Russia's Grinding War – Massive Losses and Tiny Gains for a Declining Power(www.csis.org)
24 pointsby breve6 hours ago6 comments
  • pu_pe3 hours ago
    The article's conclusion is that Russia's slowdown and high casualties are due to its poor economy and military power. However, another interpretation is that drones have changed war greatly, and have essentially brought back the trench warfare of WW1 with heavy casualties for little territorial gain. Time will tell if this situation is unique to the Ukrainian war or not.
  • general14654 hours ago
    You can see the decline in combat footage videos through the years. Videos from 2022 to 2024 are showing tanks, IFVs and other armored vehicles striking Ukrainian positions (or being wiped out by drones, artillery) after 2024 there is steady decline to IFVs only, then MRAPs, then Chinese ATV (called golf carts) started showing up while logistic lines were held together with lot of Buchankas (UAZ-452 Civilian van). By the end of 2025 we hit another milestone where Russians are starting to use horses and donkeys for logistic lines and attacking in trucks, ATVs and dirt bikes and very rarely there is a tank heavily covered in garbage to protect against drone strike.
  • alecco4 hours ago
    Two countries with extremely low fertility rates just wiped out hundreds of thousands of their young boys. And hundreds of thousands of people fled including a significant fraction of young girls. I wonder who actually benefits from this?
    • general14654 hours ago
      It is not some insidious entity in the background trying to destroy Russia. It is just Putin, thinking that he can take over Ukraine like USSR took over Czechoslovakia in 1968. But unexpectedly for Putin he got full scale ware which he can't back off from because that would be political end of his. So he can only continue to fight and hope that Ukraine folds first.

      Unlucky for him, Ukraine is being economically kept alive and still fighting after 4 year by the blue elephant in the room called EU, which Russians are so desperately trying to ignore.

  • RcouF1uZ4gsC5 hours ago
    Isn’t this how Russia always fights going back to the Czars?
    • metalman5 hours ago
      And before, to the founding of the Russian identity, when confronted with the Khans and the europeans, they (the princes of Kiev) fought for generations, seasonal wars of attrition. And now they are fighting europe, pointing to the dinipter saying "remember?" Plus this war is much more, as it is the first high tech war, and many outside partys are involved in every way. Just think how SK is shitting square ones knowing that NK has troops fighting on the front lines, and is totaly involved in planning, tacticts and strategy.
      • orwin4 hours ago
        Human wave isn't a viable strategy for NK, so I'm not sure what they learned really. Maybe they learned how to parade and to die gracefully from the VDV?
      • mcphage3 hours ago
        > Just think how SK is shitting square ones knowing that NK has troops fighting on the front lines, and is totaly involved in planning, tacticts and strategy.

        I think if SK was seriously worried about that, they would send troops to support Ukraine.

  • xenospn5 hours ago
    It’s anyone’s guess how long they can keep at it. They’re one black swan away from imploding, but that day might be 20 years away.
    • general14654 hours ago
      They have not much choice than to keep at it. Target is control of whole Ukraine as vassal state, anything less is a defeat. They have already spent over 1 million casualties on frontlines. Claiming anything less than whole Ukraine for such price would be a political suicide.
  • throwaway2904 hours ago
    Is GDP growth useful? I heard it only considers production. if the produced stuff quickly gets blown up in the fields it still counts for GDP even if in reality it's a negative for economy.