The sad fact is, the weapons advantage increasingly favors the Ukrainians as reinforcements continue to arrive. Russians are running low on ammo and manpower, and increasingly bogged down in brutal urban fighting.
Calling it. Russia will lose the battle of Bakhmut
>Russia will lose the battle of Bakhmut
How will Russian historians and social commentators cope with this after everything is said and done?
It will be a disaster for them, albeit an entirely predictable one. They squandered way too much fricking manpower in suicidal frontal assaults, while the Ukrainians wisely conserved their reserves and committed the absolute minimum until recently.
TLDR: Russia sucks at "War Of Attrition". Their KIA was extremely high.
>Russia sucks at "War Of Attrition". Their KIA was extremely high.
You misunderstand the Russian concept of war, them suffering extremely high casualties is a good thing. It may not necessarily mean they're winning, but it's almost like a weird badge for them to parade around, saying
>"Look how hard we suffered, how many we lost. How sufferingly heroic of us. How perseverant, tough, and stoic we is."
I'm not shitposting or being ironic, either.
Russians brag about losing 10X the men America did for half the time in Afghanistan lol
ah this makes sense from the country that brought tactical blow jobs and tactical ass rape
>tactical blow jobs and tactical ass rape
The homosexuality is strategic in nature, anon.
It made sense in WW2 when they were fighting a defensive war against an absolutely insane genocidal maniacs, so sacrifices had to be made. Now they are the invaders so boasting about how many people they are losing in a war of aggression they started themselves is simply hilarious and embarrassing.
>It made sense in WW2 when they were fighting a defensive war against an absolutely insane genocidal maniacs
Except they weren't genocidal maniacs, other than Dirlewanger's savages. The Germans created plenty of Slavic client states, like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokot_Autonomy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_Central_Council
Those were nothing but temporal useful idiots that would have been wiped out had the germans won. Like Vlasov's Army they only were created after after 1941 and the failure to achieve Barbarossa's strategic objectives.
It was a war of conquest and the germans wanted their lebensraum por german up to the Urals.
oh no, Russia has thinned out its population of prisoners and neo nazi mercenarys.
once the mobics learn the backflip shovel throw its all over for the globalists
what is this moronic manpower meme. russia can do 1000 bakhmuts and not run out of bodies. they can do hundreds of partial mobilizations and nobody will do shit about it
And equip them with fricking what? More shovels?
small arms?? you think russia, the country that stockpiles literally everything forever and even lies about scrapping them (t62s) doesn't have millions upon millions of guns? literally what is wagner using now that they are in danger of running out of long term. ww2 howitzers? dumb shells? bullets? they cant make more of these?
Yeah they cant because they blew through most of it in by firing in may/june, getting himars’d in july/august, resupplying the ukrainians in march/september and a little all in between. Theyve fallen back on iran and best korea. China is waiting to get them on their knees before supplying them.
You ever wonder why so many Americans own AKs? You ever ask yourself why SKS were $199CAD and every Canadian owns one? You ever take the time to wonder why they were issuing nuggets to DNR militia?
Guns are only made for the military. And Russia actually cant produce any more guns at all because they just cant. If you think they will ever run low on small arms idk what to tell you
We've already seen video of what is remaining. And the bugBlack folk have started shipping "hunting rifles" to prop up that lack of working weapons.
Do (You) know what board you're on?
do you really think this anecdotal shit is proof of anything? you dont think that if this were true this would be basically all any analyst would talk about for months? weird how russia is running out of SMALL ARMS and not one western intelligence agency knows anything about it! i know exactly what board im on. a sensationalist shithole that will cry wolf over even the most moronic news stories (china sending 1000 m16 clones means russia is running out of GUNS!!!!!! or LOOK AT THESE RUSTY AKS!!!! LOOK AT THE MOSINS!!!!)
Newfriend, please look after yourself.
High blood pressure is bad for your health
So, we'll be conservative and say only 30,000 Ruskoids were killed at Bakhmut in the last year.
30,000 X 1,000 = 30,000,000 (thirty million)
So no, they can't. They can't even handle ten.
It’s mind blowing to me that even conservative estimates for Russian losses in Ukraine are in the same league as total US losses in Vietnam. What’s the fricking point even? Russia seems to have given up on taking Kyiv
When we consider actual 'blue' side losses in Vietnam they are more in the realm of 500,000 Kia. South Vietnamese did most of the dying.
Logistics and demographics lad
This whole board is just people looking at Russian casualty figures and not understanding that it really doesn't matter to Russia if they lose the 50000 convicts
If it didn’t matter, then how come Russia recruited convicts in the first place and why did they eventually stop?
So why didn't they do it then? What stops them from mobilizing their entire prison population if that really isn't a problem?
The lives might have been worthless, but 50,000 rifles and 100,000 boots did matter.
You can’t sustain an offensive with only convicts. You need some wheat mixed with the chaff if you’re ever to take positions. Contract soldiers are getting eaten alive as well, they make up the iron spearheaded leading the shaft of wood. I shudder to think of the state of Russia’s officer corps. Do you think Wagner uses NCOs?
>1000 bakhmuts
1000 x 9 months = 9000 months = 750 years
>the absolute minimum
Last I heard they suffered quite significant casualties these past few months.
Yeah well last I heard Bakhmut was about to be surrounded these last few months, I guess you can't believe everything you hear
They’ll Ignore it, and find something else to talk and obsess about instead.
They won't, they'll memory hole it. Then accuse everyone of being "obsessed with it" anytime its brought up. By next decade, the official party line will be "Russia never invaded Ukraine, we gave some rebels some weapons and that's it!!"
My money is on them doubling down on the "Russia vs All of NATO" narrative. As a distraction for the humiliation, the MQ-9 incident will now be spammed like the F117 lost over Serbia.
>Sorry, we didn't know it was Wunderwaffe.
>How will Russian historians and social commentators cope with this after everything is said and done?
By re-contextualizing the entire war as a cultural turning point.
If Russia's government doesn't collapse, then it will undergo reforms (either real ones or fake ones), and the war will be framed as a purifying trial that destroyed the old corrupt order and allowed the new one to flourish.
The fact that Bakhmut happened as it did will be blamed on a scapegoat, and that scapegoat will be villainized in war movies which glorify not only the Russian soldiers, but their Ukrainian enemies as well.
This man reads history.
Or he's just very familiar with how people and governments work.
>It didn't happen
>It happened but it was a good idea of the great leader
>We fought against NATO that used unfair stuff like pallets
And if Putin is replaced
>Putin started the war, not Russia
>Russia would have beaten NATO if not for Putin
>It was a necessary war to safeguard Russia and we won in a spiritual sense
Good post tbh
would have beaten NATO if not for Putin
Probably would have if Medevedev's guy remained in charge and had its way.
Move goalposts. Cant lose that way. We never wanted bakhmut anyway
Even if they won at Bakhmut, then what? This war has long ceased to have a clear route to victory for either side really. And that attritional aspect benefits Ukraine because the morale and supplies aren't going to just vanish (especially as Russia increasingly turns to vengeance strikes against civilians.)
Russia dove head-first into a fight it wasn't prepared for and they've declawed themselves for the foreseeable future. Bakhmut is just one stop, the latest, on a very long road which has no good end for Russia.
If they win Artemovsk, then nothing will stop them from taking Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, becase dills are already spent and mobilizing teenagers and women.Then it's only a short jump to Kharkov and after this taking Kiev is basically a formality.
The duality of man
>And that attritional aspect benefits Ukraine
Pump the brakes.
While it's far from guaranteed that Russia can mass mobilize without inciting potentially fatal unrest, on paper the Russians have a decisive manpower advantage. The war has, from day one, depended on the Ukes making up that deficit with creative tactics and superior tech. They've done that so far, but extended attritional battles make that harder. Russia's still a long way from beaten, and they may win this thing yet, though I wish it weren't true.
>The war has, from day one
This was true for the first week or two. Past that Ukraine has held a manpower advantage until partial mobilization much later. See : Kharkov
Depends on how you define winning. Even in worst case scenario Ukraine will only lose the eastern half of the country, there is no way the Russians will ever cross the Dnieper again. Huge tracts of it are too wide for pontoons and Ukraine can just fortify and barrage the main crossing points forever.
>decisive manpower advantage.
Having more bodies has not been a decisive advantage since the invention of the machine gun
Even Sun Tzu said that numbers alone confer no advantage. It can be a decisive factor if all other things are equal but it's never the case in the real world that numbers are the only thing that separate militaries.
The prior offensives were not necessarily indicative of future offensive conditions.
Kharkiv - Russia was planning on withdrawing from these areas anyways after reorienting their goals in the war towards just establishing novorossiya, it was just an utterly bungled affair and they lost much more territory much more rapidly than they intended to.
Kherson - Positions here became untenable once Ukrainians got HIMARS and long enough range artillery to destroy Dnipro crossings
It's pretty likely that they will be able to break Russia's land bridge and establish a siege of Crimea at this point, but it's not a given, and reclaiming Donetsk or actually attacking into Crimea, if Russians don't abandoon, would be operations with massive casualties, Crimea could easily cost them six figure casualties. Donetsk can't effectively be cut off from supply either.
Russia needed izium to take sloviansk and kramatorsk with the resources they thought they needed. They were not in the process of withdrawing they just dont have the resources to cover the whole front when they thought the major offensive was exclusive to kherson
>on paper the Russians have a decisive manpower advantage
No, actually it does not. Not even on paper. Russia has less men to pull from than Ukraine. For two reasons.
1. Putin will never touch Moscow and St. Petersburg populations in any meaningful capacity, meaning the 2 largest concentrations of military aged males in the the country are off the table from the get go. (If you think he may someday do so then stop reading here, we have nothing to discuss.) What this means though is that secondary cities and rural non-Russian minorities will take front and center as monikers, and those are already approaching their practical limits if Ukraine's casualty numbers for Russian losses are to be taken as even remotely accurate.
2. Much hay is made of "800,000" Russians become 18 next year!", yes, that is true. But more than 800,000 Russian men exit the workforce next year, too. Inverted population pyramids are just that way. Therefore the Russian state very much does need every single one of those men to be productive members of society as soon and for as long as possible. Produce goods, services, and increase internal consumption. The economy, by definition. They absolutely cannot all be consumed by the war effort. Even a sizable fraction can't be taken to die or be maimed.
>Ukraine has the same issue though
No, not at all.
It doesn't get as much attention as the "sexy" line items like bombs and tanks, but the bulk of aid to Ukraine has been financial. The continence of the Ukrainian state is at this point guaranteed by the largess of the USA and EU, with their sovereign debts being essentially co-signed by both parties. Ukraine does not need to produce goods, services, nor depend on internal consumption as much as a normal state would for that reason.
Russia doesn't have that.
Russia doesn't have anyone.
To what degree? I argue they have less men available for it than Ukraine does. Time will tell.
>the bulk of aid to Ukraine has been financial
And that could mean jack shit for all we know.
The military aid is hard objects, you can see it being used and thus know it isn't being squandered. This gives you some confidence then that the financial aid is also being used as intended, but forgive me if I'm a little skeptical if a country that was, before 2022, just another stereotypical corrupt Eastern Euro oligarchy managed to turn on a dime.
The rest of your argument is solid and I see no reason to dispute it, but I'm still skeptical the non-military aid is being employed as effectively as the military.
>To what degree? I argue they have less men available for it than Ukraine does. Time will tell.
Agreed. For Ukraine, it's an existential war and they can mobilize their whole population behind it (which is a large fricking population, this isn't Finland).
For the Russians, at some points it becomes an existential crisis to NOT participate in the war. The calculation is inverted.
Hell, from the numbers I've seen being thrown around, Ukraine has barely committed more people to this war than Finland would do. They have deep pools of reserves yet.
>Hell, from the numbers I've seen being thrown around, Ukraine has barely committed more people to this war than Finland would do. They have deep pools of reserves yet.
Exactly, that’s why they’re sending amputees and teenage girls to the front. Wait…
He isn't wrong. Ukraine hasn't actually mobilized that many people.
More importantly, Russians don't want to die for a stupid war. Ukrainians will die defending their lands.
>Hey, lets mobilize this 200 000 guys (farmers)
>Wtf? Why there is no food?
You see, you cant just mobilize all your population, you also need to keep a working force.
>the Russians have a decisive manpower advantage
True, but what we are seeing from the failed Russian offensives all over the front is that their advantage in manpower doesn't translate into successful offensive actions.
They have hundreds of thousands of potential mobiks, but the only real use for them is manning a trench and delaying assaulting units until artillery can be called.
Which shouldn't be underestimated, clearing trenches is difficult, expensive and time consuming. Just look at recent trench clearing videos. Even if they are successful it takes a massive superiority in firepower and the lack of enemy anti tank weapons and artillery support to take a single trench.
If Russia hadn't mobilized and thrown fresh meat to the frontline we probably would have seen another successful Ukrainian counter offensive by now.
Unless Ukraine can achieve a massive local breaktrhough and cut of supply lines in the rear the Russians can defend their captured territory pretty much forever.
I'm curious what example there is in recent history of a people giving up when brutalized by an invader. off the top of my head all I can think of is the Serbs. My assumption is Bakhmut being taken = the tale of unstoppable Ukraine is shattered = naysayers in the West start to gain more traction = more pressure on Ukes to offer terms. Russia isn't fighting right now to conquer the rest of Ukraine (They want to, obviously), it's fighting to defend what it currently holds in Ukraine. If they can shift to taking up more of Ukraine then they'll love to and will hold whatever they take in any future terms offered. But the desperation is more about just not collapsing than anything. They want an out. And I have a feeling some people in the West, and not just vatnigs, actually hope Bakhmut fails so that can happen and they can go back to the jolly ol status quo. Though I think even the Germans 'may' finally be changing their tune on that.
>And I have a feeling some people in the West, and not just vatnigs, actually hope Bakhmut fails so that can happen and they can go back to the jolly ol status quo.
Except there will be no status quo ante, especially not after the ICC decision.
Eh, the ICC is a meme, even more toothless than the UN.
> *whistling past the graveyard intensifies*
Ukraine has a pretty clear route to victory, they just need to keep building g up their forces until they are ready to attack, they've already proven (twice) that russian lines will crumble if you hit them hard enough
>even if they won at Bakhmut then what
I'm convinced that Russia's plan is to yakety sax out of Ukraine, hand off Bakhmut to whatever is left of the Donbabwe militias, then blame them for when Ukraine overruns Donbabwe in a week. Then vatniks will endlessly compare it to Afghanistan.
What the frick is this cope? Have you seen the battlefield map? Bakhmut is halfway captured and is about to fall entirely.
Wagner is running out of steam and men.
If Ukraine counterattacks in the next 4 weeks and hits whatever is left of the attacking force; it'll be carnage.
>Halfway-captured
Meaningless if they can't advance any further, lol. They're overextended as is.
Izyum was completely controlled by russia for several months.
heh pop quiz what month was this image taken
uhhhh, frick.
November?
>Partial mobilization
It's like September, maybe early October
Wagner have only just reached the edges of the dense urban area, and they have to frontally assault it to advance. This is.pretty much the hardest possible task in warfare. They are already stretched and depleted from the failed envelopment, if they cant close it off the eont succeed in taking the city. Its like mariupol except the ukrainians are in a much better position
>RUSSIA WILL IMPLODE SOON
>TWO MORE WEEKS
Unfortunately for Wagner Group, Putin has decided to neutralize a political threat to his power by screwing over the mercs on ammo.
You'd be surprised, but regular Wagner grunt gets better combat training than Russian military elite soldiers*. If Wagners decide to assassinate someone, they'll have no trouble doing so.
*It's a little superior to the Green Berets training program, too. They have additional training for the DRG kommandos.
>*It's a little superior to the Green Berets training program, too. They have additional training for the DRG kommandos.
Bullshit.
>superior to the Green Berets training program
No it wasn't, the main Ukrainian defensive line is in the two cities behind Bakhmut, Bakhmut was a forward outpost stop gap position that was meant to be a delaying action while they prepared the defenses further back.
You idiots said the same thing about Pisskey thta once Pisskey fell Ukraine had nothing left.
If Bakhmut was Ukraine's "Last line of Defense" why would NATO be telling Ukraine just to retreat like there aren't already back up lines of defense.
Main reason Ukraine doesn't want to retreat from Bakhmut is that it's a small town, and it getting destroyed isn't a big deal, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk are much bigger towns and both of them being destroyed in fighting is a much hefter repair bill.
They’ve been losing for the last 10 months.
>cornerstone stronghold in Ukraine's defenses
Nyet. That's Avdiivka.
Western sources say in two weeks Russia will be completely out of weapons and ammo that’s when the counter-offensive is supposed to take place
>Calling it. Russia will lose the battle of Bakhmut
Truly you have a dizzying intellect.
Both sides will lose. Ukraine may be getting arms and munitions, but it's their infrastructure that's getting destroyed.
Europe will rebuild it in exchange for natgas and oil
Who cares?
Watching Russia crash and burn with my bros on /k/ is the most fun I've had in years.
I dunno, man. The bugBlack folk are about to negotiate a peace deal, if Dark Brandon doesn't blow it up out of rage:
I just don’t see how they can win at this point, they’ve lost all their early advantages. The war needed to be quick and it just wasn’t now it’s a mess
That would be very funny
Russia never wanted to invade Ukraine anyway
cope Hoholpiggies & HATObots
Wow, what a hot take. Thankfully you decided to make a thread to let everyone know.
you realize everyone already knew this a long ass time ago right? youre not special in "calling it"