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Looks to me that Russia is winning the war of attrition. Is that view inaccurate?

• nradov 2y ago
  Yes, that's basically accurate. Russia has a huge advantage in manpower and equipment, and has been using that to gradually take more territory. Ukraine will have to achieve about an 8:1 casualty ratio in order to achieve an outright battlefield victory, which they haven't been able to do even with foreign military aid. A more realistic goal is basically to inflict enough Russian casualties that domestic political and economic pressures force a withdrawal from most of the occupied territory. That's not impossible but it's kind of a long shot. Another approach which is more likely to work is for NATO countries to step up and really hurt Russia through every means short of war. That mainly means finding a way to reduce their fossil fuels export income.
  • threeseed 2y ago
    > That mainly means finding a way to reduce their fossil fuels export income Which is happening now. EU is about to impose sanctions on the shadow fleet of Russian tankers. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20241111IPR25341/parliament-calls-for-an-eu-crackdown-on-russia-s-shadow-fleet https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20241111IP...
• aguaviva 2y ago
  Is that view inaccurate? Technically no, but a more forthright assessment would be: "Russia has been winning the war of attrition, but very slowly, and only for the past year. At current rates, it would take several decades to reach Kyiv. Meanwhile, for the sake of these extremely modest gains, it's spending about 10 percent of its GDP." Context it is everything.