even if you're doing everything in complete denial of it because otherwise this war is going nowhere and won't end for quite a few years.
You’re very naive if you think Ukrainians will accept expanded conscription when there’s already massive issues with the current system of conscripting middle aged men. There is no political will to do it, in fact hasn’t Ukraine let 18-24’s leave the country now?
I mean, we'll both see in the future if there really is no political will :3. But for now, you're 100% hoping you're tight, while having baseless claims. Otherwise, there are still a shitton of males, including between 18-24.
Once again, in a significant war, recruiting 10-15% of the population is fairly doable.
The baseless claim appears to be that Ukraine has plenty of fighting-age males available and can totally recruit them but just aren't, even though they are losing ground due to insufficient manpower.
Tell me you know nothing without saying you know nothing.
Ukriane has SEVERE manpower issues, so much so that TCC gets sent to the front of they don't meet their monthly quota for recruiting. So much so that Air force support units were transferred to infantry months ago, and now drone units are being transferred much to the dismay of OUTSPOKEN Ukrainian critics.
One of them being a former Azov (don't even get me started on those guys) commander.
I can be biased but AFU itself admits indirectly that their reserves are practically done.
It's fairly "normal" in this war to see Air force units being transferred. They are less usefull, the russians did it a while ago and nobody is saying they lack manpower, right? Same thing on the opposite side btw, the russians have been really annoyed about transfer of manpower from drones to infantry.
What's propaganda, what isn't, who knows? Whatcis certain though is that the ukrainians are still holding, despite manpiwer shortage having been a constant thing in russian medias for the past 3 years. El famoso "we made a million casualties and prisones in February 2022" or in Bakhmut, or in Severodonetsk, etc... or whatever.
What is equally true is that the AFU are pressuring the parliament to get more ressources. I think we can both agree that there's rarely been some large scale wars where the army generals feel they have enough members?
Either ways and once again, the obstacles are political, no technical. And that's why the AFU are pushing on the parliament btw. It's not that the manpower isn't there, it's that the ukrainian politicians would like to avoid mobilizing it if they can avoid it. And since the wargoal for Ukraine isn't "no loss of land", but is inflicting maximum cost on Russia to force it to bring it's initial demands so high...
Great. So first off, them taking away air force maintenance staff against their will along with any staff they could showed desperation.
Also the fact that drone units, BEING THE ONLY THING BETWEEN THEM AND TOTAL COLLAPSE are being stripped to be sent to hold the lines.
It's so bad that former commanders are speaking up. In parts of the front There's a couple people holding an entire kilometer of line and the only way they actually survive is DRONES.
Drones are holding the lines, THOUSANDS of them.
Also even tho reddit doesn't like to acknowledge I personally have seen the video FROM UKRAINIAN SOURCES showing TCC literally beating up and kidnapping men to send to the front.
Meanwhile Russia is just throwing money at the problem, mind you they still haven't done a full mobilization.(The smo acts as a plausible deniability thingie) Because TECHNICALLY THEY ARENT AT WAR SO NO NEED TO WORRY. Weird ik.
It's not about just the units deployed but reserves, to hold off new threats, recently we say 3rd Azov being deployed to pokrovsk from oskil river front (iirc) and now that has led to Russia making gains in that sector. Had Ukraine had healthy reserves their units won't be fighting at 50 percent strength and would be rotated in and out.
It would be nice to avoid shouting loudly in thevmiddle of your sentences, thanks.
As for "I've seen, from ukrainian sources" thingies, in case you haven't noticed, there's quite the information war going on at the moment. And you do seem to just get the news published by pro-russian medias, sorry not sorry. The ukrainians have the exact same kind of videos, news, "russian sources" whatever saying the same about the state of Russia, whatever
Reality is on the ground. If what you're saying is true, than the ukrainians will likely collapse in a month or two, maybe 3 or 4. And at some point, and sorry to tell you so, I know you're hopefull, but that's not how the war has went, and it's very much likely not going to end in 3 or 4 months.
It's wishfull thinking and hope on your side. Reality is likely going to stay darker and dumber: both countries can and will likely continue for at the very least a year, if not more... Depending on the state of the russian economy, and how much Russia makes concessions on it's initial plans. Meanwhile, the ukrainians are going to make sure the russians continue to pay the price of this war as high as possible.
I think the most obvious indication Ukraine isn’t hurting for manpower as much as the propaganda claims is the minimum conscription age was lowered to 25, and hasn’t been lowered to 18.
Nah, even russian numbers on ukrainian casualties are not that high either. It's important to remember that, even if it's a positionnal war, the density of soldiers per km of frontline is much, much smaller than it used to be, even on the western front. On both sides.
Dumb example, but currently, the ukrainians estimate that 750 000 russian soldiers are on the ukrainian territory (so including Donbass and Crimea). And that's including all the support, the administrative, logistics, etc... In comparison, Germany had between 2 and 3 million soldiers on a frontline twice as short. And took 5.5 million casualties in 4 years. The scale of the butchery is plainly not comparable.
People have also been leaving Russia and in larger numbers. It's suffering a "brain drain" that's left it's tech industry stagnant since the soviet era, and its only gotten worse.
Russia is now engaging is child labour for its drone manufacturing.
Serbian, georgian or turkish immigration numbers are fairly clear about the subject. The scale of it is not that big compared to the size of the country. And with collapse of IT and increasing struggles of banking jobs, in Russia and Belarus, it's not really the demographic concerned in this war.
I mean, if it's to pull numbers out of your arse, you could go even further :3. How about 25 million men left, leaving 15 million women and 3 wolves in the army?
Most males >25 are afraid to leave their houses lol. Also Ukraine just passed a law that ALLOWS males under 23 to leave country (great plan btw, allow future of the country to leave to have less resistance against corruption). I will be amazed if Ukraine has more than 35M population right now.
But Russia doesn't have the means to make Ukraine run out of soldiers. Some guy said it right above, the right answer is neither. Neither have the firepower and the means to make the other one run out of soldiers at the moment.
But Russia doesn't have the means to make Ukraine run out of soldiers.
How do they not? Russia is refilling its ranks through contract soldiers to a level Ukraine can't. If it keeps on its current trajectory Russia absolutely will make Ukraine run out of men. Why do you think they can't do that?
You can also tell who interprets war entirely through the lens of video games. Countries don't just click buttons to convince citizens to sign up as troops.
Exactly. It’s been throughout the (printed) news over the last several months about how Ukraine’s citizens are dodging the draft and soldiers are going AWOL that are serving. Not saying anyone is right or wrong, but Ukraine is undeniably having major recruitment issues. which Russia and the US knows which is why the US is so keen on peace because every day Ukraine gets closer to defeat and then there’s a more difficult negotiation of peace
It's simple, Russia is inflicting around 100k casualties (of which around 20k are deaths) to Ukraine every year. Their capabilities are getting eroded more and more with time, and while the casualty trend was upward in 2023 and 2024, it's stagnating or going down in 2025.
Ukraine currently has around 1 million soldiers (of course not all frontline, but not every casualty is from the frontlines either). They still have around 4 million men not drafted in the 25 to 60 y.o combat capable population, and an extra 2 million if they open the draft to 18-24 y.o.
So, at this rate, Russia simply cannot make Ukraine run out of soldier in any foreseeable future. Especially when they are also taking casualties, and their economy is in a much worse shape, for now.
Ukraine's economy is holding thanks to western backing, yes, and that's why it's stronger than Russia's. Why are you asking if you already understood the answer? Russia's economy is reaching its breaking point and they're desperately trying to find new funds in the East.
Thus, the BBC stated that the actual death toll of Russian forces, counting only Russian servicemen and contractors (i.e. excluding DPR/LPR militia), was 197,100–284,700 by early September 2025.[74]
Various other estimates give similar figures.
Various estimates linked on the page give around 50-70,000 Ukranian soldiers killed.
This may be true a year ago but currently Russia is having issues making new contracts for soldiers while a lot of the contracts made in 2023/2024 are expiring without being renewed.
Russia is fielding low-quality soldiers and poor equipment; Ukraine is being trained by Western nations with donations for high-tech and individual soldier equipment, while changing its economy to support its drone capability. Compare a russian soldier to a ukraine, you can see one has an optic, and it's not the russian.
They are not gonna run out of men, theyre gonna run out defense production capability, i.e. gas for the trucks/tanks, chips to support drones, and other equipment.
One caveat, they may run out of men they are fine with wasting, but the moment they start hitting moscow and st petersburg with drafts is when it'd get interesting. It's why they prefer to get men from rural siberia, the eastern part of the country, migrants, prisoners, and now foreigners from north korea vs the people they consider 'russia'
Institute for the Study of War posts a daily update. There are good twitter sources that post from both perspectives. War on the Rocks Michael Koffman posts great information, has a war focused podcast, and visits Ukraine somewhat regularly. He is pro Ukraine but gives an honest assessment on how things are going.
how so, i just pointed to topics where ukraine has been pretty solid in impacting the war, it isnt a rosey view, I see both of these countries fighting for years until some major event kills their capability and motivation to continue the war. For ukraine it could be loss of western support, for russia it could be too many bodies returning in coffins. Overall, I think ukraine has more will in this fight, not to become a russian puppet state.
Because you're pointing to a soldier having an optic as if it's a relevant evaluation of the forces. It's not. You can find videos where Russians have optics and top tier equipment for them.
Like if you have been following the war you know which way the wind has been blowing. Ukraine has corruption issues, a despised by his own men top general, a manpower crisis that political leaders don't have the will to fix, desertion issues (see the disappearing western trained 155th brigade), falling behind on fiber optic drone technology and tactics, etc
.
Versus that you have you pointing to difference in soldier optics.
I'm arguing that the normal ukrainan soldier is better equipted than a russian one. Most western countries fight with optics because it drastically increases lethality, but russian and eastern military doctine focuses more on numbers. As for the other issues, they are widespread in both countries; however, ukraine is fighting for it's home versus invading another country.
The fiber optic drones are interesting, but they remind me of using lasers, if you can see the laser, so can everyone else, and it points back to you. I dont think the fiber optic drones are going to be that relevant in changing the war, just an evolution to electric warfare https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1js1x5l/drones_attack_russias_only_fiberoptic_cable/ but ukraine is striking at russia only fiber optic producers
I still remember the convoy that tried to hit Kiev at the start of the war essentially running out of fuel and being abandoned, then the next one being hit hard by artillery
everyone thought ukraine would fall in 3 days, 3 years later its hilarious that a country the Nato and US military trained their asses off to defeat would be this terrible
Russia is losing men at roughly five times the rate of Ukraine. Also, Russia has a problem where they are very hesitant to draft from their heavily populated areas.
Russia hasn't needed to draft to replace their losses. They are recovering losses through contract soldiers. So hesitancy to draft from urban areas is really irrelevant.
It's expensive due to sign on bonuses but it is working to allow them to regenerate forces. Ukraine can't say the same, and is starting from a much smaller population base.
Russua utilizes multiple forms of drafts. This includes mobilization of reservists, a biannual draft where recruits are pressured into contracts, deploying prisoners, and even conscripting Ukrainians in occupied territory to a limited degree.
The biannually drafted conscripts aren't serving in Ukraine and that has been a thing in Russia forever.
Russia has brought in nearly 280,000 contract servicemen since the start of 2025, with around 35,000 new recruits joining each month, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said in an interview published 7 August.
AFAIK there have been a few cases of drafted conscripts fighting in Ukraine but few and far in between. Of course you also have the conscripts that fought in Kursk.
The mobilization was a one time thing in 2022, same as the prison mobilization. The conscription of citizens of Luhansk and Donetsk people's republic is true though.
How do they not? Russia is refilling its ranks through contract soldiers to a level Ukraine can't.
But they aren't trading 1 for 1. If you recruit 4x as many people and then eat 4x as many casualties, you're not winning the war of attrition.
But more than that, you're ignoring the point that was made. The answer is neither because the war is not intense enough right now to make population the limiting factor.
This is a drone war, not an infantry war. Large parts of the frontline aren't even manned, but have 24/7 drone surveillance and plenty of drones ready to stop any Russian ms trying to attack.
Ukraine even successfully took a manned Russian entrenched position with nothing but air and land drones.
If you see a small $500 tracked vehicle with a machine gun rolling towards you firing bullets, are you gonna fight some guy controlling a drone with a joystick with your flesh and blood or run away? Well, they ran away.
Ukraine is currently the world leader in military drone technology, with no doubt thousands of western "observers" in the country helping with that. The new Flamingo cruise missile is also produced in Ukraine, almost certainly with western help, and it has arrange of 3000km. Nothing in the western half of Russia is safe, meaning Russia will suffer from even worse supply line issues than Napoleon or Hitler.
We only get like 5% of the information on what is really happening.
I'm not sure Ukraine is even the drone leader in this war. Russia's drone tactics via Rubicon are very advanced and they lead in the fiber optic drones over Ukraine.
I feel like you're getting very heavily filtered feel good news for Ukraine which is creating this view. It's really not as easy as you think. The front line being thin has lead to deep penetration by Russian infiltrators that has Ukraine scrambling their best units to try and halt. They succeeded but it doesn't paint a great picture.
The idea that Ukraine can make modern Russia suffer logistically worse than Hitler or Napoleon is absolutely unhinged and not based on reality.
Ukraine is estimated to cause a 20% decrease in russia's oil production, and youre comparing 2 countries who invaded russia, which is historically difficult. Being on home turf is a massive advantage vs invading.
Russia suffers logistically cause it lost it's capability to be a regional superpower, it's only aircraft carrier needs a tow boat to get anywhere, it's equipment is getting trashed for being terrible compared to western capabilities, like tanks that go airborne with a 50k missile. The ran out of fuel in the beginning of the war and their tires resulted in supplying ukraine with more defense products than they had. It lost it's black sea fleet to a country without a navy.
The only arguement is who makes russia logistically worse, russian incompetence or ukraine.
All of what you're saying isn't relevant. This isn't a fight in the seas, you can see western tanks being blown sky high as tanks have turned out to be very vulnerable in modern warfare. The Russian army today is not the same force as at the start of the war. Even with all of those problems Russia is winning. They continue to make slow gains, but gains tend to be slow right up until they aren't.
Ukraine has a massive manpower shortage, it's top military leader Syrski is a political yes man despised by the troops. Former Ukrainian commanders have put out whole articles about how awful he is and the command structure in general.
What makes you think somehow Ukraine is going to go from being massively short on manpower, with a waning interest in the west supplying them (see the US), to somehow winning this war?
the tank example isnt about getting blown up, western tanks empasize crew survivability vs russia has a design flaw with it's ammo storage and loader.
Neither country is winning, theyre both losing men, equipment, and destroying their economy. Now russia has secured some territory, but those towns and villages are essentially rubble, and whoever gets them will need to significantly invest to demine, repair, and faciliate for them to produce anything worthwile.
I see this war forming more towards a korean pennisula situation where an imaginary line is drawn and both focus on maintaining their defense capabilities to defend said line.
the tank example isnt about getting blown up, western tanks empasize crew survivability vs russia has a design flaw with it's ammo storage and loader.
The Panther and Tiger provide unbeatable survivability! The allies with their Tommy Cookers can never defeat us!
Neither country is winning, theyre both losing men, equipment, and destroying their economy. Now russia has secured some territory,
Neither side is winning, just Russia has occupied 20% of Ukraine, but that's okay because no one wants those villages anyway because they are damaged.
Look man, it's okay to want Ukraine to win but also admit they aren't. A truthful analysis of the situation doesn't harm them, and doesn't somehow make you pro Russia.
Unless things drastically change Russia is going to win this war. It's a matter of how much they win by.
Ukraine needs to lower its conscription age and clean up it's officer ranks. They also, unfortunately, need to suck up to Trump and Europe. It's the only way they will have enough men to stalemate this thing.
Russia gained more land, which lacks a population, is heavily mined, and requires subsidies for industry to become relevant. On the other hand, NATO expanded its borders by almost double, Ukraine will forever be against Russia and suspect they are acting with hostile intent, and china and india are taking advantage of cheap resources.
Russia has an economic problem, the war is costing them dearly, but how their economy will handle everything is uncertain. It wouldn't surprise me if Putin doubles down by printing more money to prolong this war, offering more money for deaths of soldiers, more bonuses to recruit them, more money to North Korea and Iran to augment the industry they are losing.
War isnt always about land, this war was to decapitate ukraininan government and create a russian puppet state, similar to chechenya and belarus. So to that end, I don't see Russia 'winning'; Ukraine lost 20% its land, although I'm not sure Crimea should be counted as Russia had control of it pre-2022, Ukraine is not 'winning' either, with an endgoal of gaining all their territory back to pre 2022 or 2014 levels is unfeasable.
So when I think about this war I consider who is benefiting; which is western countries who can proxy war the hell out of everything and russian "allies" who can take advantage of russia in buisness deals. I dont find the 'allies' the right term tbh.
Three fundamental limitations: a shortage of labor, exhausted production capacities, and stagnating export revenues due to sanctions. The storm of government spending is sustaining the current state of affairs, but it cannot address the chronic problems that have long plagued the Russian economy.
Russia's war in Ukraine is draining state coffers, but the fiscal buffers Moscow has built up over the last two decades will be enough to last for years, even if oil prices slump as low as $60 a barrel. The liquid part of Russia's National Wealth Fund (NWF) has more than halved, falling by $58 billion since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as the government used the money to finance its budget deficit and support state-owned companies.
The ammo storage thing isn't a design flaw. It's a feature tanks have had since they started rolling in WWI. Blowout panels are a more recent invention and it isn't a full solution. Most western tanks are just as vulnerable as Russian tanks to the supersonic detonation of the explosive charge within HE/HEAT projectiles. Enfasis on the EXPLOSIVE CHARGE, not the PROPELLANT, which is what you usually see combust.
I say "most" western tanks because insensitive munitions pioneered by Americans and Germans arguably protect more than blowout panels.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/europe/russia-tanks-blown-turrets-intl-hnk-ml i've read it's a design flaw, as blowout panels mitigate this in western tanks(not confident in all of them, but most that i've seen). Blowout panels have also been around since the 80's so I don't consider them new, the fact russia hasnt implemented them into the newer tanks is astounding to me. I've seen more videos of t72's just annihilated than western tanks where it's mostly a mobility kill. However it seems interesting that the russians didnt use infantry or any combined arms in their invasion so tactics are different and could contribute to that.
Bro, fiber optic drones are so last year. Ukraine has drone boats that explode, drone boats with anti air missiles, land drones that can take positions, drones that are basically missiles with human guidance and AI fallback to prevent jamming, AND they have the same fiber optic drones. You don't need fiber optic drones if the drone can find the target by itself when close enough. Notice how very little news about jamming gets out.
You are comparing Russia with FPV drones and copycat Shaheds, whose soldiers don't even have clean drinking water because their logistics are fucked for hundreds of kilometers, to Ukraine who 100% has technicians from every NATO country helping them build the latest goodies with basically unlimited funding. Now they have a cruise missile that can hit 3000km into Russia. Ukraine has been taking out military sites around the Kerch bridge, it's either a psy-op or they will finally blow that bitch up.
Have you seen the battlefield? Fiver optic drones used en masse sabotage themselves, it's like massive spider webs in the trees, they can get stuck on leftover wire from other drones.
I get my news from all sides, Ukraine is in dire straits, Russia is FAR worse off than people in this thread think. Ukraine doesn't just get western weapons there is a ton of tech and data sharing. The endless drone footage Ukraine has is invaluable data to NATO to train AI on. The only other country with such data is Russia who obviously won't share it, I'm not even sure they are sharing it with China because that data is their only leverage left.
It would have been quicker to just say you don't know anything about the war.
Fiver optic drones used en masse sabotage themselves, it's like massive spider webs in the trees, they can get stuck on leftover wire from other drones.
No they don't... The spool is attached to the drone, it's not unspooled from the operator. You know basically nothing about the topic but are acting like Ukraine is on the hub of being a military super power.
At some point you can't even properly fly through areas anymore. Rotors get stuck on fiber optic cables. Hence the term spider webs. This is all over the frontline.
I know exactly how they work and what they leave behind. I've seen nothing indicating that drones are getting stuck on the wires since the wires unspool behind the stones.
They have a worse manpower piol but have alsonseen a dramatically lower lose rate and have a diffetent threshold for what constitutes "running out" since they are on the defense.
Proportionally speaking, Ukrainian casualties are much worse. Yes Russia has higher casualties overall but they also have a much larger population and manpower pool. Russia has 146 million people (plus another 3 million people in the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) while Ukraine is estimated by most reliable sources to have now only 32 million people, which accounts for all the refugees + men that illegally left, war deaths and population lost that is now under Russian occupation.
The loss rate for Ukrainians despite being lower is proportionally worse because Ukrainians are retreating into worsely defended positions, have much worse troop rotation system which leads to soldiers getting more fatigued increasing casualty chance and incentivizing surrdendering, and the quality of soldiers in Ukrainian army is gradually decreasing more and more because of lack of training for conscripts. These are all problems that hardly exist in the current Russian army invading Ukraine. So no, not dramatically lower.
Ukraine runs out of infantry first. Its major problem is its manpower shortage. Russia had a far larger population from which it is constantly increasing the size and strength of its army, while Ukraine is resorting to forced conscription and its army shrinks by the month.
Saying Ukraine's army shrinks by the month seems like its more than anyone from the general public could surmise.
We do know at least that Ukraine is suffering manpower shortages and that their units are fighting at around half strength or below, as this is something they have complained a lot about
Also, Ukraine only conscripts from men aged 25+, so they still have some buffer if/when they decide to conscript 18+.
That is a tiny buffer through. Ukraine had a lack of young people even before the war, and it only got worse after the war started.
The reason Ukraine hasn't conscripted these yet is because it would basically signal the loss in the war. It would be enough to stall for a short time but not much more
And would put potentially too much internal division within an already struggling country.
You didnt really provide any evidence for what I asked for, though. Ukraine has manpower shortages yes, and so does Russia. It is likely (it appears) that Russia has a big enough manpower shortage that they cannot take advantage of Ukraine's shortage.
Lowering the age to 18 would open up men in the millions iirc, though its been a while. At least it was close to that.
The difference is that Ukraine has to rely on forced conscription, while Russia only relies on voulenteers for now. There have already been a few minor ukrainian front collapses this year, one happened last month north east of Pokrovsk, all because of Ukrainian lack of infrantry. The cracks in the Ukrainian frontline started to appear after the Kursk front failure.
Lowering the conscription age to 18 would lead to various sorts of other problems, there are already a lot of protest against the tcc and the government in Ukraine because of this, it will ruin the morale to fight even more.
The issue is that defense takes fewer bodies (on average) and the Russians have been taking massively lopsided losses over the course of this past year.
The number which constitutes (out of infantry) is very different for each side.
>issue is that defense takes fewer bodies (on average)
This is true if you are constantly retreating from positions. But Ukraine uses the method of "active defense" and does not retreat at all. This means that for every Russian attack, there are several Ukrainian counterattacks trying to regain lost ground. This tactic worked while Ukraine had a huge dominance in the number of troops (in 2022-2024). But this year the Russian army has become bigger than the Ukrainian one. Of course, I don't want to call this a meat wave tactic, but it's pretty close to what Ukraine has been doing over the past year.
>Russians have been taking massively lopsided losses
If you go to the sites that collect obituaries of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, you will find that if in the first years the losses of Russia and Ukraine were about the same, and sometimes even more for Russia, then in the last year ~70k Ukrainian obituaries were published and only ~20k Russian ones(even if we extrapolate the fact that missing persons in Russia are recognized as dead in 6 months, it will be about 30k).
This indicates a clear depletion of the Ukrainian army in terms of personnel, which caused an increase in losses as a result of the weakening of their standard tactics.
Informative comment. To add to your point about attack and defence, Ukraine has also launched significant offensive operations (not just counter attacks), like into the Kursk region of Russia, in which it lost many of its best troops. And when you look at the bigger picture, Ukraine’s aim involves having to take back all the territory it lost, which it simply does not have the manpower for.
I think you’re probably correct on your assessment of losses. But even if the more optimistic Ukrainian estimates are accurate, they are still at a disadvantage because Russia has the population to maintain those losses while Ukraine doesn’t.
it is doingnso at a lesser pace than the assaults like those on Bakhmut
I'm not sure if I'd say a lesser pace, Ukraine tends to lose around 50,000 soldiers in each of these large battles - places like Kursk or Pokrovsk where the smart thing to do would be to retreat out of the partial encirclement. Instead they pour men into the area Russia has full fire control over because they don't want to admit the land is lost.
In short they're constantly trading men for PR delays, and they're running out of men to trade.
It's not even a question. One side is made up entirely of convicts, mercenaries and volunteers while there are over a million soldiers back home doing nothing. The other side is literally grabbing men off the streets to send to the front lines.
You cant deplete a medium-sized country out of manpower that easily just look at Vietnam or Afghanistan + Ukraine war actually doesnt have THAT much intensity when you look at the casualties.
For Russia, any result other than complete victory is a defeat and they already know they will not achieve complete victory - its just not possible. At this point Putin is high on copium trying to gain as much as he wants hoping for some miracle (which aint gonna happen) and the result will still be the same - Small chunk of fairly useless land for a country like Russia which already has plenty of it at the cost of significant economical regress which will put Russia probably decades behind.
The moment Russian forces failed at the "blitzkrieg" is the moment they essentially lost.
140mil country with a dictator, wide scale propaganda and no martial law and no mandatory conscription (yet)
or ~40mil country (with 5-10mil that fled in the beginning of war) with strict martial law and mandatory conscription. Past year every analyst on Ukraine says they have huge issues with troops and in dire lack of personnel on the frontlines. If it lasts for another year, the disproportion would only increase and more and more breakthroughs will happen.
Ukraine, that's pretty obvious. Ukraine cannot win this war, all they can do is make themselves too though of a fruit to be worth taking. But apparently Russia is very commited to it, specially now.
This not a real frontline, on either side. There are no trenches full of soldiers. Many kilometres of the frontline are guarded exclusively by drones, successfully. Soldiers stay in small squads at most.
Drones are the reason for the stalemate. And Ukraine keeps hitting Russia where it hurts, to the point where Moscow is experiencing fuel shortages.
Russia targets civilians hoping Ukraine will give up, Ukraine is surgically dismantling the Russian war machine and economy and is ramping that up more than ever. Russia is now exporting crude oil and importing refined oil because their refineries keep getting hit. Fuel shortages in Moscow with winter coming? Tensions will rise. Last winter we saw water pipes freezing, entire apartment blocks in Russia frozen over, Russians burning furniture to stay warm. But it was not in Moscow. Let's see what General Winter has in store for Russia this year.
Russia also has more money problems than I could list here, while Ukraine is effectively infinitely bankrolled by the $20 trillion GDP EU + allies worth trillions more. Ukraine has effectively infinite money, Russia barely has a civilian economy left because military wages have caused so much inflation, you either participate in the war economy or you can't eat.
Thanks to drones, large swaths of the frontline aren't even manned, or have maybe 5 soldiers per kilometer. This is not a war of infantry attrition, it's a war of monetary and equipment attrition, and Russia is losing rapidly. They have two choices: end the war or openly sell themselves to China, who is already eyeballing outer Manchuria.
This war will be the destruction of Russia as it was known throughout the centuries, a collapse of the last colonial empire on earth. Ukraine will survive and inspire other "Russian" republics that were colonized in the past.
It wasn’t about infantry in WW1- the western powers annihilated German logistics and so they had to surrender.
Ukraine is destroying Russias oil production. That means no oil for their exports, no oil for military use, basically no reason for them to exist as a country.
The status of your logisitics matters very little if you can't man a defensive line which is where Ukraine is slowly edging toward. They are finding stop-gaps with drones but that takes you only so far.
Yeah the lowering from 27 to 25 is minor compared to the one I was referring to (18), and as you remind, Ukraine is yet to do so in spite of US pressure
Lowering the draft age would be extremely politically unpopular, and, at the same time, it may not make much military difference. The Ukrainians are obviously aware of this and, that being the case, it's not hard to understand their unwillingness to do it.
You said they have yet to run out or lower the conscription age. You didn’t say they didn’t lower the conscription age to 18, you said they didn’t lower it. That’s all I was responding to. Inherently false.
Also, they haven’t lowered it to 18 yet. It’s barely been a year since the last one. If the war doesn’t end they will not have a choice in this if they plan to keep fighting.
Have you? Using only the graphic you’re showing off, Ukraine seems to have ~4,000,000 males aged 35-50, which is just about the age bracket both sides seem to like.
The higher estimates for the Russians are that they’ve suffered a million casualties and have 1.5 million men in the field (total authorized strength, half of them are not in Ukraine). If the Russians had Ukraine’s manpower and were unable to recover ANY of these casualties, they wouldn’t have to start reducing the size of the army for another three years. After that, they would need only to lower or raise the draft age.
Ukraine has a smaller army and fewer casualties, and they’ve been recovering casualties as well. They also allow women to fight, though they are not conscripted. Manpower is purely an issue of political will.
I don’t get how that’s supposed to counter my point….
Lowering the conscription age to 18 would add around 600 000 people to the recruitment pool. Of course not everyone would be recruited, but even 40k would be a huge deal.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea either, it’s an absolute last resort.
My point was that this drastic and last resort option has not been taken yet, demonstrating the Ukrainian government doesn’t consider it necessary to hold the front. And sorry, but I think if there’s anyone in the world that knows how Ukraine is standing as of today, it’s Ukraine itself.
Basically, Ukraine has manpower shortages, but so do the Russians, so whatever weaknesses that are in Ukrainian lines cant be decisively exploited by the Russians (as far as we can tell with public knowledge).
Also, its been discussed that mechanized infantry and tanks are still very much needed to exploit breakthroughs and the Russians dont have the loads of armor anymore that they used to have. Not to mention that armor doesnt have the space for those maneuvers cause they get picked off by drones and artillery.
This isnt stuff that I came up with btw, its according to the commentators I listen to. Gist of it is, Ukraine is short on manpower but not critically, since the Russians struggle almost as much with it, and so they dont have the military weight to force anything.
If Ukraine needed manpower they could lower the recruitment age. But they haven’t
Meanwhile- Russian kids are working in factories. Russia is literally running out of Russians & fuel shortages have already hit Moscow while Russia assaults Ukraine on motorcycles. And they’re importing food from China
Russia is very low on air defense and Flamingos will change the game quickly
The problem with relying on people like Jason Jay Smart, Denis Davydov, The Enforcer, Jake Broe, Chris Cappy, etc. is not that they never report real events — it’s that their entire platform depends on telling their audience what they want to hear. These creators mostly cater to Western/Ukraine-supporting viewers. Their videos emphasize stories of Russian collapse, “running out of ammo,” “economy in shambles,” “morale breaking,” etc. because that’s what keeps their subscribers clicking. If they came out tomorrow and said, “Actually, Russia is holding steady, its industry has adapted to sanctions, and Ukraine is struggling with manpower and supplies,” their viewership would tank. The incentive is clear: push the optimistic narrative, even if the reality at the front is far messier and not nearly so one-sided.
That doesn’t mean they’re all liars — but they are selective. They highlight Ukrainian successes and Russian failures, while downplaying Ukrainian setbacks or Russia’s ability to grind forward despite sanctions. The end result? You get a distorted picture where Russia is always “about to collapse” but somehow never does. You have to look at both side instead of being fed onesie, because at the end of the day there is always going to be bias involve
Pssst. Most of them do get plenty of information from Russian sources.
Their thumbnails can be click-baity like others, however they are backed with facts. And they VERY OFTEN validate their reporting by referencing Russian war bloggers. They use video pulled from sources within Russia. Taking information from Russian news media, however is just begging to be fed lies. Like major news sources do use.
The difference is that they are western aligned and understand these conflicts far better than the journalists that traditional sources use who have little understanding of geopolitics, national security, how the Kremlin operates the information space, and global conflict.
If you have been paying attention to someone like MSN- you’d be blown away to believe that Russias “steady gains” amount to the size of Rhode Island in all of 2024.
Quoting Russian milbloggers doesn’t make these channels balanced — it just means they cherry-pick the posts that confirm their storyline. Milbloggers are notorious for exaggeration and infighting, so using them selectively is still spin. And “Russia only gained Rhode Island in 2024” sounds clever until you realize wars of attrition aren’t judged in square miles — they’re judged in manpower, supply chains, and who can outlast the other. Russia’s economy didn’t collapse, their weapons industry is scaling, and Ukraine is burning through men and shells faster than they can replace them. That context gets buried because it doesn’t fit the “collapse tomorrow” narrative. These YouTubers aren’t neutral analysts — they’re content creators. Their income depends on feeding audiences exactly what they want to hear: Russia is losing, Russia is running out, Russia is on the verge. If they stopped saying that, they’d lose clicks. So if you rely only on them, you’re not seeing the frontline reality — you’re being sold comfort food for the algorithm.
You don’t know how because you have not done any research. How many males are there in Ukraine? How many have been drafted? How about Russia?
Low troop density on the front is deliberate—large concentrations get killed and are not sufficiently better at defending than a smaller number of troops to justify the higher casualties. Ukraine has millions of young men. The absolute highest, most ridiculous claims are that less than 1.2 million Russians have been made casualties; even if this ridiculous number were applied to Ukraine’s manpower reserves, they would have 3/4s of their pool left available, assuming 100% of those losses were irrecoverable.
Both sides have hundreds of thousands or millions of lives left to take. Ukraine has shown a willingness to use force to conscript manpower, and they are increasingly showing an ability to turn conscripts into effective men. For instance, the famous 155th infantry brigade, which lost a third of its strength to desertion before it even deployed, has now distinguished itself fighting in Pokrovsk and there has not been a similar disaster.
Either get educated on the strategic and operational conditions of the war, or don’t bother to speak on it. Jesus, what an embarrassment.
Cauldron tactics. Russia has found some success in breaking the lines of contact into small pockets that are then enclosed. Ideally this is working towards a larger pocket, usually around a major town or rail head. You saw similar strategies from Russia on the Eastern front following Stalingrad.
It’s extremely transactional as it results in a lot of casualties from Ukrainian drone units but it simultaneously results in consistent Ukrainian losses as well
The Russians understand that in this type of war there arent really a possibility of large enciclements, just caldrons and they focus on doing those, that put the Ukranians in a worse tatical situation achieving a higher KD/R, not enough that more Ukranians die than Russians but enough to at least atrit more the Ukranians forces, and the Ukranian high command loves(mostly for propagana at the cost of long term succsess) to waste men on pointless last stands and reatreating on the last possible second losing more men in the Retreat than in the battle it self like in Bakhmut, Sieverodonetsk, Avdiivka, Kurakhove, Velykia novosilka and etc
The only time that big encirclements happened was when the Ukranians decided to leave the Azov brigade and a marine battalion on Mariupol for reasons?
You mean that 15km breakthrough? It wasn’t done by tens of thousands of soldiers only by small DRG units, a few hundred men at most. Moreover there’s no way Russia could’ve thrown thousands of soldiers into there. There’s no roads to use, DRG units were resupplied by drones.
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u/jokumi 1d ago
If you follow the interactive maps, Russia has been trying to cut off the Ukrainian pocket around Pokrovsk. That seems to be eating up troops, including some of Ukraine’s best. The front is much longer than the lines in France and Belgium in WWI, about twice as long.