One Russian soldier fighting near Avdiivka recently said his unit started their assault with 70 people—and lost 56 of them.
As a russian guy, I’m still unconclusive what’s the reason behind that. Unlike Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this one seems to happen over nothing. Just one aging man’s sick ambitions that brought suffering to many families. I feel shame whenever I contact my ukrainian friends. For that fucking state used my representation to bring so much useless, senseless morbidity onto neighboring nation. It’s 2023, why would we even want that? With all fucking problems we have as a humankind, why fighting Ukraine for 9+ years is even on the table? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s insanity. And I don’t feel like I can ever compensate for that before I die. The damage we caused is too much for one’s lifetime. It should’ve never happened.
very well put. thanks.
I’m sorry and I hope you find peace. This guilt is not yours to hold, my friend.
Thanks, friend. These simple words lit up my day.
I feel right to feel these guilt and pain though. I’m actually pleased to expirience them. Having them means there’s something left to my humanity, something is still there, shining in my rotten corpse. The nerve response that is lacking in my many countrymen. A bell whose ring tells me I’m still human and I still have empathy. That signal isn’t pretty, yet it’s welcome in our trying times.
If I’m allowed to, I’d beg you to spend your sympathy towards me on my ukrainian homies. Years ago I had a gaming group that included persons from all ex-USSR. And I haven’t heard from ukraininan dudes and gals in a while. Guess, they could’ve left our VK network altogether since this war happened, and it’s right for them to do so because it’s shit, but I’m still worried if they are alright, if they got caught in this conflict. If you are a faithful person, please put a candle on my behalf for their safety in your church or mosque of choice. If you aren’t, just like me, well, you can listen to a story of Nestor Makhno, that one based ukrainian anarchist who kept the free state there for a while: https://youtu.be/dqD9VZuGBJw?si=sDs4sDYsMDX0fs4p He’s an image to respect, and to replicate, and a great piece of our history that kremlin bitches want to erase. Just knowing it, you deny them easy win (:
What’s the consensus opinion that Russian people have about the war?
With all arguments I had not ending up with me behind the bars lol, I guess everyone’s tired. Even those psychoes who want to eradicate the whole ukrainian nation are sure that it drags for too long and talking heads are doing it wrong, that’s not how the genocide should be done in their opinion 🤷
If there could’ve been a vote to conservate the current frontline, I guess 95% would be for it. But it’s not how it works, because Russia already claimed 4 regions in it’s constitution and putin can’t walk that back easily (he can, but he won’t, because it would ruin the remains of his strongman image), and Ukraine had an expirience of tolerating such thing with Minsky accords, them leading directly to '22 february attack.
I guess at that point no one actively wants to participate in this war anymore, besides maybe some vets joining PMC at their own terms. Even in pro-state (kek) telegram channels, there’s too many uninspiring news, confusion and gore. There’s also a lot of news of conscription offices being even more agressive in dragging people from universities, workplaces, streets, even gay bars - yes we had plenty in Moscow and S. Petersburg in spite of our homophobic laws. They are desperate to take anyone, to raid any place. Not yet deadly desperate, but it’s sure out of their regular amount of effort.
I don’t believe these people are ready to protest, even peacefully, but at the very least it occured to them they are better off dodging service than dying under Avdiivka. 2 years in, riiiight. Baby steps 👶 Wifes of servicemen just got declined from having a peaceful congregation about missing their men who ended up on limitless service ‘until the end of the war’ lol. Make it brew some more time and maybe it’d lead to something more radical. But yeah, many people know about that, and even if they were ignorant enough to sign in, they would now have doubts about joining that circus.
Russia doesn’t place a high value on Russian lives.
They’ve been using meat grinder tactics since the Winter War and aren’t about to stop now.
always_has_been.jpeg
or russian values and opinions.
Fuck russia
One person per 9,300 square feet. For reference, that’s like fighting through a suburb and losing a soldier for each house captured.
Thing is, Avdiivka is still slowly falling, similar to Bakhmut which the UAF could not retake in the end. And as long as they make creeping progress, russians don’t mind disproportionate casualties. Adding in the fact that GOP may cause the US to completely drop support in 2024, I don’t see much to be positive about.
Sure, but they are losing so incredibly much. If they keep doing this for another year, they will have exhausted the massive Soviet vehicle stockpiles. For a few km of gains.
They won’t. The west has been meming that russia will run out of something or collapse any moment now… for months now. They will simply push the war economy harder and produce low quality but working vehicles when they start running so low.
They are producing hardly anything and almost everything they have lost was Soviet stock.
Also, nobody assumed they run out of vehicles, we know they have thousands in stock - still even! But at the current rate they will run out of their old stock in a year. That is simple math. I highly doubt that China is going to sell them 100s of tanks per month.
Russia isn’t producing as much as they waste for sure, but to say they are hardly producing is a misconception.
They outproduce the west in artillery ammo on their own,for example. . They are also ramping drone production. They are shitty shaheds with virtually nothing great about them, but that does not mean they cannot cause damage by zergrushing a target with them.
Sure, currently they cannot make more than 200ish tanks a year, but if their stockpiles start running low, nothing stops them from mass producing shitty T55-alikes. Would those be useful against a par military? No way in hell. Would they be enough to enable zergrushing like at Avdiivka? Possibly.
At any rate, I wouldn’t count on the russian army running dry. Currently the western aid running out is more likely, sadly.
No question, we need to take them seriously. But even the article you linked says they use 5x as many shells as they produce. Where are they going to be with 1/5th the firepower? And if course, if we stop supporting Ukraine they will suffer badly.
Putin in a camp voice: “Worth it!”
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!”
I’ve wondered how people ran happily into their doom in WW1/2, and thought nowadays with all the information readily available they’d not fight and die for some grand illusion of some asshole wearing a crown or whatever Putin wears. But I was wrong. I don’t understand how they’re not on his ass, noose ready. Instead they cheer for him. Of course not all Russians, but enough to let him keep destroying their own future.
That’s really hard for me to grasp. If my government would start some shit like that we’d collectively laugh and replace them.
Answer: state propaganda. A well crafted one. For every “but this is obviously true” they present you with 5-10 of “but look, there is also this, so we might never really know, therefore it’s most likely not true”. Most people are not well educated and trust this shit.
Start airdropping sunflower seeds on ‘em
Those numbers need to go up.
They are not numbers, they are people and to a large extent they are civilians forced to be used as cannon fodder.
Most of them are there for the money. Also, nobody gets executed or what not, most we know about is jail time. So stop defending those soldiers.
Most of them are there for the money.
They don’t even get the full basic equipment and have to pay for it themselves, what are you talking about? I’m not talking about professional soldiers, mercenaries etc, but conscripted civilians.
nobody gets executed
Do you have any sources to disprove the many sources that have been saying otherwise for some time? For example.
Soldiers at the front refusing to attack in meat waves <-> draft evasion / … When they are at the very front they are well beyond drafting.
Forced or obeying orders? There’s a difference, you know.
When not obeying or fleeing means dying, barely.
There are other ways of passive or active resistance that is not a direct confrontation.
In the end, it’s still a choice, I’m afraid.
Orcs are not people
That’s a lot of fertilizer.
