Do you notice that hype about the Ukrainian counter-offensive died down around October? When I posted about this a month or two ago, there were several comments that I was not saying what the credible sources were saying, Tokmak would fall to Ukraine by the end of the year, etc. Events since then have proved I was correct. Western media claims of a breakthrough were outright lies and the meager gains are currently being reversed. Lesson: Do not believe Western propaganda and the “news” is Western propaganda. The only way to understand the reality of this war is to look at numerous sources and geolocated footage to suss out the truth. Russia took more than twice the amount territory as Ukraine during 2023. Even pro-Ukrainian mappers show this. You might hear that because the front is relatively stable the conflict is at a “stalemate.” However, this is not true. Like World War I, this is an attritional war, in which whoever runs out of personnel, money, or artillery first will lose. Also, artillery is the major cause of casualties in this war, so without an overwhelming artillery advantage offensive actions result in massive losses. Russia has a massive artillery advantage in this war and Ukraine has engaged in several bloody offensives. Don’t believe me? Look through this report from the extremely anti-Russian government of Estonia:
https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/setting_transatlantic_defence_up_for_success_0.pdf
Key findings with a bit of interpretation and context:
Western GDP dwarfs Russian GDP, but GDP in the form of health care spending, financialization, and the “service economy” is worthless in an industrial-scale war. You can print dollars, but you can’t print shells.
Russia will manufacture 4.5 million artillery rounds next year. The West, having decided to deindustrialize to satisfy stringent environmental standards and exploit low-cost foreign labor cannot manufacture 1 million shells per year and will be lucky to exceed 500,000 shells per year. If North Korea and China supply Russia with shells and other military equipment, the volume of production accessible to Russia dwarfs anything the West can muster.
Ukraine needs 200,000 shells per month at a minimum if it hopes to retake any territory. The West cannot produce enough shells.
So many Ukrainian officers were killed before this summer in the foolish offensives in Kherson and Kharkov oblasts and the futile defense of Bakhmut that their brigades could not coordinate the movement of more than two companies at a time during the counteroffensive. This capability has degraded such that the UAF is limited to platoon-sized offensive actions.
The best estimates of Russian and Ukrainian casualties as well as the obvious firepower advantage enjoyed by the Russians suggests a 7-10 to 1 casualty ratio in favor of the Russians. However, even if you choose to believe Western media claims that Russian casualties are Ukrainian casualties (highly unlikely given the Ukrainians were on offense in the face of a massive firepower disadvantage), the Ukrainians are still doomed to loose an attrition war because Russia can produce 130,000 battle-ready forces in coherent units every half year. This far outstrips the training capabilities of the UAF and the off-shore training available to them in the West.
The only humane course of action at this point is to stop this war and try to negotiate a peace. Any peace will involve massive concessions to Russia. However, given the heinous and shockingly dishonorable moral reasoning of American leaders in both political parties, typified by the refrains “We will fight to the last Ukrainian,” or “This war is cheap because Americans are not dying and we get to hurt Russia,” the USG will probably continue to doom thousands of Ukrainians to the attritional meatgrinder. This is incredibly foolish. Far from weakening Russia, this war has transformed Russia into a self-reliant economy that is growing faster than any European economy and an industrial juggernaut. Germany is being forced to de-industrialize due to loss of cheap energy and resources, Europe is plunged into recession and high inflation. For the West generally, it has driven non-Western nations into the arms of China and accelerated de-dollarization, which will ultimately cripple the ability of Washington to maintain its empire.
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