Russia - threadbanned users in OP

1 million Russian army in Ukraine is unlikely. I think that Putin no longer needs a victory in Ukraine, a stalemate is fine, maybe even preferable. Right now, the Russian society is kept in a hysteria, where they are constantly pumped up by the hate-filled propaganda. They must ignore the worsening economic situation and all the dead soldiers, and feel the hate for Ukrainians, Jews, migrants or anyone, just not Putin.

When the was ends, regardless of the outcome, Russians may wake up and ask if it was worth it. Logically, the war is a huge mistake, and the mistake made by Putin.

At that time the alternative to saving Russia was a lot worse.

The alternative was a very efficient, much less corrupt, outright murderous and far more technically advanced killing machine that was very close to getting the Bomb.

The allies should have ploughed on to Moscow in 1945 but the appetite and political will was completely spent at that stage.

They obviously have more approaches than that because the response to the insurgency in Afghanistan was not to flood the valleys with countless grunts. The response in WW2 was much more about overwhelming numbers, but this was an existential conflict for Russia where it was a case of by any means necessary.

The Ukraine war is perhaps existential for Putin, as a failure there carries a huge risk of the end of his political career or worse, but for his people? I don't think so.

Russian 1: Wanna hear a joke about how yesterday we bombed our own units?

Russian 2 : Lucky we missed them all. And I don't smoke.

Avdiivka action (heavily edited).

No need to get angry with other posters for calling out your gobbledygook.

Lets review shall we.

WW1 - mass slaughter on front line which was in turn the primary cause of the Russian revolution. No effort to save Russian lives.

Winter war with Finland - mass slaughter of Russian army by much smaller force. Sole strategy was to overwhelm Finland with numbers which they eventually did at a horendous cost to themselves.

WW2 - overwhelmed the Nazis with numbers. Germans could simply not supply themselves with enough ammo to kill Russians. Russian training was minimal, life expectancty short. Why spend time training someone thats going to be dead in a week or two?

Afghan War - took a beating, did indeed flood the valleys with conscripts who were easy targets.

Chrchen Wars - same story, poorly trained conscripts killed by the thousands. Plan C was to flatten the place.

Ukraine war - no huge improvement, pooly trained conscripts sent in to overwhelm the Ukrainians. As with previous wars human wave attacks in broad daylight a feature, with todays human wave climbing over the bodies of yesterdays wave. This is how the Russians do war and no-one is expecting it to change anytime soon.

Well if the Nr of shells fired can be proved ( and it seems they can be) and that Nr exceeds the promised Nr. etc. then the additional shell 's have had to come from somewhere.

And yet Ukraine have fired over 1 million more artillery than the 300k delivered by the 'west'.

Nice to see you using the correct figure for cluster shells and not the 100+ million figure you used before (counting the submunitions)

That’s the thing isn’t it. They can get their hands on (and maybe even produce) huge amounts of dumb munitions, but unless they can keep the launching systems & vehicles in working condition and replace where needed, it won’t really matter how many shells they’ve got.

As you suggest, there will be no US supply drop up in Murmansk to save their skins this time. They have to rely on the leftovers of fellow despots, and that won’t last forever.

And calling Israeli's Nazis in the Israel/Hamas thread. All the checkboxes.

This is getting repeated since year one and I'm not seeing anything to say there Barrels are running out, or they can't replace them , just like they ran out of men and missiles and vehicles and yet they are still coming and holding territory