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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   32194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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In a sign of the Ukraine war coming to a middle, Zelensky has admitted that Ukraine has as many as 100,000 KIA.

More serious estimates based on firepower disparity, individual unit losses and amputees put the estimate far higher, at 300-500K, with about a minimum at around 200K.

As was expected earlier, Trump's admin is not serious about ending this war and Russians confident they can see it out and settle for a Ukraine without foreign forces on it.

I listened to the interview, and it seems like he was misquoted: https://www.1lurer.am/en/2025/04/14/Zelensky-denied-reports-that-he-spoke-about-100-000-dead-Ukrainian-soldiers/1296200

Zelensky has been fairly clear that Ukrainian combat KIA was 46k ish early this year and rising at a steady rate, and if we believe that or not the official Ukrainian government estimate has not changed on that score.

Other estimates put Ukraine's KIA higher, certainly, but I haven't seen a method that compares Russia vs Ukraine like for like without the ratio being in Ukraine's favor. Sure, Russia has a larger population, but I think it's really hard to find credible estimates that can plausibly estimate that A) Ukraine is taking far heavier losses than Russia, while accepting B) Russia has been on the offensive for most of the war (which is always casualty heavy) while barely advancing since 2022.

There's also C) noting the sheer volume of Russian equipment loss footage, the steadily shifting ratio of fires along the line in Ukraine's favor (Rheinmetall clearly took the attempted assassination of the CEO personally), the fact Russian casualty clearing must be abysmal from their own telegrams and the fact that wounded soldiers in their own lines (where evacuation should be routine in most armies) regularly commit suicide, and the fact that they're launching attacks with civilian vehicles (which I've never seen footage of Ukraine doing?). However, the points of C can be denied as Ukrainian propaganda by some I would assume (though I find the above credible points), so we can set them aside if you want.

Potentially Ukraine will still lose a war of attrition, but if it continues to get support it doesn't seem to be soon. Certainly I would be less confident than Russians with Attitude, the Russian economy is showing a lot of strain while Ukraine is being underwritten, and for both sides things can break slowly then fast. We will see.

However, that's all just fog of war, and maybe boring to argue, we can't really know until the dust settles, and I've had discussions on this forum before where we've ended up assuming 1:2 or 1:6 ratios in totally opposite directions without any resolution. I would just drop the following two points for thought:

Has Russia ever come up with peace terms that are close to credible? I haven't seen any, and in the absence of that the war will continue until someone breaks for sure. That seems to suggest confidence from Russia, or desperation, but it seems hard to argue that Ukraine shouldn't fight them to a stalemate if it feels that is possible, which they seem to genuinely do. Maybe they are wrong, but they certainly outperformed marvelously vs predictions in 2022.

Second, Zelensky's political position is a different to the warmonger I've seen put here a few times, at least by my understanding. He was the compromise with Russia candidate, and has that hanging around as a reputation within Ukraine ever since. He's tried to break it by leaning hard into the wartime president role and being tough, but his plausible opponents are all more hardliners (Zaluzhny for one) - it's not the case that Zelensky is forcing the Ukrainians to keep an unpopular war going, he's the one not daring to show weakness in front of them and has no mandate to end the war under the present conditions.

It seems like it is going to last for a while longer, and Ukrainians I know (one who is fighting) have adopted Kipling's The Beginnings, against those whom many of them called brother just recently. I cannot blame them, there's plenty of ruin left in this war, and I would not bet on Russia just yet.

One again, hard pounding this, gentleman, we shall see who pounds the longest.

*Edit: I also wanted to include this as my candidate for Russians with attitude's best tweet https://imgur.com/fK2KhQB . Before bragging about your victory, it is often useful to actually win it

Other estimates put Ukraine's KIA higher, certainly, but I haven't seen a method that compares Russia vs Ukraine like for like without the ratio being in Ukraine's favor.

Ukrainians admitted Russia has a parity in drone quality and quantitative superiority. Ditto for artillery. It follows that if they are basically comparable in terms of intelligence and doctrine, but have less weapons they're going to suffer more.

drones (Economist)

other weapons (Guardian, Syrsky interview)

Has Russia ever come up with peace terms that are close to credible?

Yes, they very credibly claim they're going to kill every single person who is going to prevent Russia from ensuring there are no foreign troops based on Ukrainian soil. Their peace terms right now were: Ukraine neutral, Russia keeps the 4 oblasts and Crimea, borders recognized.

Doctrine can’t be the same because they’re trying to accomplish different things. All else equal, the guy who’s entrenched has an advantage. As evidence I present all of WWI.

More specifically, consider a town defense like Khorramshar. The Iraqis were forced to expose their armor to RPGs and Iranian tanks if they wanted to get anywhere. As a result, they suffered much heavier casualties despite a numerical advantage.

Actually, I suspect the First Gulf War Iran/Iraq War would provide a lot of insight into the Ukraine invasion, but I’d need to do a more careful reading.

Actually, I suspect the First Gulf War would provide a lot of insight into the Ukraine invasion, but I’d need to do a more careful reading.

Purely for the interest of clear communication - do you mean the Iran/Iraq War or the First Gulf War?

The former. I thought specifying “First” would distinguish from the Coalition invasion, which was definitely an outmatch.

Generally speaking I've seen the Coalition Invasion referred to as the "First Gulf War" with some people referring to the 2003 invasion as the Second Gulf War.

All else equal, the guy who’s entrenched has an advantage.

What about the guy who is being flanked and cut off from supplies and retreat? He's just an amateur but I regularly keep up with Weeb Union's daily map updates on Youtube and in the winter of 2024-25 for example it was just encirclement after encirclement.

Oh, that’s a recipe for a real bad time.

If so, I’d believe that Ukrainian casualties were much worse than Russian ones over that period. I can’t really tell from these maps, though. January 2 looks pretty much like Feb 2 looks like April 13.

I found an example. The battle over Velyka Novosilka: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NzHZ-afKmbo?si=QgQ8PNVy6hAO9FFN

Once the Russians achieve an effective encirclement (as in cut off the roads, open fields can still be crossed at great risk) the tables are turned and the Ukrainians are now the ones taking on fortified positions trying to break the siege and resupply their men.

I have no idea how many men are committed in each stage so the Ukrainians could well still be trading favourably, but it looks like reason to doubt any straightforward assumptions.

Thanks. This is definitely a disastrous position. I see what you mean.

The encirclements are at the scale of clusters of towns, you would need to zoom in enough at least to see where the roads are.

Try Suriyak maps, Deepstate maps, or just keep an eye on WeebUnion videos. If I remember right all three include fortifications on their maps too.

all else equal, the guy who’s entrenched has an advantage Both are entrenched. The war is mostly hammering enemy till he gives up with remote weapons, then taking over the position.

Actually, I suspect the First Gulf War would provide a lot of insight into the Ukraine invasion, but I’d need to do a more careful reading.

No? Incomparable.

An initial blitz by a superior opponent. Immediate slowdown and a transition to entrenched warfare. Brief offensives and counteroffensives failing to stop the enemy. Inability for either side to secure the airspace. Huge reliance on foreign arms.

Key weapons have changed, but that doesn’t mean everything has.

Russia had nothing like the air power US had then. Force densities were way lower too. Competence level also a lot lower on both sides, likely.

Ah, ok, I get it. You called Iran/Iraq war the 'First Gulf War' ..that's not that common.

Mea culpa. Fixed it.

Was going to say, I think the US in Gulf 1 was probably the peak of military might of any nation in human history when measured by troop competence and weapon technology and intelligence capabilities. Tech and intel have improved in most ways, but I doubt modern US troops are ready for a conflict in the same way they were immediately after the end of the Cold War.

I'd argue the Gulf War 1 US army would get wrecked in modern-Ukraine as well, from either direction. Gulf War 1 depended on air superiority, but never had to deal with the degree of anti-air capability that the Soveit block had and that the c-UAS environment has built upon. The Gulf War era army would also be eaten alive by modern drone combat.

Agreed. We rode that high for a decade. Then we decided to retool everything for flattening hill villages and surviving IEDs. It’s fixable, but not trivial in the slightest.

This is a topic that would probably reduce the more sensitive officers to tears if alcohol were involved.

Or do I gather from the complaints. Cutbacks in force, morale wrecked, pgm weapon edge eroded... it's a clear picture of decline.

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