Russia just accidentally admitted to its staggering troop losses in Ukraine
(kyivindependent.com)
from Hubi@feddit.org to world@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 2025 13:48
https://feddit.org/post/14445096
from Hubi@feddit.org to world@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 2025 13:48
https://feddit.org/post/14445096
#world
threaded - newest
Here’s to a million more.
<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/52af0969-5ec7-45bb-ab34-76b6ecb63f83.gif">
They don’t all want to be there…
Then don’t sign up. 🤷 Article says they are being given incentives to sign up.
Desperate people do desperate things
The amount of money they get for signing on is so staggeringly huge, it is one of the drivers of the high inflation they are having.
Which means the money they get is less and less valuable the more people sign up.
The amount of money they are told they get for signing…
Some of it goes to corrupt commanders and various middle men.
Finally a trickle down economy that works!
I was under the impression that many were outright forced to fight, as opposed to signing up.
Nope, by law Russia cannot use conscripts outside their own borders. All of them signed a contract to be there.
Learn something new every day
Russia also has the warped idea that Ukraine is part of Russia and they’re reclaiming it, so who really knows whether any law is being honored.
Legally true, but there is of course plenty of coersion.
www.dw.com/en/…/a-72289013
hrw.org/…/russia-forces-ukrainians-occupied-areas…
rfi.fr/…/20250117-african-troops-forced-to-ukrain…
If they’re lying about the casualty rate then even rational people aren’t given the facts to make intelligent decisions.
I’d bet if they were told the truth no amount of incentive would get them to sign up.
War is basically all logistics and the value Ukraine is getting out of their drone program is insane
Honestly when they’re done, that manufacturing capacity will do great things for their economy.
God knows we’ll need every little bit to rebuild
The second it is safe, the second the war is over, I’m coming over and spending tourism dollars over there.
Love you. Greetings from elsewhere in Europe.
They’ll need it because the war money will stop immediately. They’re being funded only as much as it hurts Russia. Just like Afghanistan in the 80s.
Slava Ukraine. Be safe if you can. Wish I could do more to help. I tried to do some things with the digital forces but there isn’t much left I can do that you all need.
It’s what many says, Europe needs Ukraine for many reasons and a big one is (sadly), their knowledge about a mordern war.
Did they get that knowledge from 9 soldiers, one of which carries a cursed burden?
“We need people from this big war to fight the next big war!” is the line of thinking that’s going to burn everything to the ground, just like it did a century ago.
Between Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Iran, Britain floating warships off the coast of China, Indian and Pakistan firing on one another, North Africa in a decade long bloodbath, the US sending marines to suppress unrest in local cities… its not good folks.
Europe has not been aggresive at all. Being ready doesn’t mean you want to go to war.
Many are against reaming Europe, thinking weapon = war, but it’s not that simple. Nuke are scaring as hell, but we haven’t had such a long period of peace before nuke came.
France is no stranger to military intervention in Africa. Indeed, a cornerstone of Françafrique, France’s sphere of influence over its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, was France’s permanent military presence on the continent. Since decolonization in 1960, the French military has intervened over fifty times in Africa. These interventions have ranged from brief counter-insurgency missions and evacuations to longer-term peacekeeping operations. While France would scale back the scope of its operations in Africa following it’s failure to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it nevertheless maintained a force of 5,500 troops on the continent.
Over Fifty Times.
Pray tell, how many times without explicit invitation/request by local government?
Because last I checked when the Sahel states wanted them gone they packed up and left. And then things went to shit quite quickly: In some areas Wagner has an even worse reputation among the civilian population than Jihadis (now that is an achievement), and figures because Wagner is not there to fix anything but to make money by “protecting” natural resources they don’t care much about fighting the Jihadis, either. France never shied away from throwing down with them, where they were reluctant is stomping Tuaregs, instead opting for endless negotiations and mediating. Which is perfectly sensible because the Tuareg are sane, they want stuff like autonomy within their regions, not massacre people.
Check again.
Operation Barkhane dragged on for eight years. It sparked domestic protests within the first two years. By the end, the Sahel states were in full revolt against French occupation.
The problem is with your language. You seem to think dropping 200 lb bombs on a city to wipe whole neighborhoods off the map constitutes “throwing down”, like its a bar room brawl everyone will walk away from in the morning. You don’t seem to want to acknowledge that they killed thousands of civilians. A 9/11s worth of people, to put it in a parlance you might appreciate.
And much like in Israel and the US occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan, the response from French allies was always “those civilians had it coming”.
That is what spurred widespread opposition to Françafrique policy.
There a) was no occupation and b) not even the Putschists were in “full revolt”.
You seem to be talking about the Russian main forces (which aren’t in the Sahel), not France. Heck, Americans, but again, not France. France drops training ammunition instead of actual bombs on Hilluxes and when Americans make fun of them (“they ran out of ammo”) the French shrug and say “Concrete slabs are perfectly sufficient for pickup trucks”. It’s baked into their core doctrine, they supply their troops with what is necessary, but not more, because they want them to be audacious.
Are you referring to the Bounti airstrike? Like in you strg+f “controversial” and found something? Then just assumed the 200lb and “whole neighbourhoods”? This is Bounti.
You’re either deeply misinformed or deliberately lying.
And… where’s the revolt? Did you read your source? Did you even check the date? What it said about the opinion of the Mali military?
As said: The French left once uninvited by the government. Who are Putschists but meh that’s usual down there, and not likely to change without a prolonged period of stability. I do expect another Putsch to come in soonish as they’re not getting things handled either, as said Wagner is often worse than the Jihadis, and on top of that Russia is way overextended as it is. Won’t take long until they can’t supply their goons down there.
Did you, btw, read up on Russia’s media campaign down there. The French are arrogant, no doubt, but that’s different from wanting to rule the area or wishing it ill. What you can legitimately blame them for is a disinterest in building up those states, training their militaries, enable them to secure their own territory on their own. Russia saw an opening for its actually colonial ambitions and went for it.
Explain it to the 2700+ dead that the French are responsible for.
Don’t be a Jihadi? Don’t try to force your way onto others trying to establish a Caliphate? Are you seriously taking the side of Al fucking Qaeda here.
How do you explain Wagner’s actions to the survivors of Moura. “Don’t be a civilian?”
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, most of the atrocities don’t get investigated at all due to the fucked-up overall situation. It’s all Wagner MO though.
There it is. Everyone’s guilty once you’ve flung shrapnel through their chest.
But you still can’t imagine why the French-aligned government got ousted in a coup on these terms.
What were the residents of Moura guilty of? Answer.
Jihadis came in, enforced their perverse interpretation of Islam, Sharia courts, dress codes, the lot. Then Wagner+Mali army came, first stomped the Jihadis, then Wagner moved on to rape the locals. Mali army looked on for a while, then stepped in and said “Ok Russians, that’s enough, stop it”, and it stopped.
That doesn’t happen with French forces, you don’t have to tell French forces to stop torturing and raping the local civilians, and they also won’t tell you that it’s a valuable strategy of war. And that’s why there’s going to be another putsch because as fucked-up as the Mali military is they’re not inherently cruel. They just have no idea of how to achieve stability, and were dissatisfied by the progress of the French – but seeing the Russians, yep, the French are very much preferable. Or ask Nigeria for help instead. China if you can convince them, that’d certainly be interesting. Anyone, but not Russia.
Because you know what? You don’t win the hearts and minds of the people if your reputation is even worse than that of the Jihadis. Say what you want about Al Qaeda but they’re not as bad as ISIS or Wagner, they do have a sense of decency. A very twisted one, but it exists.
Good god, I’m talking about today, and I’m confronting EU against Russia, USA or China.
Then they can become the world’s supplier of battle-tested drones.
Do they manufacture them in Ukraine? I always assumed they got them for elsewhere.
www.kyivpost.com/post/46892
Given the volume they quote each year they either have sourcing figured out or produce at least some of the parts internally. Keep in mind, in FPV drones a lot of the tech is not some cutting edge stuff.
Some of the strikes at the residential complexes can be targeted attacks at distributed micro factories.
Very much so, though they import lots of parts. Generally speaking the Ukrainian defence industry is operating under capacity because cashflow.
Ukraine builds rockets and the biggest airplanes in the world and has a vibrant IT sector, they can manage drones. Much of the Soviet high-tech design and manufacturing was Ukrainian, that’s one of the reasons why Russia wants its colony back.
The shareholders will benefit greatly from more war.
Never let a good tragedy go to waste.
And when enlistment keeps dropping like a rock they will give the suicide drones to our local PDs! :D
I like to call it (Soviet) Star Wars: the Drone Wars (star for clarity)
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/96f917bc-6cff-491e-9395-7d7edf06880d.webp">
Ukraine playing it smart and understanding how modern warfare is done. Russia only throwing in more and more soldiers.
It works though, that’s why they keep doing it. It’s slow as hell and inhumane, but they can afford it for many more years I’d wager. Their capabilities of data gathering/transmission are much better these days as well. Also don’t forget they set up wired drone production (in serious numbers at least) first, they can be smart at times.
Underestimating them irl is pointless.
In Russia’s defence, who could have possibly have thought that invading Ukraine in the winter wasn’t going to be a simple 3 day weekend kind of thing?
If they assassinated Zelensky like they had planned, it probably would have been.
That feels like a big contingency that they failed to adequately plan for
Plus wouldn’t the armed forces still fight?
They would have fought, but they would have been demoralized.
They also would have likely been replaced by a Russian sympathizer or asset and the US/West would be very wary to send all sorts of expensive weapon systems to Ukraine.
All good points, thanks for expanding my understanding
Losing a generation in war that could have added much value to their economy can’t really be smart or worth it, can it?
Pulling a Napoleon when he went to Russia. Too cocky
A man fighting for his home is worth 100 fighting for someone else’s cause. Russia was never going to win the numbers game.
I read that as a man fighting for his drone…
Russia it was already a mess before but considering their median age, after a 1mln loss they’re as good as fucked.
Putin doesn’t care about his country, but Russians then?
They don’t care either. The majority, that is, there are some good apples who left the bunch
– Pushkin, “The cart of life”, translated by Yevgeny Bonver
tl;dr it doesn’t really matter the cart keeps on racing until it crashes. And then they Slav it back up and it keeps on racing. Nobody knows who or what the fuck actually holds the reigns. Also that “go on, you ildler, damned” does not give the profanity used in the original credit. Like, not even close. English isn’t capable of it.
From I figure, basically by giving recruitment numbers and total numbers in Ukraine, the West can calculate number of casualties, which the West figures is 1 million. Remember casualties includes injured.
Ukraine has been keeping a tally of Russian losses since pretty early on, and it’s been pretty much perfectly accurate.
I fall asleep at night watching Russian soldiers get droned. Helps me sleep well.
For context, the America lost about 55,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War, which lasted about 10-12 years. Russian has already lost at least 600,000 in a couple of years.
The article does not say that there have been 600k casualties. It says there are 600k fighting in Ukraine.
Where did you get “already lost at least 600,000”?
I agree that the 600K figure is a mis-read of the article; however:
I am generally inclined to believe Ukraine’s official figures of over 1 million dead, injured or captured Russian soldiers so far in this “3 day special military operation”.
Holy shit. Over 1k people killed every day? How the hell do you maintain any kind of morale?
You don’t. You have lots of conscription to supplant your front lines. You do all sorts of corruption in the middle-ranks of the military, so junior officers can generate income off the desperation of their greener soldiers. You create an industry around the war, such that everyone hates it but someone is always profiting off the misery of others.
And then the machine grinds on.
Blocker units aren’t there for fun.
Talk about Gaza instead
Its says 600,000 dead, wounded or missing in action and also usa wasnt the only one at war with north vietnam, they had help from their puppet south vietnam
Reminds of of that scene in tiberian sun when NOD installs the new AI
EVA: “Casualties rates unacceptable, this course of action -”
Anton: “stop, Activate the reprogramming”
EVA:“Casualty rates well within acceptable parameters”
I get the feeling they take ww2 loses before they even notice.
It alludes to the staggering number in the title and in the abstract but does not give the number which means it’s clickbait.
So there’s a stable inflow and outflow. I wonder what fractions are dead, wounded (disabled permanently), wounded (temporary), and retired (back to civilian life in one form or another, likely traumatized).
Alternatively, Russia is building up a massive army outside of Ukraine. That seems unlikely though, there’s no news about that, I’ll discard that hypothesis for now.
What a fucking waste.
Maybe they should pull out of the region entirely.
I keep reading about how Russia’s economy is on the brink of collapse just like how I keep reading about how Trump’s voters are turning on him. I believe that both are (somewhat) true, but I don’t think anything will come from either one.