I think the point being made is that Western agencies (5-eyes) would give Ukranian intelligence the button to push (indirect action) and not push it themselves (direct action).
Why would that be the case? Ukraine has a very large IT sector and they have a lot of good IT security specialists. To be honest, a lot of cybercriminals have been from Ukraine.
So I don't see why it would be the case that Ukraine could not have done this by themselves. They have done previous attacks by themselves. I don't see why that would be the case.
It would kind of be like saying, "Oh, if Russia does a cyberattack, it can't have been them acting alone. It must have been China that gave them the stuff to just press a button."
It's the usual westerner superiority speaking. When Ukraine wins something it's always due to NATO training, US weapons and all that. When Ukraine starts losing ground it's poor soviet-era training, wrong kind of tactics and decision making on Ukraine.
That very article mentions that on a number of occasions Ukraine has gained intelligence or pulled off their own ops which the US was completely unaware of.
Just because they're being helped doesn't mean that literally everything they do can be appropriated to the US.
It's tough to say that Ukraine and US are allies right now. US refuses to hold security assurance, as promised, and forbids Ukraine to restore nuclear arsenal, as before the promise. Bullies behave is such way, not allies.
It is irrelevant to my interpretation of the aforementioned parent comment.
The point is that US made Ukraine do something that the US wanted to do but did not do because were it the US, then it would have had repercussions on US, so they made Ukraine do their dirty work.
By going to war with Ukraine Russia (very foolishly in my view) exposed itself to a number of possible "indirect actions" which weren't possible before as "direct actions". Like for example Ukrainian drone hitting one of the Russian strategic missile defense radars. Ukraine can potentially hit other strategic assets not that involved in the current war - say nuclear submarines for example.
Russia and all non-usa allies have been the winner.
China etc have seen the strategies used in sanctions. They know how to limit their impact now.
It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together.
It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger.
And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge.
A disaster for the west, aside from their weapons companies/Ukrainian investments. And any NATO spend increases.
China has been a big winner, it can now get cheap energy and it gets to set Russia whatever conditions it pleases. Russia is now utterly dependent on China for many imports.
Russia itself has been the biggest loser. Massive budget deficits, massive inflation. 1M of its smartest people have moved abroad. 1M Russian casualties in the war. Demographics and economy are disastrous.
That and Russia is now a pariah state. No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
Russia is hedging that the "pariah state" label will wear off pretty quickly. The current US government has as recently as March floated the idea of normalising business ties, and constantly flip-flops it's position.
However, the biggest loser has definitely been Europe (including Britain). High energy prices have cascaded the cost of living crisis, which in turn has led to a rightward shift in politics. As a continent, we are unprepared for any sort of defence, having used the US as a backstop for years and now the US constantly toys with the idea of dropping NATO support. Alone, we don't have enough manpower, ammunition, and we haven't been keeping up with the evolution of modern warfare (drones and related technology) taking place in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
If you think Europe is the biggest loser, you need to dig a bit deeper on the state of Russia... I might be wrong, but there's no recovery from this blunder for many, many years - if it manages to stay a Federation, that's yet to be seen, but my guess is China will take a chunk out of Russia eventually.
Remember Russia in 3 years had:
- 1 Military coup;
- Lost 50% of the Black Sea Fleet and it's now unusable;
- 1.000.000+ casualties (dead and severely wounded)
- Mass exodus of qualified young people;
- Lost Military allies from CSTO and rendered the alliance into a joke;
- Completely lost presence in the Middle East (I don't see how they will recover from it);
- Losing influence in neighboring countries;
The list goes on, like demographic collapse, etc
So, I find it hard to see Europe as the loser here; at worst, Europe is doing "ok".
Europe's entire future is on the line right now. Forget many years..
Higher energy prices, and increased defence spending (from a low starting point) to meet the new US governments requirements are exacerbating the cost of living crisis continent wide. Europe already wasn't innovating, and is now losing the small amount of industry it does have, to energy prices, to China's entry into EV production, and EU regulation. The demands to spend more on our own defence by the US administration comes from a US administration which has flirted with the idea of not even defending NATO.
The cost of living crisis, coupled with "AI" (LLM) is hollowing out an already pretty hollow service economy across Europe, and is creating disillusionment which is causing Europeans to shift to either extreme side of the political spectrum. In my country, the UK, Reform, a politically inept and untested party is currently leading in the polls for the next election. This party, as well as many like it in Europe, is even leading in the polls despite well known Russian political influence in them.
On top of this, the demographic crisis, while not made worse by tons of dead men sent off to war and exodus, is still affecting Europe and the only reason it isn't notable to many people is due to immigration filling the gaps. Immigration, which is lowering wages and in many peoples eyes, changing their cultural landscape for the worse, increasing their likelihood in voting for fringe political parties.
As much as Russia might lose from this war, they'll probably rebuild their army to a higher degree than European forces are right now. We hear constantly about ammunition and weapons shortages across Europe, failure to meet requirements for what Ukraine needs to fight back, and a general unwillingness from the population to even fight. Russia has oil, gas, and mineral wealth, which will always be of importance to Europe whenever this war does end. Europe is so reliant, that whatever words are spoken, the EU has spent more on Russian energy than it has sent in aid to Ukraine.
> Higher energy prices, and increased defence spending
Energy prices are going down, and have been going down consistently ( https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil ) and the new US Admin wants them even lower, and they're not alone. So that's settled. Defense spending will also be met with investment, jobs, etc.
But if you think Europe is having it bad in terms of using taxpayers money to fund wars... what do you think is happening to Russian taxpayers money, with a much smaller economy?
> The cost of living crisis, coupled with "AI" (LLM) is hollowing out an already pretty hollow service economy across Europe, and is creating disillusionment which is causing Europeans to shift to either extreme side of the political spectrum.
Inflation is affecting everyone. Not Europe in any particular way.
Again, if you think that's bad for Europe, you look at Russia is being completely destroyed with inflation. I don't even think they're reporting the fake numbers of how bad things are, every quarter they prohibit more data from coming out...
> On top of this, the demographic crisis, while not made worse by tons of dead men sent off to war and exodus, is still affecting Europe and the only reason it isn't notable to many people is due to immigration filling the gaps.
Again, if you think that's a problem in Europe... how does Russia compare with qualified people leaving, 1.000.000 young men casualties, low birth rates, aging population? Europe isn't speedrunning its demographic collapse like Russia is.
> As much as Russia might lose from this war, they'll probably rebuild their army to a higher degree than European forces are right now.
So, to sum it up, you highlighted a few points that are by many orders of magnitude worse in Russia. Even counting energy, since Ukraine has been taking out distribution and refining capacity (and my guess is that it will get worse) - somehow you still think Europe is in a worse shape and position.
And a lot of your claims don't make much logical sense: "Europe is in bad shape, they can't even properly help Ukraine", in a context of Russia with 1.000.000+ casualties, max military production capacity, using North Korean Army help, and failing to make any meaningful gains at heavy costs...
I'm not even stating the fact that Russia will inevitably have to surrender that territory back to Ukraine, in the future anyway, because no country will ever recognize their occupied territory as part of Russia.
So to sum up your "Europe is unable, and Russia is giving their max" scope doesn't help your case at all, just shows that Russia has massive unrecoverable problems, even trying with everything they have...
You ended up supporting what I said. Europe is OK, while Russia can collapse at any moment - that's being on the line.
Just to bring you back to reality: no European country had part of their military going on a straight line to its capital to take down the government, and that happened to Russia around 2 years ago - that's not a good sign.
I think you are exaggerating Russian problems quite a bit. It’s certainly more stable than in 1990s or early 2000s. The peace deal will very likely force Ukraine and consequently its allies to recognize acquisitions at least de facto (Crimea may get formal recognition). Even if they won’t, there’s no plausible scenario in which Russia will lose this territory. Demographics — yes, but immigration may solve it for a while. 1 million people „brain drain“ wasn’t the right number anyway and there’s ongoing correction: many continued to work for Russian companies, some are returning back now disillusioned by the West,
> Even if they won’t, there’s no plausible scenario in which Russia will lose this territory.
Didn't the brightest minds in the Kremlin believe that the last time too?
There are many plausible scenarios, such as the worsening of socio-economic conditions, to the point where local governments stop following the central government and begin implementing their own policies shaped by local grassroots movements, leading to the total loss of control by Moscow. A repeat of 1989-1991. In that turmoil, nobody will care about Donbas or Crimea, as long as they can have food on their table.
We seem to be seeing the same recipe in action: extremely costly war for no clear purpose, economic stagnation, de facto bankruptcies of entire large sectors like mining and metallurgy.
Missing ingredients: low oil prices over extended time periods (6 years in the 1980s).
I'm not sure all of the previous posters points were thought out.
The 1,000,000 casualties thing keeps popping up, but nobody can confirm this. We have to take Ukrainian sources at their word. Regardless of who you support, during a conflict you have to take BOTH sides claims with a pinch of salt. They are both producing fanatical numbers right now, because those numbers have the dual purpose of inspiring morale amongst those still fighting.
The brain drain caused by the mass exodus of Russians fearing conscription isn't permanent. Already many of these people have returned.
The Wagner Coup didn't amount to much. It got half way before they worked out they didn't have the means, stopped, and the leader was killed and the group restructured within the Russian military.
They lost influence with neighbours, but honestly did they ever really have much in Europe anyway?
In my view Europe loses, because it's completely beholden to Russian energy interests. Now that those are gone, they are paying higher back-marked rates for the same oil and gas (via other routes), or more expensive American energy. This is exacerbating cost of living crises continent wide and is boosting fringe political parties who will cascade the damage (and who are also, in many cases, Russian influenced and funded).
I don't have any stake or real investment in this (although I don't think invading forces should get what they want), but I feel the other poster does.
Agree on most of that. However, I do not think energy is the European problem. It's painful, for sure, but migration is something bigger politically (and see recent Economist on that). Russia did play a role in that, but it's the flawed system with which nobody is happy that drives the fringe parties to success.
As for housing crisis, that's something that is defined by how markets work currently - where political influence buys squeeze in building permits and good profits from speculating on this market buy political influence. And of course, there's dual market structure in many cities with subsidized housing that reduces pressure for reform for significant number of voters. We need a big political reboot to overcome that and transition from old party structure practically everywhere, it is already happening, it is uncomfortable to see due to uncertainties in this process, but it is good. The war may have some effect on that, accelerating the process.
There will be one at some point. There is no plausible scenario in which it will be favorable for Ukraine: the West missed the moment to build up military production to match and surpass Russian capacity, so there is zero chance that there will be any military wins. And sanctions don’t work, that should have been pretty clear by now to anyone who sees the numbers. It is all about damage control and how many Ukrainians will have to die before Western politicians will accept inevitable.
Even if that's true, the content you assume will be in it (even before considering the probability of your predicted content being wrong) may have as much bearing for Russia (or any othe nation’s) near term prospects as the eventual content of the peace deals ending the Israeli-Palestinian war or the US-North Korea war have on any nation’s near-term prospects.
Russia can sustain this war for 4 years more politically (they probably have to finish by 2029, a year before elections), maybe 2-3 years more militarily and economically. I won’t be so sure that Ukraine can last that long, because Ukraine does have people problem and Russia does not. Ukraine even with Western supplies gets a fraction of what Russia currently produces in ammo, missiles, tanks etc. So there is no reason for Russia to accept shitty terms. They may pay 200-300B from the frozen money in „reconstruction support“, but that’s it.
If there was any significant difference in their combination of industrial supply and battlefield effectiveness, the front line wouldn't be so slow-moving.
> There is no plausible scenario in which it will be favorable for Ukraine
If this is true, we're doomed. Everyone will want to have nuclear weapons in order not to end up like Ukraine. After that point it's just a matter of time until something goes wrong.
It is unlikely that we will see new nuclear powers. It's not an easy job. We can be sure that Israel or North Korea won't give up, but that does not mean they are going to use the weapons or there will be a full-blown intercontinental war. Looking at current progress in space tech, in 30-40 years the ultimate WMD will be kinetic space weapons anyway.
North Korea and South Africa* getting nukes are both independent proofs that it's not hard for a nation to get nukes. I've seen credible commentators suggesting Ukraine itself is only months away, if it chooses that path.
Less credibly, because the Russian government says a lot that isn't really true, Medvedev has been quoted saying "a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads".
Once you've got a fission bomb, by all accounts it's not that hard to use it as a primary to power a fusion bomb.
A single 1 MT bomb detonating at low orbital altitude above central USA would likely cause enough physical damage to the power grid to kill 60-90% of the population within a year, even with no shockwave getting anywhere near the ground.
> North Korea and South Africa* getting nukes are both independent proofs that it's not hard for a nation to get nukes
Define „hard“ then. Both started early in 1960s, both had access to uranium (North Korea is actually mining it - not every country can do that), both used foreign support for their nuclear programs. Neither achieved ICBM range to deliver nuclear warheads to any location on this planet or had submarine component. Ukraine may have theoretical ability to design and produce nuclear weapons, but it is a technologically advanced nation far ahead of many developing countries and it is not going to have resources for a nuclear program any time soon being heavily dependent on foreign aid.
There was no military coup 2 years ago, just a failed mercenary raid in which the army was not even involved. Leaders of that raid are now dead. It was an interesting moment in history, but it actually demonstrated resilience of the regime.
>the regime can collapse at any moment
How exactly? What evidence do you have for it? All even marginally visible opposition is pushed out of the country and became irrelevant, some are dead, many convicted in absentia to decade-long prison sentences. Mass protests are rare and practically never challenge the order, mainly aiming at some local problems. From economic perspective there are some problems, but as a matter of fact inequality is now lower than before the war thanks to generous payouts to veterans and their families, who may have never seen that money in their life.
On the contrary, Europe (I mean EU, Britain is a different story) is probably the biggest and the only true winner.
Russia may get what it wants, but Europe already got something from it too.
1. Major influx of workforce - many Ukrainians do not intend to go home according to polls
2. Push to a stronger union less dependent on America for defense
3. Push to less dependency on Russian oil and gas (yes, gas could have helped with transition to cleaner energy, but we may be doing well even without it)
Eventually - soon enough - Russian gas will be back. But Europe will come from this war stronger both militarily and politically and more united.
America is clear loser: what a mess it has become. Not being able to do anything with this conflict, it demonstrated that nuclear non-proliferation is dead. Nobody will give up their nuclear weapons now as Ukraine did in 1990s in exchange for empty promises of security guarantees.
Ukraine may have won some political independence at a very high cost and with some strings attached, but it has lost one third of its population and significant part of its territory - forever. And it is likely that it’s not going to get NATO membership. Was all of it worth it?..
Russia is an interesting case here. It‘s going to win. Sanctions don’t work. Foreign reserves are all time high. The economy is suffering mainly from self-inflicted damage, not for external reasons: enormous military budget and insufficient workforce (not least because Central Asian workers are hesitant to work in Russia now and their number was bigger than war casualties). Western brands left the country temporarily and many will come back. It has acquired new territories and will be actively spending there on reconstruction — that’s going to add extra points to GDP. It is hard to say, if the combined economic outcome will be positive or negative. Was it worth it?… It depends who answers. Politically it’s more stable than ever with national-conservatives in power, which is very important, because by 2030s it will be busy with the transition of power (and certainly not attacking NATO in Baltics as some delusional hotheads think). When the war ends it will be able to shift spending to social topics, which + the victory will give the necessary political capital for the transition.
China is getting very long-term leases on large swaths of territory in the Far East. There is officially no exterritoriality, yet with increasing number of Chinese people there while Russian population there is minuscule (and even that is mostly not ethnically Russians, instead it is the local ethnicities whose history with China is much longer than with Russia), remoteness of Moscow and Russian bureaucrats' total corruption - there is no need for the official declaration. So, while today China still can't ask for Vladivostok and other "historically Chinese territories" (according to the modern Chinese official maps), tomorrow they wouldn't even have to.
Too much propoganda results in reactions like this. Reality is that Russia is fine and dealing with relatively minor issues. Also this war as big as it looks in the west, is nothing compared to ww2 where 10s of millions died in massive battles. They survived. Thats what we russians have always done. Survive.
Russians and foreigners travelling to Russia regularly blog live.
Everyone there is doing fine.
The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
As long as they don't say anything critical against the regime. Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243). Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
> The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
Yes, Russia, the known beacon of journalistic freedom. How many journalists have been murdered by the regime?
The fact that those Wikipedia sections / articles exist is very telling:
Anyone blindly lumping together all "western" media is not to be taken seriously. Especially when comparing with fucking Russia of all places. You can find plenty of disagreements in various "western" media (consider The Guardian vs Financial Times vs Le Figaro vs Le Monde vs NY Times vs Washington Post). Nobody dares contradict the official line in Russia, even calling the war a war, or they get tortured and murdered.
> Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243)
Chances for a civilian to die from war causes and gun violence combined in Russia are currently significantly lower than chances for American to die from gun violence.
> Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
Russia is currently recruiting contractors among conscripts and criminals. It’s not impossible to be sent to war illegally, but significant majority went there willingly (I have no idea why idiots arrested for drug possession choose to go to meat grinder, but they do it).
Overall, in most places there it’s safe enough to think about something else than how not to be killed. People are really doing fine (when internet works - it’s been shitty recently for air defense reasons).
> No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
Many large businesses have returned to Russia. "No one is going to invest" is a naive childish thinking. They outperformed growth expectations in 2024, unemployment rate dropped from 5.8% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2025. GDP is surging, insane tech and energy investments from China. Plus Russia has a very low public debt. All in all, their economy is pretty resilient despite what they say in the mainstream media.
> Because a massive amount of men were conscripted?
That's an emotional oversimplification. Unemployment fell not because of conscription, but due to massive import substitution and rising labor demand in construction, logistics and manufacturing.
Despite sanctions, Russia's ruble-adjusted budget deficit remains manageable, and the trade balance is strong due to record energy exports. Military spending has driven industrial revitalization. Factories reopened, supply chains revamped and domestic R&D expanded.
Whether you agree with the morality or not, economically it’s not just money burned. It has multiplier effects: jobs, tech development and regional growth. Dismissing that is lazy.
Russia has been a winner by basically no metric other than land and being a shit neighbor.
And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there; it's literally a special grave digging operation. Soviet stockpiles of armor are basically depleted; now it's the buggy and moped meta. They've completely failed to support their supposed allies (i.e. Assad, Iran, Armenia). A good chunk of their strategic aviation fleet is gone. Car bombings of generals continue all over Russia and occupied territories, which brings the question, will it even stop if they "win"? They've finally been demoted from being an aircraft carrier operating nation. Their frozen assets are literally killing Russian soldiers. National wealth fund has ~20-30% of the prewar assets. Something similar in gold reserves. Interest rates are beyond effed, and recruits are largely joining for the money needed in the terrible economy caused by Putin himself. Who annexed 4 oblasts only to legally deploy the 18 year olds Putin promised not to deploy in Ukraine (as it's no longer Ukraine in Russian law). Non-military industrial output is on a steady decline. Price capping on bread. Fossil fuel output at minimums, and with low prices.
Since the last big movements of the front that's absolutely been the case, though you're right it doesn't apply if you account for the early captures. Once you remove them (Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdyansk), that's very easily verifiable.
Avdiivka had 30-32k pre-war population, estimated 40-47k Russian casualties.
Bakhmut had 71k pre-war, Russia suffered an estimated 75k casualties from Wagner alone.
Pokrovsk 61k pre-war, ongoing, 21k estimated casualties in January alone, and it's been ongoing for a year.
And beyond cities, the daily casualty rates at most obtain tiny settlements of a few dozen pre-war inhabitants. In the worst case you have the North Kharkiv front with 10s of thousands of casualties and basically a stalemate.
>It's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously.
"One thing is debatable so everything is debatable", I didn't expect this level on HN.
I think your assessment is only partially correct.
The Europeans are getting their act together and increasing their cooperation and defense spending.
Sweden and Finland joined NATO, placed large defense orders and started integrating with the British.
France has started talking about expanding its nuclear arsenal to cover the defense needs of the entire continent.
While the Russian military has gained tremendous military experience, they have lost huge amounts of top tier kit.
They are now essentially dependent on China.
No one came to aid Iran during the Israeli air campaign, the Russians were too busy and the Chinese didn't care enough.
The main winner has clearly been China, but the US and the EU have not really lost anything. If anything everyone that is not a party to the war is coming of a bit stronger.
If there was any real will left in EU people, Ukraine would wipe Russia off the map (at least the putinesque remnants), it will happen anyway, but we'd rather just expend vastly more money and vastly more humans and time in the process.
Considering the current rate of inflation, switching the EU economies to war production would save so much money and lives, and bring down prices.
Keeping the war longer by a decade by not willing to hold your promise is vastly improves things, that’s for sure. Instead of showing the bully the force, be done with that pretty quickly and returning to your non-war economy pretty quickly. Ever considered that option, huh?
Russia has nuclear weapons and good means of delivering them all over the planet. That is a fact of reality that does not allow us to "be done with that pretty quickly".
Maybe if Ruzzia where the logic is always reversed
Putin caused
1 NATO to get 2 new members, gg Putin
2 NATO to invest more in weapons, gg Putin
3 killed or wounded 1 million Russians while the population was already in decline and I would bet the birth rate is decreasing because of the war
4 economy is fucked, Gazprom reported first time ever no proffits, interests rates increased
5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands
6 Ruzzian weapon exports are fucked
7 Ruzzian army is a joke asx strength now, and the people are seen as low life orcs, killing, raping, torturing creatures
8 Kremlin is a joke, from 3 day operation to 3+ years, people flying from windows, politicians unable to admit a drone hit happened and claiming is debbry,
9 Putin pulled his secret weapons the donkeys after 3 years of keeping them hidden and failed to ado any significant progress
10 Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km
11 I can see this Zeds complaining about the West decadence while using iPHone, driving German cars and wearing expensive wtches (even Putin can't stand to put his ass on a Ruzzian car)
How is Ruzzia stronger?
The only way I could think a Zed would claim this is something like "Zed eats excrements daily for an year and after barely surviving this he claims he is stronger because someone in the West would die if he eat so much excrements, the Zed not realizing that the solution is to execute the tzar and stop eating excrements.
Any Russian (not Ruzzian) can be honest and admit that this is not going according to the plan, Putin tried to repeat the Crimean invasion, his KGB friends told him that Ukrainians will receive the Zeds with flowers , the informations were wrong and Putin seems to be incapable to stop the disaster and keep his throne so he is willing to sacrifice the people and the empire just to keep is throne.
>5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands
That's one way to get nominated for Nobel peace prize.
> Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km
Net Russian gains in June 2025 were 572 km^2.* In order for your statement to hold true, Russia would have suffered over half a million casualties in June alone. Where is your evidence to support such an assertion?
>Net Russian gains in June 2025 were 572 km^2.* In order for your statement to hold true, Russia would have suffered over half a million casualties in June alone. Where is your evidence to support such an assertion?
Or my average is not a daily or monthly, do it again for the last 1 year. 2 years.
Can you also calculare for us how many years until Ruzzia reaches Kyiv and how many casualties ?
> Or my average is not a daily or monthly, do it again for the last 1 year. 2 years.
That would make even less sense. The thread I linked has the appropriate data going back to April 2024. We can toss that into a spreadsheet or LLM to get the total Russian gains in the past year, as you requested.
ChatGPT calculates total Russian territorial control change at ~6000km^2. So are you now saying the Russians actually have 6 million casualties? Again, please support assertion. The only number that doesn't make sense here is your "Russians are taking 1000 casualties per square kilometer".
> Can you also calculare for us how many years until Ruzzia reaches Kyiv and how many casualties ?
It's been on my list of "Things to Do" for a while. I want to whip up a Rust library to run TNDM/QJM calculations on the Russo-Ukrainian War. For now, I will only state that rates of advance in warfare are non-linear. Past a certain point of weakness, collapse is rapid. I think Operation Bagration is a good case to examine in detail, as many of the frontline German divisions had REALLY thin manning. The Ukrainian frontline is manned at something like ~40% strength, and with a large number of old and infirm conscripts. They are relying heavily on drones to keep the Russians from locally massing combat power. I'm not sure where the breakpoint is in Ukrainian manpower past which their brigades will shatter.
But just pulling an estimate out of my butt: 2 years and an additional 500,000 Russian non-recoverable losses. shrug
The advances are not linear, the Ruzzian advanced a lot in first days (there were some traitors in the Ukrainian army),. since then they advance at snail speed, my stats were from my memory, probably during winter when they attacked massively and gained almost nothing. If you have good data and can export it as csv then would be nice too see some graphs, like gains per month/week ,casualties per week and km^2 , distance from Kyiv.
In war a country can give up on some territory and move the army and government if needed into a better defended region, Ukrainians only need the will to fight and the Ruzzians provide them plenty of reasons not to be Russified.
So my stats were outdated or wrong, it is 5x, 10 x then ? Let me know a better number to use in future.
> With more than 1.2M dead or out of service injured, Russia is spent
> All they can effectivley do, until they grow new soldiers, is defense.
I'm genuinely curious what your information diet/sources looks like that would lead you to make such statements.
According to Ukrainian sources, Russian end strength in Ukraine continues to increase and they are maintaining a strategic reserve of personnel as well:
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-plans-to-increase-groupin...The Russian military plans to increase its grouping in Ukraine by 150,000 soldiers in 2025, equivalent to around 15 motorized infantry divisions, Presidential Office Deputy Head Pavlo Palisa said on April 3, Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne reported.
"Their formation is ongoing. The Russians have no problems with recruiting personnel now..."
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/syrskyi-warns-russia-stockpi..."Moreover, Russia maintains an additional 121,000 troops in its strategic reserve—comprising 13 divisions, as well as various regiments and brigades—that could be deployed to the battlefield if necessary."
"This means their army grows by an average of 8,000 to 9,000 soldiers every month," the Commander-in-Chief noted.
As for Russia only being able to defend, how do you square that with this Finnish analysis group's tracking of Russian territorial control rates increasing every month this year?
They had to withdraw from Syria, due to a loss of ability to project power. That's how desperate they are for troops. They removed troops, planes, closed bases. Almost immediately Syria fell.
Israel and the US's stance with Iran, was something not as plausible when Russian strength existed in the region. Russia complained and threatened, but naturally nothing has come of it. They have no capacity to do anything, or project power. There is no Russian strength in the Middle East any more. Why? They cannot extend their power beyond their borders.
This is doubly unfortunate for Russia, as Iran was, I repeat was sending massive amounts of shells, drones, and more to Russia. For some odd reason, they've stopped (sarcasm).
Using reserve troops is what Russia could do if their back was to the wall. They need troops in country, or there will be a revolt within. Remember, Russia is not a democracy, but a totalitarian state controlled by a dictator with an iron fist. If their 'reserves' are drawn down too far, there will be insurgency.
Hiring mercenaries (in the article aka contract soldiers) from anywhere including China, isn't the same as getting seasoned, loyal troops. And it doesn't discount what I'm saying. They have lost their capacity to project power, and are now relying upon mercenaries to shore up their troop levels. They're spent.
> They removed troops, planes, closed bases. Almost immediately Syria fell.
This has more to do with the Syrian military being completely starved of resources, particularly money, due to the US occupying the most lucrative portions of sovereign Syrian territory for years. Not having Russian airpower on call absolutely contributed to the collapse but not being able to reliably pay/staff formerly-capable formations like the Tiger Forces or 4th Armored Division (in addition to not being able to afford reconstruction) is what really did the regime in. Watch this from 2019:
>This is doubly unfortunate for Russia, as Iran was, I repeat was sending massive amounts of shells, drones, and more to Russia. For some odd reason, they've stopped (sarcasm).
The Russians have been domestically mass producing their versions of the Shahed-series drones for a while now. Interruptions in arms transfers due to Iran's own security problems are unlikely to significantly degrade Russia's drone salvos at this point.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/55948The organization calculated that Russia produced an average of 60.5 Geran drones per day, or roughly 1,850 drones per month, between February and April 2025.
https://www.calibredefence.co.uk/shahed-and-geran-the-evolut...Over time, a separate version emerged which is known as the Geran-2, which is the name given to Shaheds made in Russia. Russia now makes hundreds of these drones every week, enabling it to increase its usage to 200 per week in September 2024, and then to 1,000 per week by March 2025.
> They need troops in country, or there will be a revolt within.
Who do you think will stage a revolt, with both Navalny and Prigozhin dead? There's not really any charismatic opposition leadership left that I can think of.
> They have lost their capacity to project power
Ok, I will compromise and largely agree with this statement in broad strokes. Yes, Russia's power projection capacity has diminished. That's a very different position IMO compared to "Russia can only do defense" as you stated earlier....while Russia has ~600,000 men busy invading the largest country in Europe after Russia itself. Their global power projection capacity is degraded because so much of their attention is sucked into fighting the largest land war in Europe in 80 years, but that's not the same as only being able to defend.
> Hiring mercenaries (in the article aka contract soldiers) from anywhere including China, isn't the same as getting seasoned, loyal troops.
Without going too far off on a tangent, this also applies to Ukraine (regarding loyalty...Colombians are definitely considered "seasoned" as far as international mercenaries go).
They came extremely close with the decpaitation attack. It worked back when the USSR invaded Czechslovakia. What they weren't expecting was effective resistance, so now it's no longer possible.
I don't think they anticipated a Nazi/Imperial Japan style completely takeover
I believe their plan was to capture Kyiv and install puppet government, and have the military collapse into factions and unable to coordinate effectively as a conventional force. Paramilitary groups would break out (such as the Azov units, etc.) Ukraine would then degrade into civil war, especially along an east-west line.
But at least, it would be dysfunctional and unable to join EU or NATO. And they would be able to control enough to extract some value out of the country (e.g. natural resources). But they never really care about establishing peace and prosperity there.
> And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge.
Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. Oh, and at the cost of almost all trained troops and modern equipment. Not a very good deal.
> It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger.
Russia started the war, they are the ones who need to win it. The fact that they are stalled is a win for Ukraine, who are the ones trying to survive. The Russian economy is in shambles (cf. the Broken window fallacy), as are their army, navy and air force. It will take them decades to rearm back to the same level. Putin isn't stronger, really. He entered a quagmire of a war he cannot back out of (will appear weak) nor can he actually win in any way. He's stuck.
> It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together.
Are you sure you understand what BRICS is? Everyone using Russia's predicament to get cheap natural resources doesn't mean that e.g. Brazil or India are closer to Russia...
>Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones.
This war is the most recorded in human history. Can you share some videos of these Russian human wave attacks? Can you describe the objective delineating criteria between a normal attack by an infantry battalion or regiment, and a "human wave" attack? Regarding trenches and "cheap" Iranian drones.....should the Russians NOT practice basic principles of force protection/use of fortifications? Should they NOT leverage novel cost-effective munitions to wage war and instead use massively-expensive gold-plated equipment? How is that working out for the US and allies, who can't produce more than ~600 Patriot missiles per year at a cost of ~$4M per missile.....meanwhile Russia is throwing 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine every few days....
Russia has 1 million in casualties and has failed to capture Ukraine. You really think you can claim it was a "win" because now all their experienced soldiers are dead and their strategy has been reduced to "run towards the enemy and hopefully some of you won't be killed and thus we can capture another field"?
> their strategy has been reduced to "run towards the enemy and hopefully some of you won't be killed and thus we can capture another field"?
Is this seriously the depth of your understanding of Russian tactics (what you described isn't a strategy to begin with...). I recommend watching every tactical analysis video on Mark Tacacs YT channel (he's a NATO military officer, not some pro-RU source):
That includes women, children and elderly. If you count fighting age men only, 1M becomes significant. If you count men actually available for draft, you're already at 10% loss.
It always surprises me when calculation is done on a basis of formula that goes something like this. Total population - Casualties = Number
1 million casualties is an absolutely massive number, regardless of your total population. How many of your fellow citizens would you be willing to throw into the meatgrinder until you say “that not ok”?
For anybody still questioning why the civilized word must stop Russia, i'd suggest to mediate a couple seconds over the parent comment (the commenter in the parent and in his other comments presents Russian position quite correctly)
>"A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, missing, capture or desertion."
When you restrict it to fit men of military age (lets be generous here and say 18-55 , even though there is ample evidence of Russian men 60+ signing up), 1 million is quite alot. The Russian population skews older - median age is around 40. There is also a massive gap of of people their 20s-early 30s.
Imagine all the men of your entire high school / college graduating class being either killed or seriously wounded so Putin can grab a few thousand km of territory.
Now they could allow women in combat roles, but I severely doubt it for this conflict. It would be extraordinarily unpopular and go against the narrative they have been selling their populace for decades.
The Russian regime (and apparently a lot of Russians) deem Ukrainians as an inferior ethnic group - they call them "little Russians".
Ukrainian authorship would mean:
- Ukrainians are competent people with agency (which they are of course, for lots of reasons) - this plays into ethnophobia;
- their government, military, etc, is competent, functional with agency - this plays into government legitimacy;
- Overall, in a lot of instances, the Russian government is incompetent, even more incompetent than the guys their propaganda has been trying to paint as corrupt, incompetent people who are being manipulated.
That's why a lot of time Russian propaganda trys to spin Ukrainian wins as "NATO/CIA/MI6/external agent did this".
For example, they tried really hard to bend reality to remove the credit for the Ukrainian drone operation that destroyed a lot of bomber jets, saying it was planned and executed by CIA, MI6, Israel, etc [0].
This is what we're dealing with here: massive ethnophobia and propaganda.
So in their propaganda, Ukraine can't be competent and stand on its merit, because that would mean they're not inferior people and that they have agency.
You should always be wary of someone making these claims without any evidence.
You don't need much of a historical deep dive to see how it's currently being used:
> The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc. Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia".Today, many Ukrainians consider the term disparaging, indicative of Russian suppression of Ukrainian identity and language. It has continued to be used in Russian nationalist discourse, in which modern Ukrainians are presented as a single people in a united Russian nation. This has provoked new hostility toward and disapproval of the term by many Ukrainians. In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which was devoted to expounding these views. [0]
Ethnical slurs, or any other slurs, change over time. If you go back in time 100+ years in any context, and you use a modern ethnic or racial slur, it will most likely empty of meaning. Just like a lot of slurs from the past have lost their meaning over the years. But the "historical meaning" is constantly being used by Russian propaganda, where they claim one needs to go back to the 1200's, and their interpretation of history, to try to make sense of the current genocide attempt in Ukraine.
There's no logic behind that approach because current actions speak for themselves, including the context of recent history, and that's enough. You can get a pretty clear picture of this whole event starting in the 1990s.
Unless you still see that slur being used by Russian nationalists as an endearing term to address their "brotherly nation" which they support being erased from the map.
What does it mean in the current Russian political environment?
> The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc. Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia".Today, many Ukrainians consider the term disparaging, indicative of Russian suppression of Ukrainian identity and language. It has continued to be used in Russian nationalist discourse, in which modern Ukrainians are presented as a single people in a united Russian nation. This has provoked new hostility toward and disapproval of the term by many Ukrainians. In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which was devoted to expounding these views. [0]
Just to make sure, according to you, this is completely false and detached?
But this is a small detail from my reply, why are people so focused on this? Even if I was wrong, which I don't see that I am, everything else still stands.
So "The Russian regime (and apparently a lot of Russians) deem Ukrainians as an inferior ethnic group - they call them "little Russians"." it is? And this follows from the link? Have you read it? Really?
The term Малороссия now days is outdated indeed, as wiki says. This term was first introduced not even by Russia but by Byzantine Church and word "мало" ("little" as you "translate" here) means "original" "primordial" to distinct two church branches and then where used to denote parts of Rus' under Polish rule.
Note, the linked article does not say that Russians use this term to denote someone inferior. It says that some Ukrainians consider this word offensive which is not surprising taking into account active propaganda and lack of historical education in masses.
You still failed to address the question: "little russians", "kholkhols" are ethnic slurs being used by Russian nationalists as terms of endearment?
> It says that some Ukrainians consider this word offensive which is not surprising taking into account active propaganda and lack of historical education in masses.
So not because Russians are in their land trying to kill as many Ukrainians as possible, terrorizing them, and destroying their culture? It's all because of propaganda?
I addressed you phrase about Russians seen Ukrainians as an inferior ethnic group and "proving" this by "they call them "little Russians", please don't shift topics. This is BS. There is no such phrase "little Russians" in Russian language.
Ethnic slurs exists of course. In any language. And "kholkhols" is one of them. As well as word "moskal'" in Ukranian. Do you know what it means? And ethnic slurs are not used in official language, you know. I mean Russian official language.
>So not because Russians are in their land trying to kill as many Ukrainians as >possible, terrorizing them, and destroying their culture? It's all because of >propaganda?
Yes, just because of propaganda targeted at low educated people. I mean you can hate Russia for starting the war and turn a blind eye to Ukrainians killing Donbass people but hating historical word referring to some lands that now are part of Ukraine? Just because it has "мало" in it? You need combination of propaganda and low intelligence here.
P.S. Not going to continue. This all conversation is just waist of my time.
I didn't say "Russians" I said the Regime and a lot of Russians (extreme nationalist ones), which are the ones running the propaganda machine.
It has been used has a derogatory term, like other ethnic slurs.
> And ethnic slurs are not used in official language, you know. I mean Russian official language.
If they are part of the Russian State propaganda language, then they're part of the official language. You, in particular, might not like it and feel uncomfortable with it, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. So you're misguided in your assessment, the problem isn't the new derogatory meaning of the word "little russian", it's the people using it while supporting the genocide in Ukraine.
> As well as word "moskal'" in Ukranian. Do you know what it means?
Oh I'm sure there are plenty of slurs from Ukrainians towards the people invading their land, killing and raping, destroying their livelyhood and culture in an attempt to erase them from the map! How do you expect people to react towards the people committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide?
> I mean you can hate Russia for starting the war and turn a blind eye to Ukrainians killing Donbass people
So your take is still the propaganda hook? Russia has killed more Ukrainians in the Donbass than anyone else since 2014 - they're the only ones to blame. They can try to spin it, but all the evidence points in their direction.
As for "hating an historical word" I don't even know what that means. Words in itself are not subject of being hated, its the people who use them with bad intentions that are the problem here.
Sure, it is always omnipotent Western agencies... while some Western governments are halting support in critical moments - which has bigger impact on the war.
I think Ukrainians (and Russians as well) aren't tech illiterate. They are (both) more than capable in this matter.
