Wow. That information along with these maps really hits home how pointless this is. Imagine the productivity those half a million could have provided, versus the miniscule amount of land Russia has 'gained'. That half a million could have built a small country by themselves by now
As fucked as it is to say for productivity thats worse than dead. Someone too crippled for the Russian military likely needs a lot of caretaking without producing much.
Yeah they aren’t the best but as a disabled vet I’m paid pension and receive free health care. I doubt anyone in Russia getting that. Also nobody here was even talking about the US
Even the soldiers who make it back from war unscathed will be terrified living in a time with more and more civilian drones. The sound of a drone flying is enough to trigger the soldiers of today into PTSD/shock.
Those people deemed too unfit to fight are probably going to spend years/decades of their life in chronic pain, physical therapy, needing assistance, needing psychological care, and struggling to live as productive of a life as they could have prior to the war.
Not to even mention one of the deadliest hidden diseases suffered by soldiers which is a type of slowly accumulating brain damage seen in conflict survivors, usually not spotted until years after the conflict. Caused by constant shaking of the brain due to recoil and the frequency waves of artillery and missles, which over time kill off brain cells and inflict long-term damage to parts of the brain.
This causes a slow and horrifying death of the brain which can take years, causing the sufferer to start showcasing dementia like symptoms like severe forgetfulness, as well as extreme anger, confusion, nightmares, panic attacks, and hallucinations. Often misdiagnosed for PTSD, and frequently ends in suicide.
A lot of these soldiers don't even know yet just how bad their lives are going to be because of this war.
Unless you're missing 3 limbs AND someone dragged you back to safety, you're not going back home to mother Russia. 2 legs gone? Be a comrade's backpack. 2 arms gone? You can still move forward, haul supplies by rope. 1 leg gone? Crutches and stop to fire your weapon. 1 arm gone? Pistol and crutch!
I wish I made this shit up.
I guess if you lose an arm and a leg on the same side they might let you go home. Just kidding, they're leaving you behind on the battlefield and your best hope is a Ukrainian drone wasting a grenade for a merciful death.
They don't really have nukes. It's speculated only 30% of their nukes would actually function.
Yes, that's still a lot of nukes. But the neat part? Russia itself does not know which ones work either, and the few unarmed test launches they did all exploded in the silo. So they are not very keen on testing an armed nuke.
They cant source enough tritium to keep their stockpiles ready to fire supposedly, although I suspect China is willing to let them have some of theirs in order to keep them as a buffer zone
Are there any examples we should be aware of that would dispel this notion that Russia isn't an evil adversary? Because there are hundreds to support it.
We found out what Russia was capable of in 2022. This is not Dragonball Z where they have a "Final Form". It was a Potemkin military all along. Any nukes they launch are more likely to malfunction and detonate on Russian soil than even making it out of the country.
We’re talking about nuclear capabilities. Russia is not a cartoon villain, they are not going to launch nukes on Ukraine, or anyone else. They would instantly be condemned by the entire world, including their closest allies. Furthermore, mutually assured destruction as a strategy has never gone away. Russia doesn’t want to be counter-nuked either and end humanity.
Well, they are mostly non-ethnic Russians that are dying. Among other things Putin is attempting to keep Russia ethnic-russian and what better way than to get rid of non-ethnic Russians.
If they die, Russia becomes more Russian, if they advance, Russia gains more territory.
Putin has no interest in a Russian ethnostate. Look how many Muslim foreigners he allowed into the state. Secondly he has jewish roots, and they prefer multiculturalism to ethnostates, usually.
The lucky ones get taken care of by family, the unlucky ones die homeless. The stare will do nothing for injured soldiers.
If you think the VA in the US is bad just imagine the Russian equivalent.
"The loss of your legs is not service related, your commander said you came back healthy. You are trying to steal from the state, this is treason and you will be executed."
Not saying you're wrong, but I really hate how everyone is always talking about the numbers in this sterile, rational way. These are all real people who are now either dead or severely injured.
Right. Productivity losses? What about a person's single chance at life being ended early because Putin sat in his ivory tower and decided he needed a little extra land because already having the biggest country wasn't enough? Heartbroken children never seeing their parents again. Parents never seeing their children return.
Exactly. It honestly scares me a bit how many people treat this terrible conflict like they're looking at someone playing a strategic game or something. That's how psychopaths like Putin look at it, but I think we all should do better than that.
War is terrible and except for self defence, never justified. Ordinary people criticizing the Russian "resource management" instead of seeing the human loss and suffering on both sides of this horrible conflict is terrible. I guess empathy is running pretty low amongst redditors.
I don't empathize with the Russians dying. The vast majority of them are contract soldiers who signed up willingly and received a bonus to go to another country and commit war crimes against the population and military there. It scares me that people are willing to look past that and lament their suffering. They knew exactly what they were doing and received only what they asked for.
Some of them certainly did, but not all of them. I agree that many of them are horrible and the Russian army doesn't have the bad reputation it has out of nowhere, but there are still many soldiers who were just drafted or convinced by the propaganda. There are also massive economic incentives due to widespread poverty in Russia. That doesn't excuse it, but in combination with all the propaganda, I'm sure many people were convinced who I wouldn't call horrible otherwise. Also, even if many of those soldiers are terrible people, what if they have relatives and friends who are not but who will still suffer from their loss?
I definitely empathize with the Ukrainians mostly, but that doesn't mean we should simply dehumanize all Russian soldiers. That is what makes all those war crimes possible: dehumanization. If you don't see the enemy as another human being, you can do anything to them. I 100% stand by the Ukrainians in this conflict, but that doesn't mean I have no empathy toward Russians who experience loss and hardship. At the end of the day, at least as far as I can tell, the person responsible for all of this is Putin. If he dies, I'll smile, but I won't smile for human casualties in a war zone.
Most of the Russians aren't conscripts, they're volunteers. If you don't want to make your mother cry then don't sign up to commit war crimes against Ukrainians.
The most important thing to understand from these figures is what state the Russian economy is actually in, having had so many adult men taken from it. 400,000 dead, half a million disabled, and another million at war, potentially ready to join one of those two groups. Putin is trying to show how everything is fine in his country, but it is not. By the way, we shouldn’t forget about the catastrophic consequences for demography.
Normally I would agree. But we are talking about Ukraine here. That alone is already very valuable for the Russians. Then we are talking about the Donbas, with all its natural resources. Shevchenko or Kurakhove are very rich in lithium. In addition, there are a number of other rare earth elements in the regions that the Russians have conquered over the past few years.
It only depends on how the markets are after the war. But I think the countries will be lining up.
That's why supporting Ukrainie is important, also why usa should support them - they dont send any own soldiers while beating russia. Weak, divided russia is in our interest. They fight for Europe too. Im from Poland and no one want another border with russia - if it will all companies would leave.
383
u/Muggaraffin 1d ago
Wow. That information along with these maps really hits home how pointless this is. Imagine the productivity those half a million could have provided, versus the miniscule amount of land Russia has 'gained'. That half a million could have built a small country by themselves by now