Russia - threadbanned users in OP

They have a legitimate Ukrainian government. Democratically elected.

As opposed to a Russian stooge without a mandate.

That was up to the end of November, the same period the Russians lost 90,000.

So a ratio of 1:7

Seems quite high, but if you factor in the Russians are fighting with conscripts and prisoners vs a trained army. The fact equipment losses are running at 1:4 and we've seen and heard reports of Russian injured being left for dead. We've heard reports of literally cannon fodder waves being used around Bakhmut. We've also seen quite a few ammo dumps and NY Eve parties going boom!

I'd also be pretty confident an injured Russian soldier is highly more likely to die from his injuries than an Ukrainian one.

Do I know the exact figures? No.

Do I really believe that the losses are equal on both sides? Hell no, the visually confirmed equipment losses is the most compelling reason why.

Russia annexed, attacked and then invaded a country which is no threat to it whatsoever. You're trying to justify that with all this limp-wristed crap we've seen countless times in here from Putin supporters and anti-Western whataboutists.

I'm coming round to your house tonight with a hammer and butchers knife and you're going to give me your living room, Kitchen and master bedroom to do with as I please. And you're going to sign an agreement that you'll never ask for them back or seek help from me taking more in future.

Lots wouldn't like it buy hey, you don't want to live the alternative and you can ignore might.

If Ukraine arent in NATO Russia can just return when ready with an even bigger stick.

It wont be a peace just a temporary truce.

Russia has already broken the Budapest agreement multiple times. Without Ukraine in NATO they will just do the same again to any new treaty.

The simplification of a nations complex history and wildly different administrations down into a single "personality" - Russian State TV and "independent thinkers" the world over

Or I hate Putin and some other waffle in sigs but all pro russian posts ,

There is very little about this war that is 21st century. It's mainly an artillery slugfest.

Of course men alone won't be enough for Russia, they will need to equip them. Can they do that? Unknown.

To the people saying that Russia can't sustain this - why not?

In 1939 Germany produced 380 tanks. In 1940 they produced 1900 tanks. By 1944 they managed to produce 19,000 tanks even though their factories/cities were been bombed on a scale that is hard imagine.

In wartime many things suffer but the production of military hardware isn't one of them.

Will Russia turn into a wartime economy? If Putin gets his way then yes. Will the west? Highly unlikely.

That isn't to say that Ukraine can't win but people are very naive to think that a long war will automatically mean a defeat for Russia.

Apart from drones, ATGMs, HIMARS, satellite mapping, GPS and laser guided weapons, it's just like WW1 :) Jokes aside, indeed it's developed into a stalemate and trench conditions, but the capacity is also there for sudden movements. On both sides.

They are down into prisoners and mercenaries less than a year in, not a great sign. They are pulling older and older tanks out of cold storage and having to refit all the stuff that's been stolen off them. There are unscrewing nukes off Cold War missiles and relying on Iranian drones because they are "totally not" running low on advanced, guided, missiles. Sanctions are making it trickier for them to source complex components for their more advanced military equipment, or even simple stuff, like the special rubber from their tank tracks (which is made in the US). Speaking of sanctions, their economy is squeezed and their energy revenue, which funds the war, is dropping. In a country with a GDP half the size of the state of California.

Indeed they can keep going for a long time, they have production, they can conscript more - but there are some pretty serious cracks showing already

Also, I wouldn't really compare Putin's "special military operation" to Germany's invasion of the continent in WW2, for one, German soldiers didn't have to lug back toilets and secondly, they didn't get bogged down in Poland and have to retreat two months in.

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)  

Russian forces and occupation authorities continue efforts to identify and arrest Crimean Tatars under allegations that they associate with a pan-Islamist political organization banned in Russia. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on January 30 that Russian forces searched 25 Tatar homes and arrested nine people under accusations that they associate with Hizb ut-Tahrir (a pan-Islamist political organization that has historically been active in Central Asia and in Crimea amongst the Crimean Tatar community and that is banned in Russia).[55] The Center also reported that Russian forces are conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign against Crimean Tatars under the guise of fighting terrorism.[56] Russian occupation authorities have historically targeted Crimean Tatar communities to consolidate social control of occupied Crimea, promoting the notion that anti-Russian sentiment is extremist or terrorist activity by affiliating it with Hizb ut-Tahrir.[57] ISW previously reported that the Russian Federal State Security Service (FSB) conducted similar raids on Crimean Tatar households in Dzankoi, occupied Crimea, on January 24.[58]

Russian forces and occupation authorities are continuing to evict and deport Ukrainians from their homes in occupied territories under the guise of “evacuation.” Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai reported on January 30 that Russian occupation authorities are housing Russian and Wagner forces in abandoned homes after forcibly evicting residents from settlements along the frontlines in occupied Luhansk Oblast.[59]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-30-2023

Oh I know, they are really just estimations. Often they can be wildly off. The bottom line is that Russia, economically, is in a much worse place than if they didn't invade Ukraine. They wouldn't be sanctioned, they wouldn't have hundreds of billions locked up, they would still have Europe paying them almost a billion per day for resources, they wouldn't be an intl pariah, and they wouldn't have an expensive war to maintain.

Probably sent to the front lines.

For sure. I was questioning their assertion that Russia would do better than England. I don't think so. Like the fellow that went bankrupt: "At first slowly, then suddenly"