Please use this thread to continue discussing the war in Ukraine.
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Original thread:
Russia to Station 690,000 Troops in Ukraine by End of 2024, Surpassing Numbers of All European Armies
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi gave a major interview to The Guardian. In it, he discussed the increasing number of Russian troops present in Ukraine. According to him, the Russian grouping currently exceeds 520,000 soldiers. By the end of the year, according to Syrskyi, the number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine will increase by 30%, reaching 690,000. source
It's a numbers game at thiis stage. The Russians have been attriting the Ukrainians men and equipment for two years, who don't have the numbers to make up losses, the defense lines that the Ukrainians have built are a formidable obstacle, eventually they will crumble and with enough men the Russian commanders will be expecting to breakout and exploit the collapse.
The Ukranian soldiers would be alive when the organs are removed.
Here is the number of active military personnel in Europe, if you strip away US and Turkey and Canada you still endup with a larger number than above (and these countries are not mobilised)
source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/584286/number-of-military-personnel-in-nato-countries/
Based on recent comments from the UK, there is a line of thought among military leadership that expects to be in direct conflict with Russia within 3 years irrespective of the outcome in Ukraine. Western politicians currently seem to prefer conducting the war from a distance, through someone else, through investing money and so on, but at the moment they are not ready for direct conflict. Why would Russia be putting that number of men in Ukraine?, that is a huge logistics operation. The Russian leadership are probably anticipating the longer the Ukraine campaign drags on without significant victories, the more likely the direct conflict becomes. What does victory look like for the Russians given the current state of their army and economy? 690,000 personnel suggests they are preparing for a break in the lines by stretching the Ukrainians, they can push their army through rapidly and get behind the Ukrainian defense lines which collapse.
To answer your question why would Russia be putting those kinda numbers in Ukraine, because Putin is going all in. He's like a gambler, just throwing good money after bad... Or in this case soldiers. He can't back down or he'll loose his tough guy image. He'll have to admit his SMO was a failure etc...
We've seen how Russians take small towns, endless supply of cannon fodder. 690k is probably about 10 towns worth of fodder.
Then there's this from the UK:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/russia-will-take-five-years-to-capture-four-ukrainian-regions-if-they-carry-on-as-they-are-uk-army-head-13184268
The only thing I don't get about the thought of direct conflict with Russia possibly in 3 years is Russia won't be in a position for it. It will take them probably about 10 years to get their army back into a proper shape to be trained and armed to be in a position to fight Nato. I sometimes wonder do these generals just say this to get more funding for their own army which is fine.
Russia is there for the taken, full scale invasion I say. 😅
Well lads,
This is interesting, let's get more confirmation
This is good news. The Russians have shown that they will infringe on these countries borders. Romania are defending both their own borders and the Ukraine too in the process.
Your figures don't seem to include the armed forces of Ukraine which have 900,000 active soldiers according to this source:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1296573/russia-ukraine-military-comparison/
This puts some putin fan boy predictions of swelling of moskovyte terrorist numbers in Ukraine leading to imminent collapse in the defensive lines of the armed forces of Ukraine in a bit more perspective in my opinion. As the attacking force putin's terrorists are likely to be sustaining multiple times the losses being sustained by Ukrainian forces so it seems to me that any numbers advantage putin might think he has now will not be sustained into the conflict in the longer term.
In Irkutsk the electricity company has cut the power to four thousand homes. People affected say the plan is to get more volunteers to fight in Ukraine. Those affected say the power company hooks up those who join the military. Fifty people had a protest against the company in Truda Square in the city.
Isn't Slovakia producing and selling artillery shells for Ukraine?
Hungary on the other hand they had this coming.
Not a great comparison, if you look at how many troops are actually deployable.
For example, the UK has one main warfighting division. 3rd Div. (1st in theory, but in reality major components would be attached to 3rd, 1st would become a command element for ther smaller nations). When plussed up, it would be able to put maybe 30,000 troops into Ukraine, not the 184,000 of the graph. When you realise that the 600,000 figure is of Russians forward deployed, that gives a notably different perspective on the numbers. Even the active US Army is ten divisions, plus Corps troops, maybe 300,000 soldiers in the line.
It's even more messed up when you consider that Hungary and Slovakia export electricity to Ukraine with Hungary claiming to provide as high as 42% of Ukraine's consumption.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/slovakia-hungary-threaten-ukraine-with-court-fight-over-blocked-oil-2024-07-24/
So pro-Russian Hungary, is providing Ukraine with electricity, some of which was generated using Russian oil, that was piped through Ukraine, who they invaded 2 years ago.
Is it optimistic to assume they were used for deceased donor transplants? I'm not sure even the Russians would harvest organs from healthy POWs.
organs deteriorate rapidly from deceased unless kept artificially alive. The question is, would the Nazi’s do it from live patients? Sure they would… so, would the Russians? Same answer.
Russians are playing with fire
You would think someone who is involved with US military like yourself know better than to compare the sizes of third world militaries with ever older Soviet era equipment against modern NATO forces
Didn’t Iraq have a much larger number of men than all of NATO?
And that’s before we get to the elephant in the room, since when are any Russian figures and statistics on anything to be trusted?
Saying all that, IMHO fear of Russia is good (as long as it doesn’t paralyse countries into inaction like Germany in 2022), fear will drive countries to continue helping Ukraine, fear will continue to increase military budgets and industrial capacity and output, something that Russia can not hope to match.
What Orban has done is to increase the pressure within the EU to do away with the single country veto, blocking the wishes of the majority. When and if that happens, his and other pro-Putin countries will have no real value to Putin. But the question is, is that really a good thing to happen over all?
Russian Central Bank today has raised the interest rate from 16% to 18%.
Perhaps, thanks to Orban, EU also design a procedure of how to eject an unwanted member from EU.
Many aren't "troops", they are taxi drivers and impoverished people who have been handed rifles and 2 weeks training. Some haven't even received the training.
Quantity is still a threat, but offensively they aren't very good. It's also putting a massive burden on Russia's finances, which are taking a heavy hit despite all their made-up economic statistics desperately trying to prove otherwise. Sorry to pour cold water on your badly hidden excitement at Russia prevailing.
News from Russia.
Main: —The State Duma admitted that the authorities are slowing down YouTube. According to Khinshtein, by the end of next week, download speeds will drop by 70% —Trial of contract soldiers who shot a family in Volnovakha —A tank crushed a car in the Belgorod region. The driver died
2023 Pentagon accounting error discovered. Ukraine please collect an additional 6 billion in additional military hardware.
That is true. On your question, I suppose that is for the countries to weigh up the costs and benefits + decide what they want.
Realistically the world is a far more hostile and nasty place than it was for all of the members in the more optimistic period when the last EU treaty changes happened.
There might always be 1 or more countries with corrupt governments that can be bought off or just bullied to veto EU decisions by external powers that are much stronger than even largest EU member states.
The situation won't change if or when the EU takes on even more members in the future, the problem just becomes worse.
So if the members want the EU decision making to remain effective in face of powerful outside influences trying to corrupt it to act in their favour or block decisions, they may have to accept the loss of sovereignty that goes with making more of the Council decisions by mechanisms like qualified majority vote vs allowing a national veto.
Russia is spending the guts of €6bn per MONTH on the war in Ukraine. You'd be deluded to think this is in any way sustainable.
I agree with the points of your post. I struggle to comprehend how the Russian economy is still able to keep going. The Ruble is still around .10 to the dollar. I know the figures released are bullshit, but economy is still functioning day to day for the people albeit with higher inflation. Russia was not a very rich country to begin with. This war is hugely expensive for them. Are they taking secret loans from other friendly countries like India, China? Are they draining their oligarchs dry? Has the west any understanding of how they are doing this, and how long it can last?
Yes, apparently, there is no procedure for ejecting undesirable members who continually act on behalf of unfriendly foreign governments as we are now seen all too frequently, but article 7 allows for suspension of voting rights for violating EU principles. And this can and would effectively end that country's participation in EU affairs,but is not officially kicking them out of the EU as such. A change in EU Law needs to be introduced. It should have been foreseen from day 1, but with future EU enlargement on the cards, it needs to be legislated for now.
stripping off veto and voting rights is already something
Orban now planning to flood EU with Russian immigrants and saboteurs
