Russia’s army is now 15% bigger than when it invaded Ukraine, says US general

https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-army-15-percent-larger-when-attacked-ukraine-us-general-2024-4?utm_source=reddit.com

by UNITED24Media

30 comments

  1. Is the west really destroying the Russian army or are they turning it into a more competent force?

  3. I.e, the Russian military is now to a huge extent made up of inexperienced conscripts.

    Large numbers yes, effective fighting force, not necessarily.

  4. Well yes, because they’ve mobilised their B, C, D and E teams now. In 1990 Iraq had the largest army in the world. It took 24 hours for the US to completely control the air over both Kuwait and Iraq and 4 days for the coalition to drive them out of Kuwait once the ground offensive began in earnest. Numbers of soldiers don’t really tell you much.

  5. I could definitely see Russia trying to overwhelm Ukraine this summer, and ruin the Euro & Olympics for everyone because Russia is banned from them.

  6. “After the USA exchanged Ukrainian nukes on International Law alternative, and then did completely opposite to creation of such alternative by trading with autocratic/authoritarian countries despite their aggravating International Law violation…

    After the USA spent 2022-2024 years on RealPolitik “bleeding Russia” games…

    OF COURSE, Russia’s army become 15% bigger than when it invaded Ukraine. It’s exactly what USA invested all this time. To show anyone that USA, as and Russia, for now believe only in opportunistic economic profits and “WMD-countries cannot lose = WMD-Might make Right/True””

  7. I hate myself for falling for western propaganda last summer. I can’t believe I really believed that Russia was fighting with shovels and was going to bankrupt in August.

  8. 15% bigger but 60% overall less qualified … the Rouble is losing ground constantly, Putin will have more and more problems to keep this war alive.

    Russia is heading towards a very problematic future … at some point, the population will be fed up with delivering bodies for Putin to exploit.

  9. They are doing what they did with Napolean and also with the Nazis, exhaust them for a long time and then grow and take the win.

  10. >”Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000,” Cavoli continued, adding that the bolstered numbers stemmed from Russia raising its conscription age from 27 to 30.

    Conscript does not equal mobilized, they are two separate categories. Russian conscripts do not fight in Ukraine unless they sign a contract, some do, but it’s not the majority.

    Another thing is that the raising of the conscription age according to the law is for future conscriptions, it does not work retroactively, so if you are 28 years old Russian, you dodged it.

    The lack of basic knowledge a US general shows here is kind of concerning. His numbers might be right, but it’s definitely is not based on conscription.

  12. The dead will continue to pile up. Until the system crumbles.

  14. Troop wise sure.. but how about armored vehicles, ships, planes etc?

  15. The problem is we really don’t have any actually evidence of what’s really happening, we have sides of a story but no one really knows the truth. Both sides will try to inflate or deflat the number depending on what makes it seem better for them. The only thing we definitely know about war is that people will die, some will be innocent and some won’t but a lot of them will die.

  17. Most essential and trained personnel on the Russian side are dead. All elite forces that could perform coordinated assaults, VDV, etc. are dead. Assault capabilities, like specialized vehicles are spent. Naval invasion capabilities are sunk to the bottom of the sea. What is left is the air force and the new waves of mobilized soldiers. Means there will nothing much more except the same styles of meat grindery mass infantry attacks and war of attrition using cruise missiles and bombing.

  18. > “Based on my experience in 37-plus years in the U.S. military, if one side can shoot and the other side can’t shoot back, the side that can’t shoot back loses,” he continued.

    I’m not an expert, but this seems rather plausible to me.

    > “Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000,”

    Russia’s GDP is somewhere between Spain and Italy. How long are they able to sustain land force this size?

  19. The biggest mistake Russia did in 2022 was underestimating Ukraine’s ability to learn and adapt.

    The biggest mistake the West can do now is underestimate Russia’s ability to learn and adapt.

  20. _Cancer tumour is now 15% bigger than after it was diagnosed, doctor says_

  21. One of the disappointments of this war is how the West squandered the advantage it had.

    After Ukraine demonstrated that they wouldn’t be knocked out of the fight at the very beginning, it became clear to everyone that they’d need to be continually supplied. The West was generally supportive, but restrained itself for three reasons:

    1. It didn’t want to antagonize Russia in a way that could start a nuclear war,
    2. to not have to cut protect domestic spending for war production, and
    3. Ukraine was doing well, so there wasn’t as much of a feeling that they’d need to pour tons of resources into Ukraine.

    [There is also the issue of lack of domestic capacity in Europe, but my focus here is only on what was in the West’s power, not what it wish it had.]

    The first issue caused way too much hesitation, e.g. any Ukraine has still barely received any fighter jets. The second issue is Western leaders thought they could have their cake and eat it too. The second issue also adds to the third issue, which is one of being myopic.

    Everyone laughed at how badly Russia had bungled the initial invasion and were praising Ukrainians for regaining land. What they didn’t realize (but obviously should have) is that Russia would learn from its mistakes. It’s now spending 6-7% of its GDP on the military. It’s military factories are running 24/7. It’s conscripts are fleshing out its thin army (as this article discusses). And, they’ve dramatically adapted their tactics to fight this war and not the last one. The Russian weaknesses that everyone mocked are gone, leaving Russia more capable in the short- to medium-term than it has been in recent history.

    The speech that this article comes from captures it well:

    >”Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded,”

    The West had a chance to neutralize Russia as a threat be ensuring a solid (if not decisive) win for Ukraine. That chance is gone. The most we can do now is to continue to provide Ukraine whatever they want and hope that Russia realizes it can’t sustain the meatgrinder as the West is there to reliable backstop Ukraine.

  22. Is there a russian subreddit where we can see their talks and ideas about the war? like this attack happened, this land is taken&lost etc for science. I wanna see from other side for perspective

  24. Yeah bigger. I imagine the lost if the NCOs from the army proper over the last year will have been devestating

  25. But with less tanks, less ships and less planes. Wars became increasingly mechanized for a reason. Just having more cannon fodder does not a victory make.

  27. How can that be? I was told by reddit they took 2 million casualties. Necromancers getting their overtime I suppose.

  28. It’s probably time to open up the playbook a bit and send in some special forces. I think closing the airspace above Ukraine and using NATO air support to remove Russian artillery would be a great start. Having a coalition of special forces on the ground to identify targets would help in that effort. If Putin wants to get upset about that. GOOD! He is a blood thirsty piece of trash.

  29. Considering the starting point was 700k the candidate should try and calculate the losses in 2 years of conflict

  30. They have more numbers on a sheet of paper, but it’s not as elite of a fighting force as before.

    With that said, Russia and the Russian people seem to be okay with sacrificing huge numbers of men for small amounts of territory, so that’s concerning.

Leave a Reply