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Throughout this war, 62k Russians are certainly KIA because we know their names and faces [~], and estimates of total Russian KIAs vary from 120k from a Russian

Throughout this war, 62k Russians are certainly KIA because we know their names and faces [~], and estimates of total Russian KIAs vary from 120k from a Russian outlet [^] to 565k by Ukrainian Armed Forces [_]. In comparison, total KIA losses of Soviets in the Afghanistan war were 14k-26k, and Americans in the Vietnam war lost 58k KIA + 150k WIA throughout 10 years. In short, this is the biggest war in Europe since WW2. But hey, it's not war enough because not enough Ukrainians are dead or something, idk. [~] https://t.me/pechalbeda200 https://t.me/pechalbeda200 [^] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/05/a-new-estimate-from-meduza-and-mediazona-shows-the-rate-of-russian-military-deaths-in-ukraine-is-only-growing https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/05/a-new-estimate-from-... [_] https://t.me/GeneralStaffZSU/16238 https://t.me/GeneralStaffZSU/16238

kjkjadksj 2y ago
Its really not a full mobilization though. Yes 62k casualties seems like a lot. When Russia is fully mobilized in total war however, the sort of war that NATO planners fear the most, they go through millions of casualties and take over half the European continent in the process.
- ArnoVW 2y ago
  I don't think that "number of deaths" is a proxy for "infrastructure stops working". One of the worlds (what we thought) super powers has been trying for the last two years to destroy the infrastructure of a country with 33M inhabitants. They may not have fully mobilised, but they are definitely spending all their military equipment. Long range / tactical missiles. Air assets. Naval assets. Cyber warfare. The result in Ukraine : unimaginable human suffering, but electricity and the internet are still working over there. When the nukes start flying, that's another matter though. But in that case our problem will not be that our credit cards stop working.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    They are very much not sending all their equipment. They are very much not in a total war economy. The conflict is highly constrained. In an unconstrained war, Kyiv would be leveled already. Ukraine would be plowed over. Western powers have done a lot of work to set up guardrails for this conflict. The modern russian army is 1/30th the size of the red army, for reference on present level of mobilization and what is theoretically capable of being employed should russia actually be fighting a war for survival of the russian state.
    - ArnoVW 2y ago
      You are again talking about mobilisation. Yes. They can enlist millions of untrained men. But in terms of total assets deployed, they are currently all-in. Attrition being what it is, they are reducing their Soviet stockpiles at a prodigious rate and are currently activating 40’s and 50’s equipment. This is all extremely well documented by open sources. People are counting tanks on military bases using satellite images. Check out Perun on YouTube. He’s a defense economics expert that posts a 70 minute PowerPoint presentation every Sunday, complete with sources and references. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        Well yeah its still not going all out even if they are using what they have. Russia going all out produces like 1500 t34 a month, 3000 PPSH a day. Like I have been trying to mention, they aren’t in total war mode. People are still working for domestic companies doing normal work. They aren’t being conscripted to tank factories. If they were it would be a different story that’s for sure.
        acdha 2y ago
        Where are you getting those production numbers from? This isn’t a video game where every turn the bear player gets 1,500 new tanks — their true capacity depends on complex supply chains, skilled people, and the impact of sanctions on their ability to pay for everything. You’re claiming figures at least order of magnitude higher than they’re reportedly hitting, and it’s really hard to believe that they’re slacking that hard on a core part of a war critical to Putin staying in power.
- AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
  Oh my bad, I thought you were being serious for a second.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    I am being serious. This is not a 100% war by any measure.
    - AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
      You've just said that there's a mode that the Russian Federation can just get into, that will allow it, a country with 144mln population, to gain an upper hand in a hypothetical war against the EU, a union of 447mln people, while having inferiority in all kinds of technology, from practically non-existent semiconductor manufacturing to inferior metalworking, thanks to which Russian howitzers have 8-10 km smaller effective range than European ones. The high-speed "Sapsan" trains from Moscow to St. Petersburg are German, not the other way around. The cranes they used to build the Crimea bridge were Dutch, not the other way around. The optics they were putting in their newest tanks was French, not the other way around. But of course, all these guys need to take over Europe is just "mobilization", whatever that means. With multiple times less people and inferior technology. Right. You are either seriously misguided or just trolling.
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        I have never said they can beat the west. I only highlight that once upon a time, Russia was producing like 1300 t34s a month. A true centrally planned wartime economy is really something else entirely when its applied to a continental power like Russia or the United States.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  If Russia is holding back, it seems like a strategic error. Why have they not brought in more conventional weaponry and personnel if it would bring them victory? I would guess that NATO planners have been adjusting their assessment of what Russia is capable of when completely mobilized. The answer sure looks a lot like "way weaker than we imagined, pretty well ineffective in the face of significant resistance, the only reason to pay any attention them at all is they have ~half the nuclear weapons worldwide."
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Simple game theory. If they escalate the conflict there is a potential that western allies would also escalate the conflict in response. Russia tows the line between funding a minor conflict and disruption of their domestic economy in favor of a centrally planned wartime economy. Having an active conflict to engage in is also a benefit in and of itself. The U.S. for example is the most advanced military in the world because they have engaged in more or less a continuous series of conflicts since WWII that allow them a unique opportunity to experiment in tactics and technology that for most other nations remains theoretical and simulated.
    - AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
      So, in addition to the losses figures from before, there was a major mutiny, with a 1mln city (Rostov-on-Don) captured for a day, with 7 units of aircraft downed. And recently the Russian ministry of interior released figures that cases of organized crime have risen by 76% compared to a period before 2022 [_], because that's what happens when you take a bunch of convicts - some of which were convicted for life - and give them all a "get out of jail" card for 6 months of running with a gun. You are claiming this is actually beneficial for the Russian Federation because all of that is outweighed by experiments in tactics, correct? [_] https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/15/mvd-otchitalos-oroste-orgprestupnosti-na76-posle-massovogo-vozvrascheniya-zekov-svoini-a136753 https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/15/mvd-otchitalos-oroste-...
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
- cookiengineer 2y ago
  Russia can never go into full mobilization modus operandi because these armed forces are busy with their shenanigans abroad in Africa and the Middle East. While we focus on democratic debates that are based on their spoonfed misinformation campaigns, Wagner is literally conquering central african countries one by one.
- hnbad 2y ago
  The limiting number for a "Russia goes bananas and decides to steamroll into Portugal" event, based on what we've seen in the invasion of Ukraine so far, seems to not be the number of soldiers but the amount of functional equipment. Russian production numbers sound good if you ignore that most of them refer to stored Cold War era equipment being reactivated. Their main and most successful staple has been artillery and that mostly worked because it could be fired from the safety of being on a side of the border NATO pretty much told Ukraine not to cross - for a time. It also seems like the "saber rattling" Russia did in the lead-up to the invasion by positioning military around the Ukranian border was less of an intimidation tactic and more of a necessary part of the process. I'm not saying Russia couldn't do a lot more damage in an all-out war into the West even without involving nuclear weapons (which already assumes European countries with nuclear weapons or the US wouldn't use them either). But based on the underwhelming performance of the Russian military relative to its supposed numbers, I don't think Russia could have pulled off the kind of Blitzkrieg you're envisioning, let alone once supply lines become a problem. Especially if you consider that the plan for the invasion of Ukraine clearly was built around a surprise attack on Kyiv, which failed spectacularly because the terrain and weather meant the tanks had to drive slowly in a line and somehow Russia didn't bother providing infantry support.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    I'm not suggesting that Russia vs the west would be successful. I'm only suggesting that this conflict is nowhere near as mobilized and driven as what Russia has shown it capable of in the past in WWII. Apparently this is a controversial take given the responses I've been getting.
    - throwaway237289 2y ago
      It's not a controversial take. You just lack understanding of the English language. OP: Looking at two countries in an actual long running war... You: This isn’t really all hell breaking loose actual war. Nobody used the term "all hell breaking loose". You did. You redefined the conversation to be about 100% mobilization (from Russia), and then got all pissy that people called you out.

kjkjadksj 2y ago

Its really not a full mobilization though. Yes 62k casualties seems like a lot. When Russia is fully mobilized in total war however, the sort of war that NATO planners fear the most, they go through millions of casualties and take over half the European continent in the process.

ArnoVW 2y ago
I don't think that "number of deaths" is a proxy for "infrastructure stops working". One of the worlds (what we thought) super powers has been trying for the last two years to destroy the infrastructure of a country with 33M inhabitants. They may not have fully mobilised, but they are definitely spending all their military equipment. Long range / tactical missiles. Air assets. Naval assets. Cyber warfare. The result in Ukraine : unimaginable human suffering, but electricity and the internet are still working over there. When the nukes start flying, that's another matter though. But in that case our problem will not be that our credit cards stop working.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  They are very much not sending all their equipment. They are very much not in a total war economy. The conflict is highly constrained. In an unconstrained war, Kyiv would be leveled already. Ukraine would be plowed over. Western powers have done a lot of work to set up guardrails for this conflict. The modern russian army is 1/30th the size of the red army, for reference on present level of mobilization and what is theoretically capable of being employed should russia actually be fighting a war for survival of the russian state.
  - ArnoVW 2y ago
    You are again talking about mobilisation. Yes. They can enlist millions of untrained men. But in terms of total assets deployed, they are currently all-in. Attrition being what it is, they are reducing their Soviet stockpiles at a prodigious rate and are currently activating 40’s and 50’s equipment. This is all extremely well documented by open sources. People are counting tanks on military bases using satellite images. Check out Perun on YouTube. He’s a defense economics expert that posts a 70 minute PowerPoint presentation every Sunday, complete with sources and references. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      Well yeah its still not going all out even if they are using what they have. Russia going all out produces like 1500 t34 a month, 3000 PPSH a day. Like I have been trying to mention, they aren’t in total war mode. People are still working for domestic companies doing normal work. They aren’t being conscripted to tank factories. If they were it would be a different story that’s for sure.
      - acdha 2y ago
        Where are you getting those production numbers from? This isn’t a video game where every turn the bear player gets 1,500 new tanks — their true capacity depends on complex supply chains, skilled people, and the impact of sanctions on their ability to pay for everything. You’re claiming figures at least order of magnitude higher than they’re reportedly hitting, and it’s really hard to believe that they’re slacking that hard on a core part of a war critical to Putin staying in power.
AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
Oh my bad, I thought you were being serious for a second.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  I am being serious. This is not a 100% war by any measure.
  - AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
    You've just said that there's a mode that the Russian Federation can just get into, that will allow it, a country with 144mln population, to gain an upper hand in a hypothetical war against the EU, a union of 447mln people, while having inferiority in all kinds of technology, from practically non-existent semiconductor manufacturing to inferior metalworking, thanks to which Russian howitzers have 8-10 km smaller effective range than European ones. The high-speed "Sapsan" trains from Moscow to St. Petersburg are German, not the other way around. The cranes they used to build the Crimea bridge were Dutch, not the other way around. The optics they were putting in their newest tanks was French, not the other way around. But of course, all these guys need to take over Europe is just "mobilization", whatever that means. With multiple times less people and inferior technology. Right. You are either seriously misguided or just trolling.
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      I have never said they can beat the west. I only highlight that once upon a time, Russia was producing like 1300 t34s a month. A true centrally planned wartime economy is really something else entirely when its applied to a continental power like Russia or the United States.
rootusrootus 2y ago
If Russia is holding back, it seems like a strategic error. Why have they not brought in more conventional weaponry and personnel if it would bring them victory? I would guess that NATO planners have been adjusting their assessment of what Russia is capable of when completely mobilized. The answer sure looks a lot like "way weaker than we imagined, pretty well ineffective in the face of significant resistance, the only reason to pay any attention them at all is they have ~half the nuclear weapons worldwide."
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Simple game theory. If they escalate the conflict there is a potential that western allies would also escalate the conflict in response. Russia tows the line between funding a minor conflict and disruption of their domestic economy in favor of a centrally planned wartime economy. Having an active conflict to engage in is also a benefit in and of itself. The U.S. for example is the most advanced military in the world because they have engaged in more or less a continuous series of conflicts since WWII that allow them a unique opportunity to experiment in tactics and technology that for most other nations remains theoretical and simulated.
  - AndriyKunitsyn 2y ago
    So, in addition to the losses figures from before, there was a major mutiny, with a 1mln city (Rostov-on-Don) captured for a day, with 7 units of aircraft downed. And recently the Russian ministry of interior released figures that cases of organized crime have risen by 76% compared to a period before 2022 [_], because that's what happens when you take a bunch of convicts - some of which were convicted for life - and give them all a "get out of jail" card for 6 months of running with a gun. You are claiming this is actually beneficial for the Russian Federation because all of that is outweighed by experiments in tactics, correct? [_] https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/15/mvd-otchitalos-oroste-orgprestupnosti-na76-posle-massovogo-vozvrascheniya-zekov-svoini-a136753 https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/15/mvd-otchitalos-oroste-...
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
cookiengineer 2y ago
Russia can never go into full mobilization modus operandi because these armed forces are busy with their shenanigans abroad in Africa and the Middle East. While we focus on democratic debates that are based on their spoonfed misinformation campaigns, Wagner is literally conquering central african countries one by one.
hnbad 2y ago
The limiting number for a "Russia goes bananas and decides to steamroll into Portugal" event, based on what we've seen in the invasion of Ukraine so far, seems to not be the number of soldiers but the amount of functional equipment. Russian production numbers sound good if you ignore that most of them refer to stored Cold War era equipment being reactivated. Their main and most successful staple has been artillery and that mostly worked because it could be fired from the safety of being on a side of the border NATO pretty much told Ukraine not to cross - for a time. It also seems like the "saber rattling" Russia did in the lead-up to the invasion by positioning military around the Ukranian border was less of an intimidation tactic and more of a necessary part of the process. I'm not saying Russia couldn't do a lot more damage in an all-out war into the West even without involving nuclear weapons (which already assumes European countries with nuclear weapons or the US wouldn't use them either). But based on the underwhelming performance of the Russian military relative to its supposed numbers, I don't think Russia could have pulled off the kind of Blitzkrieg you're envisioning, let alone once supply lines become a problem. Especially if you consider that the plan for the invasion of Ukraine clearly was built around a surprise attack on Kyiv, which failed spectacularly because the terrain and weather meant the tanks had to drive slowly in a line and somehow Russia didn't bother providing infantry support.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  I'm not suggesting that Russia vs the west would be successful. I'm only suggesting that this conflict is nowhere near as mobilized and driven as what Russia has shown it capable of in the past in WWII. Apparently this is a controversial take given the responses I've been getting.
  - throwaway237289 2y ago
    It's not a controversial take. You just lack understanding of the English language. OP: Looking at two countries in an actual long running war... You: This isn’t really all hell breaking loose actual war. Nobody used the term "all hell breaking loose". You did. You redefined the conversation to be about 100% mobilization (from Russia), and then got all pissy that people called you out.