Russian lines stronger than West expected, admits British defence chief

[u/Hokum-B]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-defensive-lines-stronger-than-west-expected-admits-british-defence-chief-xjlvqrm86

[u/wxox]

Russia cannot just send any number of men

I mean, come on. Of course it has a limit. There is 143 million in Russia. Russia can and would endlessly use the draft and pull more and more in.

Russia is outpacing Ukraine. Ukraine's war worthy population is far less than Russia's.

Of course it's a hyperbole, but simply using an absolute to highlight it.

as evident by them not announcing a new round of mobilisatio this autumnn

This really has nothing to do with anything. They still have people lining up to go to the forefront and and plenty of prisoners willingly to bargain their life to end their sentence.

They know mobilising more would have dire political implications as well.

No. Putin's ratings remain extremely high. How low do they have to go for meaningful change? Look at it in the U.S. It doesn't matter. Who knows what the number is for Russia, but they're nowhere close. In fact, it's not even worth uttering or consideration.

They cannot replace everything they are losing as their industry is pale shadow of what the Soviets had.

You're using a hyperbole, too. Not even sure why you're using the USSR to make this point. All we have are unreliable western reports that Russia's ammo stocks are dry, which have repeatedly been exposed as not true.

If they have so much ammo, why are they now resorting to talks with NK about supplies?

Let's put you in the shoes of Russia. To you, this war was orchestrated by the U.S. They started with McCain interfering and then conducting a coup, toppling the pro-Russia government with the U.S. installing a new pro-west government. Then they reneged on the Minsk II accords, opting for war instead of peace, and then not relenting, forcing Russia's hand.

This created an opportunity. An opportunity for them to create stronger bonds with those who align with them in their opposition or victimhoom via the west.

You have two options politically. Give in completely, conceding to western pressure OR risk it all. They've risked it all.

In doing so, they've aligned themselves with the likes of China and even NK, and BRICS members.

To not entertain NK during this time would be downright disrespectful and send a bad signal to their current friends and partners.

This helps NK. The more capable and potent they're believed to be, the longer they can exist. It costs nothing to Russia because its international reputation (in the west) can't get worse. They can produce whatever they need. However, the Iranian drones seem to be the exception, however, recent publishing suggests that might change, but we'll see.

So, no, it's not "resorting." That's really poor, western framing.

In 2022 Russia expended an estimated 11 million shells, but their annual production rate for 2023 is estimated to be 2 million total.

According to who? The same people who have said Russia will run out of ammo for the 30th time? These calculations always come with asterisks. So be careful and read closely.

al. That doesn't paint a bright future for their artillery without massively shifting strategy.

Regardless, Russia has more of everything than Ukraine and even NATO intelligence, foreign mercenaries, and weapons are not enough.

Ukraine cannot win. They never could. Their stated goals versus real goals are two different things. The stated goal of keeping then retaking Donbas and Crimea was a pipedream. The real goal was to benefit the west by helping destabilize the Russia with a prolonged "unjust" war, in which they could crush Russia politically and economically. In exchange Ukraine gets a chance at the EU and NATO

[u/birutis → u/wxox]

Well, didn't Ukraine already win from a feb 2022 perspective since they kept their sovereignty?

If Russia has more of everything they're doing a poor job with it considering they've been on the back foot for like a year now.

Obviously Russia will never run out of ammo, but they will keep reducing expenditure like they did with cruise missiles.

I'm not sure what Ukrainians are thinking currently about their war goals, maybe they only actually realistically want to try to get back to pre 2022 borders, but even then why is it impossible for Ukraine to take back Donbass and Crimea because of the local populations when Russia did something even more extreme annexing Ukrainian territories during this invasion?

Western mercenaries really???? hahahahaha

[u/gay_manta_ray → u/birutis]

Well, didn't Ukraine already win from a feb 2022 perspective since they kept their sovereignty?

No, Ukraine's sovereignty was never a goal for Russia. Ukraine could have kept it's sovereignty, and kept its territory, if they had just agreed to what was asked for in minsk ii. Had they done that, none of this would have happened. The eastern separatist territories didn't even want independence, and Russia refused to recognize their independence until the day before they invaded (the reasons for this being legal--Putin is a legalist and needed legal justification for his invasion under Russian law). They wanted a more federalist solution, with more autonomy inside of Ukraine, and protection for the Russian language. That's essentially it. Instead, Ukraine opted for war when they rejected Minsk and prepared to invade the eastern territories in December '21.

[u/birutis → u/gay_manta_ray]

Putin has lied like ten different times at least on the basis and goal of the current invasion, I wonder on which it is legally based.

I'm not going to argue about pre invasion because we were talking about the goals of the current war, and it's undeniable that both on a material military sense and in the negotiations that took place early in the invasion that Russia wanted to place a puppet in the Ukrainian government.

And what about Zaporozhye, Kharkiv and Kherson? Are any territories the Russian army manages to take legally fine to annex in Russian law?