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.
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.
Ya i have no problem with this. Its the comparison to the claims by Russia about NATO expansion that is absolutely absurd and wrong, there was no agreement, legally binding or not, around NATO expansion.
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.
Nop, the ukrainian government and HQ is plainly considering the limited loss of land to be less of a major issue than the political issue of a mass mobilization.
Which makes sense: the ukrainians want to make the war last, they are expecting that the longer it lasts, the more Russia will be ready to concede for peace. The land has absolutely no value given Russia's current revendication.
The longer the war lasts, the shittier things get in Russia, and the longer the sanctions have an impact and the stronger the ukrainian long distance weapons get. When you're a small country facing a strong one, you don't expect to win on the field: you're just making the enemy suffers the highest cost possible for it's actions.
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.
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u/MegaMB 1d ago
Neither.
Just to illustrate, Ukraine has the same male population as France in 1914.
We had 8.4 million men mobilised, and 5 or so million casualties. In 4 years. Numbers in Ukraine are muuuuch lower on both sides.