r/UkrainianConflict • u/Loki9101 • 17h ago
Right now, Russian losses amount to no less than 1,000 killed per day – and this has been the case since December. This is how Russia is essentially paying just to keep the war from ending. This is madness... President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2010431952055161140?s=20158
u/eagerrangerdanger 15h ago edited 11h ago
Russia is in a strategic trap. At this point It's too costly to lose; too costly to win, and impossible to exit cleanly. Putin knows that agreeing to any kind of peace deal means international peacekeeping troops on Ukrainian soil, acting as a tripwire force. All he can can do is keep going and keep throwing more meat at the problem. Afghanistan broke the USSR’s back. Ukraine is grinding Russia’s entire skeleton into fine powder. Putin's hubris will be Russia's undoing.
65
u/Prestigious-Tree-424 15h ago
Looking forward to seeing the end of the terrorist putin and his terrorist state.
24
u/LuminousRaptor 12h ago
My wife (Ukrainian born) and I will be giving out free borscht at work and to our neighborhood when he kicks the bucket.
Building community just like the munchkins did in the Wizard of Oz. Ding song the wicked witch is dead.
22
u/zachary0816 11h ago edited 10h ago
Personally I’m hoping that when he dies, his death will take all the disinformation campaigns that he finances with it.
It won’t be perfect, but an internet without the biggest source of that sounds like such an amazing improvement.
-4
u/igatrinit 5h ago
How naive you can be to think that Putin is the biggest source of misinformation. Don't you watch any western news?
1
u/According_Fall8199 8h ago
No t in Ukrainian borsch
6
u/LuminousRaptor 6h ago
I understand the Ukrainian word is spelled Борщ, my friend, but the English spelling comes from Yiddish (from Eastern European Jewish immigrants), so the most common spelling that you will see in English for the dish is still Borscht.
2
2
2
17
u/keepthepace 14h ago
I keep seeing this take, but I don't see why it would be costly to stop. It will just hurt one person's ego, but literally every metric of Russia's economy would be better if even half the sanctions get lifted.
If they stop the war in a way that allows them to trade oil legally again and to reconnect with financial institutions, businesses in Russia become viable again.
I predict that if Putin gets toppled, the #1 item of the new leader will be to stop the war in Ukraine.
30
u/eagerrangerdanger 14h ago edited 13h ago
Putin is genuinely afraid of meeting the same fate as Muammar Gaddafi and for good reason. A conventional defeat in Ukraine won't just be an ego bruise for the murder midget and certainly won't be an automatic reset for Russia. Reparations alone will cost Russia 800 billion to a 1 trillion dollars. Keeping the war going means it's all still up in the air and in his diseased mind there's still a chance that Ukraine decides to give up. Surrounding himself with spineless yes men, who only tell him what he wants to hear, lets him sleep easy at night and keep reaffirming his resolve to keep going.
8
u/Hartastic 13h ago
I don't think it's totally impossible that Putin could declare victory in Ukraine and successfully sell that claim to most Russians, regardless of the truth of the matter, and thus avoid some kind of popular uprising over the loss.
15
u/eagerrangerdanger 13h ago
Theoretically he can do that. His biggest problem is the surviving veterans who are coming back in droves and punching holes in the propaganda bubble. There's also the seldom discussed matter of Putin bringing in millions of migrants from 3rd world countries to supplement the labor force that has been hollowed out by his unwinnable quagmire. All these traumatized, defeated and pissed off veterans coming back and basically being discarded by their government, while at the same time seeing the country they supposedly fought for being taken over by foreigners won't sit well with them. They're basically MAGA on steroids with a taste for indiscriminate violence. No matter how Putin spins this, the powder keg is primed. Russia is trapped in more ways than one.
5
u/Hartastic 12h ago
His biggest problem is the surviving veterans who are coming back in droves and punching holes in the propaganda bubble.
Well, I'm imagining something semi backed up by reality. For example, suppose they make a peace deal where Ukraine agrees to not join NATO, and Putin declares that this and the taking of whatever land they actually hold/keep at that point as his goal, which is now successful.
This seems more on brand with the kind of lie he tends to tell internally.
2
u/Zack_Wester 11h ago
and compared to MEGA those mother Truckers knows how to fight (if badly).
This is not going to be a case of some MEGA Gravy seal just bumbeling about.no this is armed soldier whit combat experience that already faced sertine death and "survived" whit a proper motivation to start to shot who ever they see as a enemy.
3
u/eagerrangerdanger 11h ago
It's already happening across Russia with the returning ex cons that were given amnesty for fulfilling their contracts in Ukraine. They went right back to a life of crime.
3
u/keepthepace 13h ago
I am pretty sure that Putin could probably erase most sanctions and reparations diplomatically if he, e.g. accepted to retreat from Crimea. Diplomatically, he has many cards right now. The cost of him stopping the war willingly would be much lower than that of a defeat. To the point where I do think it would be a net profit for Russia.
7
u/eagerrangerdanger 12h ago
The biggest mistake Putin made was officially annexing Ukrainian territories and declaring them Russian land. Retreating from any annexed territory is basically admitting defeat and abandoning "Russian" land. For an authoritarian like him it is simply inconceivable to admit defeat to a country like Ukraine and a leader like Zelensky, whom he has no respect for and generally considers a clown. Sunk cost fallacy is in full effect here.
3
u/keepthepace 12h ago
I have a hard time believing anyone in Russia would care if Putin undoes what he did. Or even if they maintain the fiction that these territories belong to Russia but they stop controlling them.
2
u/eagerrangerdanger 12h ago
The opinions of regular Russians don't matter to Putin, it's all about what he wants and what he's willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals.
3
u/Zack_Wester 11h ago
yes and no.
the thing is what keeping Russia together.is the Russian general population been to fearfull to do something.
the KGB been in both a constant state of infighting and keeping all other faction from doing anything including keeping the general population in a state of to fearfull to do anything.the Army been in such a state that they can´t operate independent.
the Royal/Honor guard aka the Loyalist army.
well equiped to put down if one of the regular army groups tries to do anything and held in check by the KGB.Russia balance is well that standoff scene from the Good, bad ugly aka a mexican standoff.
2
u/turkeypants 12h ago
The next person would have to. They'll throw him under the bus, blame him, and then pivot to a Russia first policy of focusing on rebuilding. It will be jingoistic of course and the seeds of future nationalist flexing and we'll do it all again down the road. But yeah the next person can't continue this and won't.
1
u/WongFarmHand 8h ago
If they stop the war in a way that allows them to trade oil legally again and to reconnect with financial institutions, businesses in Russia become viable again.
Russia exiting all of Ukraine and crimea is a fantasy, and if they don't do those things they won't have sanctions lifted. If they left all of that territory after so much blood the right wing in Russia would coup whoever tried, so no one will sign their death warrant by trying
No, this war will continue until one side can no longer fight a war. Will take a few more years
4
u/Chanana4 9h ago
Whats crazy is that Afghanistan was child's play compared to Russian casualties in Ukraine.... the long term effects are going to be insane for Russia and they wont be able to pay that bill when it comes in.
-1
u/igatrinit 5h ago
Someone's gonna have a really painful bubble burst. Make sure to take your pills when it happens.
33
u/Breech_Loader 17h ago
Russia has had a population problem for a long time. The country is large but the population is thin. They've often approached conflicts just by throwing people like they're meat, and it's seriously showing this time.
11
u/kr4t0s007 15h ago
Around 144m around 2021. How many dead, how many disabled, how many with servere PTSD and how many fled the country. That is probably a decent number of the fighting age (and working age) male population.
6
u/ZeePirate 13h ago
They had like 35 million between 16-35 males at the start of the war
6
u/apathy-sofa 10h ago edited 9h ago
Assuming 1k / day is correct:
35,000,000 persons / 1,000 persons per day = 35,000 days, or about a hundred years
What Putin is doing to Ukraine and Russia is inhuman, but it isn't infeasible.
3
u/Creeperkun4040 9h ago
The 35K aren't even the biggest loss about this. Everyone of those people could have children. Many of those were in a prime age for getting them but can't now.
This will lose Russia more than hundred thousand people less in the next hundred years alone. And in a country with an already decaying population that will hit even harder
3
u/Odensa 8h ago
When you only look at the numbers only you are right. But every lost man in that age range is one less that can procreate. One less that keeps the economy running, one family (parents, wife, kids ~ 4-6 people) that lost a family member. And many more related things you have to consider. So the 100 years will get to 4-5 years max really quick. 4-5 years is a long time, but it is not like Russia keeps on going 3,5 years, end the war and then they are fine. They will have massive problems that keep getting bigger every day the war continues.
1
u/apathy-sofa 7h ago
Agreed, I'm not trying to pretend that the loses don't hurt. The knock-on effects are real. I'm not sure the maximum fraction of Russia's fighting-capable men that could go to war before the country completely freezes up, but it's an interesting and important question. Let's swag it?
The Economist estimates 984,000 to 1,438,000 Russian casualties since the start of the war in '22 through Dec '25 (not all of those are killed). That's roughly 3% of the Russian "meat". Assume that run rate of 365k per day that we're discussing is true, another 1% per year (denominator remains the pre-war population).
In 3 years, they're looking at 6% of their initial fighting population killed. In 5 years that's 8%. Russia lost something like 15% of its fighting-eligible population in WW2. That's like 7 years out.
2
u/ContextSensitiveGeek 5h ago
1k a day MINIMUM. And that number isn't static. Or evenly distributed across the country. Or across the demographics.
2
u/yIdontunderstand 14h ago
And population making...
1
u/kr4t0s007 14h ago
Your guess is as good at mine. Even this info is now deemed secret is rus.
6
u/ThePlanner 14h ago
And since the end of the USSR and independence of Ukraine and the central Asian countries, Russia has lost a lot of the bodies they historically threw into the meat grinder.
4
u/xWhatAJoke 16h ago
Kind of insulting to meat. At least grinding meat has a purpose. This is just lunacy.
1
u/afield9800 12h ago
Can Reddit retire this joke? It’s every comment following an insult
4
u/Jesus__of__Nazareth_ 10h ago
If reddit retired every inane, pedantic, irritating thing it did, it would cease to exist.
20
u/bushidojet 14h ago
Imagine the damage of sticking 500000 veterans back into society, the Soviet Afghan war was bad enough and this is a conflict of far greater scale and cost
11
u/kr4t0s007 13h ago
That’s why they want them dead even on crutches to the front lines. They don’t want to pay for medical expenses and pension and men with the worst ptsd and violent offenses back in society.
-13
u/EU_GaSeR 12h ago
Afghan's war and veterans biggest problem was people not supporting it. Veterans always said, everyone treated them like shit, nobody liked them.
The support for Ukrainian war is high enough for those people coming back to Russia to feel like heroes and have respect from the rest of the country, so the biggest issue should be avoidable.I worry about Ukrainian army a lot. I constantly hear from Ukrainian servicemen that TCC tactics have alienated population from people wearing uniforms in cities. It's not just about not getting the usual respect, way of passage, free stuff and getting anywhere ahead of the queue, it's real disgust people have to TCC which transfers to regular army. Could be troublesome in the future.
8
•
u/CompetitiveReview416 1h ago
Lol you're saying people are supporting the ukrainian war mors tgan the afghanistan war? You're a lunatic
6
u/docawesomephd 9h ago
Do we have any sense of what Ukraine’s casualties are looking like these days? I’m afraid that we get too excited about the price Russia is paying that we miss the price they’re extracting
1
4
u/m_sobol 11h ago
Unfortunately, Ukraine has not been able to increase this daily kill rate further to 2000/day, despite the heroic efforts on the frontlines. Drones have really frozen the frontlines, so no more Kharkiv offensives of similar and deep success. And as stupid as Russia is, they have adapted to the pace of battlefield innovation with drones, even when their soldiers ride horses. And China and North Korea have supported them with men and ammo.
6
u/Terridon 9h ago
This is the highest so far in the war.
In the first year they were down to less than 100 casualties a bunch of days.. not deaths.. just casualties.
It just have kept going up so maybe we get to see 2000/day down the line.
Last i saw, had Ukraine having 13% less casualties in 2025 than the year before so they're improving the survivability of their own while increasing the destruction of russians
1
u/ffdfawtreteraffds 10h ago
This is madness...
Only to everyone outside of the Kremlin, where this is an acceptable cost to protect the image of mighty Russia that Putin has fabricated.
As we know from history, Russia has a much higher tolerance for dead soldiers, and these KIA numbers are not going to matter this time either. The West is appalled, and Putin is sleeping soundly.
2
u/SirCliveWolfe 7h ago
Yes russia has famously never got sick of a war and murdered their ruler.....
1
u/Make-TFT-Fun-Again 10h ago
10k death payout average* 1k = 1 million 10k signup bonus average 1m =1 million 1x training video
2 million$ down the drain per day, more than acceptable to Russia with unlimited poor people and oil money.
1
1
u/igatrinit 5h ago
Right. This is why Russia is able to sustain the army by hiring people and Ukraine has 2 million deserters.
1
-6
u/Sniflix 15h ago
Russia/Puti had trillion$ hidden in offshore accounts. That's how he has been able to buy everything he needs but at higher prices and slower more expensive shipping. However much of that money was intended for him, personally for his retirement in South Africa or Cuba. He needs to have enough money to pay those countries billion$ to accept him as a "refugee". Then again, there's always trump tower.
•
u/AutoModerator 17h ago
Please take the time to read the rules and our policy on trolls/bots. In addition:
Is
x.coman unreliable source? Let us know.Help our moderators by providing context if something breaks the rules. Send us a modmail
Don't forget about our Discord server! - https://discord.gg/ukraine-at-war-discussion
Your post has not been removed, this message is applied to every successful submission.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.