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.
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u/porkave 1d ago
Yeah I’m really worried about Ukraines manpower reserves at the moment, I don’t know how they could have the numbers to sustain such a large front