Subject: Re: Trump a vacuous moron
This is what I read. Russia is in bad shape and needs the war to stop even more than Ukraine does, till now.

Interesting you read that. Most of the media doesn't cover it in any detail. I know I sound like a broken record, but it seems to take someone like Perun to pull all those disparate source together and present it -with citations- in a concise format.

Yes, Russia is hurting. They don't have conscription (yet), they've burned through a lot of the professional/career soldiers, they're activating artillery pieces from WWII (or scavenging for parts those that can't be activated)**, they are activating (or scavenging) armor from the Khrushchev era, their economy is about to circle the drain...and they can't even retake Kursk (the Russian territory seized by Ukraine last year). Putin needs this to be over, desperately. I expect -this isn't from Perun- he'll demand the return of Kursk, and to retain all captured Ukrainian territory. Anything less, and he'll appear weak.

I would have to pull up the videos to look at the charts again, but Russian casualties have been horrendous. Russian propaganda downplays the numbers to just a few thousand, while claiming ~1M Ukrainian casualties. Independent sources estimate it's more like 150K+ Russians dead, and at least 500K wounded. Meanwhile, Ukrainian dead are ~50K, plus about 400K wounded. That's 3x the kill rate in favor of the Ukrainians. Give or take, from what I remember when I was catching up on his videos two weeks ago.

It has degenerated into a trench war, with lots of fixed fortifications and minefields. If either side tries to make advances, they have to fight through all that (and take lots of casualties). That's one reason the Kursk offensive was such a surprise...the Russians were caught flat-footed, despite drones covering the battlespace. The Ukrainians did suffer elevated casualties because of the trenches and mines, but once they were through that, they broke out for a decent territory grab. Some reports said the Russians just turned tail and ran. It's mostly a war of attrition at this point. Putin needs it to be over...yesterday.




**Keep in mind, artillery barrels have a limited lifetime. They need to be replaced after firing some hundreds of rounds, so even if they activate an artillery piece, they need to either make or scavenge new barrels frequently. Easier than building a new piece, or a new tank (whose barrels also need replacing, assuming the tank lives long enough). But it is still a materiel/manufacturing requirement for their logistics.