We are approaching 30 months of the war now, and I will offer my observations.
1. The six-week war that Putin imagined? He was assured by the FSB (KGB) that Ukraine was not capable of holding the Russians back....both he and the FSB were wrong.
2. The census that Russia conducted in 2021...saying there were 147-million Russians? I frankly don't buy into it. Nor do I buy into the 2010 or 2002 census numbers.
I suspect if you went region by region....the only areas of Russia where the numbers increase...probably in the eastern non-ethnic Russian areas.
3. UK intel folks say that the number of Russians either killed or wounded....at least by May 2024....amounts to 450,000. But out of that....realistically, they figure around 150,000 are buried....the rest are wounded in some fashion.
I know the Ukrainians say it's closer to 500k dead.....but it's simply an over-count.
4. I followed a lot of YouTube video the first year....tons of modern Russian equipment (made since 2000) laying on the field. Past year....not so much modern equipment. A lot of stuff that would have been made in the 1990s, and 1980s. I've seen damaged T-64s....meaning 60-year old tanks brought out of the depot and made temporarily operational.
How I mean temporarily operational? Tank 'x' dragged out....couple of mechanics spend 100 man-hours making sure it runs (new battery, etc), and transported to a rookie tank company.....maybe two or three hours of running it, and then led to some field where it lasts anywhere from one hour to one week.
5. If you were a Russian parent of a male 'lad' (say 16 years old)....you probably are getting fairly nervous about the kid reaching 18 within the next two years and being sent off to the war.
6. At the end....whenever it comes....I don't see a unified Russia existing anymore, and likely broken into a dozen or more pieces. Ukraine surviving as one nation? I'm getting an impression that a regional break-up might occur there as well.
But I also think there is a de-population 'bomb' likely coming in both countries....as you have tens of thousands of males (in their 20s/30s) who won't be returning. There's going to be some trend noticed around 2040....whole lot of Russian and Ukrainian kids not existing compared to 1990s trends.
7. This whole war based on a BS-believed reality that Russia ran a 1st-class military? Well....the more you linger on this topic, you begin to wonder how screwed up it was throughout the 1960s/1970s with the 'cold-war'. All the money invested in the military....squandered?
8. If is surprising how Germans have suddenly woke up....worried now about a potential Russian invasion, and gearing up for some type of imagined 'war' scenario.
9. The fresh new troops for both Ukraine an Russia....getting the bare minimum of training before dumped on the field? No one speaks much about this.
I watched some video last year where a Russian soldier had called his wife (Ukraine was listening in on the call)....where he said the new folks arriving...hadn't fired more than 100 rounds of ammo (in boot-camp) before being delivered to the combat unit.
10. It is a no-win effort in the end. Even if the war ends tomorrow.....I see a massive 20-year period where economically....neither can repair the damage done.
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