Ukraine was losing or had lost a large percentage of its young people long before this war.
Since the beginning of the Russian offensive there's been a ban on Ukrainian men aged 18-60 leaving the country: obviously with the exception of joining the military and being sent to be trained in Poland etc as an operator of expensive western kit / new cannon fodder.
I seriously wonder just how many fit Ukrainian men are actually available to fight this NATO proxy war: indeed it's a frightening thought to consider just how few might be left when its concluded.
Re: Interesting.
Posted by Tomski on May 20, 2022, 1:28 am, in reply to "Interesting."
.. indeed it's a frightening thought to consider just how few might be left when its concluded.
Very good point about the viability of rump Ukraine with insane crashing of demographics - one of the scenarios, I guess.
Scott Ritter talked about the fact that RF allowed all this military equipment to get shipped to the front (M777 howitzers or whatever) and ... the $40B US budget coming on line soon, which worried him, and how this may pose a dramatic ramping up of war by NATOstan. I hope he is wrong and that the corruption will make the money disappear.
However, as you rightly imply, it will need trained people to use these new arms (trained in Poland) and it seems to me this may be the bottleneck.
Otoh, Erdogan sent 3000 Grey Wolves and they are probably shipping ISIS troops from Idlib as we speak. Still, the troop numbers Ukies need is huge imo (like many civilians I am just guessing and reading between the lines on alt media etc).
Martyanov reckons Donbass front will crack before that. Hopefully there will be accelerated surrenders there after Azovstal.
Also some rumours that RF will send another 50K trained troops to take care of things behind the front. They would need it, especially if they need to deal with surrendered troops etc. Fog of war - we simply don't know ...
Interesting times we live in : /
Re: Interesting.
Posted by Ken Waldron on May 20, 2022, 2:11 am, in reply to "Re: Interesting."
"However, as you rightly imply, it will need trained people to use these new arms (trained in Poland) and it seems to me this may be the bottleneck.!
Ritter also seems to neglect the fact that Russia have air superiority. Some expert below in the comments points out that's a pretty vital advantage with an artillery war...a good point.
"Otoh, Erdogan sent 3000 Grey Wolves and they are probably shipping ISIS troops from Idlib as we speak. Still, the troop numbers Ukies need is huge imo (like many civilians I am just guessing and reading between the lines on alt media etc"
Jihadis meet Nazis & have a love in: I can see it all now...
Erdogan might threaten to ship, but we don't know how real this is in terms of numbers: maybe he wants them out his hair and its a good ploy doubtless for leverage again: making hay against Russia this time.
Re: Interesting.
Posted by Keith-264 on May 20, 2022, 4:23 am, in reply to "Re: Interesting."
Trouble in Syria is an obvious distraction from Ukraine but if the Sultan is exporting head-choppers, kicking the occupiers out of Idlib will be easier, once the police operation in Ukraine is concluded.Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: Interesting.
Posted by Tomski on May 20, 2022, 11:02 pm, in reply to "Re: Interesting."
Excellent points both. One of the reasons I value TLN : ).
Re: Scott Ritter - Ukraine Russia UPDATE and after Switcheroo article
I wonder whether some of this conjecture is emergent from the business model and general media m.o. in relation to the "necessity" of content creation and maintaing attention of readers both on a broader scale and in the individual.
It seems to me that Russia, does what it does, makes some elemental statement of broad aims and releases itemised info about targets destroyed.
Pepe talks about strategic ambiguity. Perhaps even notables like Mr. Ritter arein some induced or addictive oscilation in relation to the low pressure of actual on the ground Rorschach news
Scott Ritter's short vid clip on the subject today
on May 19, 2022, 4:59 pm