Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The Kremlin perceives that the Brits are politically weak (that's not propaganda, they are) and sees them as a proxy for the United States. In much the same way as Belarus is a client state of Russia. They are not going to attack the United States directly, that's fatal. They can send a shot across the bows by exploiting Britains weakness, it would be for purposes of political maneuver. How is Britain weak? It only just skirted a financial crisis that almost (and still could) take down pension funds. This is war, it does not have to take the form of cutting fiber optic lines or blowing up gas pipelines. It can also be to insert division in alliances or divert resources away at key stages of battle. The XR/Just stop oil idiots are enough to cause disruption in the UK.

We don't know who blew up the pipelines to Germany, we can guess it is done with Americans tacit approval, and likely to keep Germany from breaking ranks. German industry is piling the pressure on their government. Having the Brits preoccupied with internal politics can work in the Kremlins favour, they don't negotiate with the EU as a political entity, it is always with nation states, that is why you see President Macron, or Chancellor Scholz in Moscow, they diss the EU representatives. Their goal must be to break or limit the NATO alliance or at least make them think twice about crossing the border in Ukraine.

Do you think Britain is in a weaker position than Russia right now?

Possibly, there are troublemakers like Yevgeny Prigozhin, he rises and falls depending on what happens in Bakhmut. Ramzan Kadyrov is just theater, probably used to goad the Russian Federtion army leaders. The military has clearly forced Putins hand to sign the mobilisation. Dmitry Medvedev is seen as the oligarchs man, but is playing the onside game at the moment. Putin only has until 2024, so any contenders will be lining up for the top job. The Spring offensive will be about more that trying to hold territory in Ukraine.

The US the most efficient Army medical logistical support Army in the world runs at 7-8 to 1. NATO is probably similar. The general ration else where is 3-1.

However the Russian figures on wounded to death are taught to be not much better than 1-1. This is the reason there KIA numbers are so high. Like everything else logistical they do it's a disaster. If they cannot keep military equipment in good order when not in use, they hardly kept there medical logistics in good order either.

This is the military force where there airforce use sat nabs to guide them around.

60-80k dead and the same wounded. In Russia unless you are the walking wounded the only way you will survive is if a UA medical team get to you

Putin needs a change of underwear, and a large transfusion of brain cells. Perhaps he'd like Zelensky to drop by for some special tea as well?

The IT have given this Toal chap yet another column to call on Ukraine to capitulate.

We all want peace, but it would be more helpful if Toal could elucidate what compromises he believes Ukraine should make to facilitate Russia’s fascist aggression.

70k dead and 70k wounded is 140k out of action is almost the entire russian force committed to the invasion. Their mobilised conscripts have not yet been moved to the front (last report said only ~10k had been moved to the zone of the 'SMO'), so if those casualty figures were true it would mean a total collapse of russian army in Ukraine.

And yet they are still defending on 4 fronts (Svatovo, Bakhmut-Donetsk, Zaporozhzhia, Kherson). If that number of Russian casualties were accurate, then how are they holding on? Either they have been killing far more Ukrainians than losses they take themselves, which is the only reason Ukraine havent retaken all that poorly defended territory already, or else they havent lost nearly that number of troops.

I've thought the same thing too. There will need to be a humongous cleanup, but the scale of it would be hard to fathom. Doing it thoroughly would be nigh on impossible, which means there'll inevitably be combine harvesters exploding while going about their daily (or yearly) business

Fight to the last man? hardly

Why on earth would they do that?

Recent events prove otherwise

The lads ploughing will be at greater risk. I wouldn't be surprised to see armour-plated cabs back in fashion.

If the UK/USA/other forces just supposedly did blow up the pipelines, kindly explain why the Kremlin didn't have a wee meltdown over it. They had an interest in these assets and were demonstrably angered by the various attacks to date on the likes of the Kerch Bridge and attacks in Crimea at airbase and port. But the pipelines? A shrug and just too bad for yous seemed to be the message - just look what we can do to other assets like this.

The Brits may be having their political woes but you can be bloody sure the one thing that would galvanise them in a moment would be an attack by Russia. Big, big mistake.

If anybody has any doubts what the Ukrainans plans are for the future victory and a trip to Crimea for president Zelensky

The Russian army that invaded Ukraine consisted of 200k mainly conscripts who were illegally forced to participate. However since then regular Russian Army stationed elsewhere in Russia have been added to that force. You also have the Wagner group who were recruiting for it as well. Add to that Chechens 15-20k of which were also added to the conflict.

The reason that Putin added a mobilization order was that the regular army was not able to continue to add troops without removing soldiers from other conflicts. We already see the results of that where when Azerbzijan and Armenia started a conflict that Russia was unable to get involved to help Armenia.

We know from internal Russian compensation figures that the figures are stark. A late August circular with in the FSB indicated that compensation for death was paid to nearly 50k families. Some families are unable to claim as there is no body.

Moscow Times indicated 90k irrecoverable losses in late September, that is dead and seriously wounded unable to return to the army.

You published a figure if 12-1 wounded to dead. No army has ever achieved that in a serious conflict. In Afghanistan the US figures were 7-1. Wounded are all wounded from the soldier that get a bullet graze's to lads that get wounded by major and minor bullet wounds to those that lose arms and legs etc. Unless you are superficially wounded in the Russian army you chance of survival is poor. 1-1 dead to wounded the figures may be much worse 1 to 0.7. Russian medical backup is probably similar to US civil war figures (1-0.7 union forces) not to any modern army.

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