Tuuktuuk

Most of them have enlisted out of their own free will. There are plenty of prisoners as well, but – at least to my understanding – they amount less than the people who enlisted for the money. Also, many of the enlisted prisoners are in it voluntarily because of money and amnesty. And many are simply forced to sign the "voluntary" contract by torturing them until they do.

What I've been surprised with is that as long as you are alive, you almost always do receive your salary as a Russian soldier. And your relatives will indeed receive their compensation – assuming there's evidence of you dying. There almost never is, and then you're marked as AWOL, not as dead. And if you're AWOL, your family receives no compensation. Ukraine has huge refrigerated warehouses full of Russian soldiers waiting to be sent home, because when they eventually reach the Russia, that country will either go bankrupt or has to say "we changed our mind. Although you sent your son to our war for money, we're not actually going to pay", which will seriously destabilise the Russia.

This is indeed also why the Russia's economy is such a very important factor here. There's no way they'll be able to fill the required 30 000 new soldiers per month with prisoners alone. They don't have that many hundred thousands of prisoners available for that. Send too many and you will have prison revolts.

I largely agree with you on that.

But, that depends on who is using the numbers. For immediate military use it is not important what happens after the war. For the general who is planning a war strategy, what matters is how much the army is losing manpower. For the society it does matter whether the lost manpower is dead or just missing one arm, but for the war strategy it doesn't.

Albeit, I do somewhat disagree with this myself. I keep arguing that although the total military losses of Ukraine are close to those of the Russia, it makes a huge difference that the number of dead soldiers is smaller even in proportion to Ukraine's population than the number of dead Russian soldiers is in proportion to the Russia's population. It also seems that Ukraine's recruitment capacity (in absolute numbers) is at least on par with that of the Russia and it's unclear if its maximum capacity has even been reached.

Ukrainian soldiers seem to always receive decent prosthetics that enable them to remain in working life and be with their families. In that case it is not a huge loss for the society that a soldier has got seriously wounded. If the risk of death was as high as that of Russians', there would be (even) less motivation to enlist.

But, be it like this or that, the reality is that the common practice in wars is to assume it makes no difference whether the lost soldier is dead or crippled, and because of that, they typically count military losses, not military deaths. Regardless of how retarded that is.

Don't worry, I understood that :)

But, when I'm writing on a public forum such as this one, the target group of my text is usually the set of people that will read my comment, among which the person I'm replying to is only one individual among hundreds of others. I liked your insight, and am happy that you said it aloud.

Try oat milk, at least in coffee. Even people who otherwise have nothing against cow milk tend to say that oat milk is better in coffee than cow milk is. I've met only some who think cow milk suits coffee better. In my opinion oat milk is also better in cereals and porridge, but that's something people often disagree upon :)

The dairy company Arla would be in trouble if they had to do this :D

Arla Finland has one of the few most prominent nazis in Finland in their board of directors. There was a bit of a scandal because of this about a year or two ago, but Arla's Finnish daughter company said "we already know, but he has promised not to be a nazi during working hours, and it's every employee's personal choice what they do in their free time." And Finland was okay with that (!!)

Guess if I have bought their products even once after that? 🙃

Well said. If they did, they wouldn't really be humane. Allowing unnecessary suffering is inhumane.

True, but since oil export infrastructure officially counts as energy infrastructure, glavgopnik Putin was able to use that phrasing and that's the phrasing I read in the news. I'll edit my comment, thanks!

There has been no indication that any new NK soldiers have arrived after the initial 12000. That's ten day's worth losses or one month worth Russian army size decrease if you take the Russia's recruitment capacity into account.

When did the NK soldiers come? Four months ago? If so, they have recruited 100 000 to 140 000 Russian soldiers during that time, and the 13 000 NK soldiers are about 10 % atop that number. As they are muchore skilled than Russian soldiers, you'd assume their number is less than the slightly under 10 % you'd otherwise assume.

So, let's guess about 5 % of the current number are NK losses. Possibly less.

The total number is not what you should be looking at. The interesting thing is the number of losses in proportion to the Russian recruitment capacity. They have recruitment infrastructure that enables them to recruit a maximum of 35 000 (or, according to some sources, just 25 000) soldiers per month. They are not able to restructure their recruitment procedures in wartime, as that would first decrease the recruitment capacity for a few years.

The Russia must get their losses under that number, because as long as they don't, they won't be able to train their soldiers – they are needed too acutely at the front for that. If they can train their soldiers, their daily losses will decrease a lot.

Neither side is going to run out of population to send to the front in the next 50 years. But they can lose them faster than they are able to recruit new ones.

Yup. They do have that feature.

As do Ukrainians. Which causes it to be a detrimental feature for both sides. If only one side had that, then it would be of advantage.

Many do. But, in military purposes, it is not really relevant whether your army loses a soldier through death or through a severe permanent wound. He is still a soldier that you cannot use at the front.

It's a standard practice to count the dead and permanently wounded in the same number, because that's what is militarily relevant.

Seriously wounded.

There are also slight wounds, which number at around 10 000 per day on average (according to a Russian source that I read two-three days ago). Remember that this number includes everything, including getting a paper cut in your finger, so the same person can end up in that number several times per month.

The number of Russian military losses consists of wounded by a bit under ⅔ of the number. The wound gets included in the number only if its severe enough to permanently remove you from the front.