The casualties of the Russian army are estimated to be no less than a million. The total number of deaths is estimated to be no less than 250,000 (The war started in February 2022). 

Yahoo News
 
These are not just numbers. To put this on perspective 400,000 is the number of US troops who lost their lives in WWII (1939-1945). 60,000 is the number of US deaths in Vietnam (1965-1973). The Number of Russians who died in Ukraine is more than 4 Vietnam Wars.
 
I think Netanyahu and Trump should also start hitting Moscow. Just to see what happens


Fake Messiah
 
Russia is seeking to be present in many central and West-African countries. What used to be Wagner has been transformed into Africa Corps (Just Like Nazi Germany’s Africa Corps). They are signing contracts with local dictators. They are fighting “Jihadi” groups in return for the right to exploit mining resources. They are disturbing the presence of old colonial powers like France and Germany while doing so. + They are using social media trolls very intelligently. So many local people see them and local dictators as liberators who come to support them.
 
They are doing positive things too. They have opened their universities to tens of thousands of African students who are looking for a better future. Those guys are not stupid. They do a lot for research. Usually they won’t pay anything other than their plane tickets. And they talk to others in Russia about the possibility of being recruited into the army. As far as I know most of them do not want to be in the army. They come to Russia to work and study. But I don’t know the details.

They opened their universities and work programs to africans to conscript them as meat in ukraine...according to the surviving pow's.

(June 15, 2025 at 10:42 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: They opened their universities and work programs to africans to conscript them as meat in ukraine...according to the surviving pow's.

They've been scamming in people from other nations all along, Indians, Nepalis, Africans, and so on.

Anyone signing an agreement with Russian organizations, be them government or private, is a fool. And that distrust is on a national level too, which is why Putin has no weight in negotiations outside of the North Koreans, desperate as they are.

You can check this out:






It’s more like a charm offensive. They are challenging ancient colonial powers and want to establish themselves as the new “best friend” of these African nations.
 
/The Chinese have similar activities in many African countries and even in South-American countries.
 
There is also a Soviet legacy there. The USSR did support local populations in the past against colonial powers (like Angola and Mozambique) and segregationist countries like Rhodesia or South-Africa.
 
So Putin is cleverly reclaiming this ancient legacy to establish itself more in all of these countries.

(June 20, 2025 at 6:05 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote:  
So Putin is cleverly reclaiming this ancient legacy to establish itself more in all of these countries.

Not really.  A number of African countries turned to Ruzzia to kick out the French and ISIS and are now finding that the cure is worse than the disease, a lot worse.  Turns out Wagner is hitting a lot of loyalist communities, because they're easier to hit than rebel held ones and the quid pro quo is very onerous, far more so than the French had imposed previously.

Plus it's becoming increasingly evident that even if Ruzzia did actually want to fight ISIS and prop up the African regimes, it does not have the means to do so.

(June 21, 2025 at 11:55 am)Pat Mustard Wrote:

(June 20, 2025 at 6:05 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote:  
So Putin is cleverly reclaiming this ancient legacy to establish itself more in all of these countries.

Not really.  A number of African countries turned to Ruzzia to kick out the French and ISIS and are now finding that the cure is worse than the disease, a lot worse.  Turns out Wagner is hitting a lot of loyalist communities, because they're easier to hit than rebel held ones and the quid pro quo is very onerous, far more so than the French had imposed previously.

Plus it's becoming increasingly evident that even if Ruzzia did actually want to fight ISIS and prop up the African regimes, it does not have the means to do so.

Another thing that I can add to this is that Russians are currently richer than they have ever been since the fall of the Soviet Union. Thanks to a state controlled economy, the whole system is working in a way that is based on military spending. Wages are also good because ¼th of their workforce has left the country and 1/4th is dead in the war of Ukraine. So companies are willing to pay more to keep their employees.
 
So they probably have similar sociological models to gain and maintain influence in African countries. All of this for rare earths and other mineral resources.
 
Personally, I believe that the Soviet Union stood for something despite of all of the lacks that it harbored within itself. So I am still sad to see Putin taping on this legacy to create an absolutely evil type of regime.
 
I am entirely unhappy about Trump too. With this Russian threat rising since the annexation of Crimea, he is pushing all NATO members to spend 5% on their defense (some countries like Spain are objecting). Things like artillery shell production are being boosted in the US. Europeans are also increasing their budgets to be less dependent on the US militarily. Other countries like Eastern countries are probably going to respond in a similar manner.
 
So the defense industry is going to make huge profits worldwide and release huge amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere.
 
All of this in a time when we need some sort of Donald Trump who forces everyone to spend at least 5% on their energy transition and threaten them with economic sanctions if they don’t.
 
If NATO was really NATO, they would perceive climate change as a threat bigger than Russia. Let me end with this
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cooling-down-...37329.html

China is admitting that its strategy is to keep the US (and Allies) focused on Ukraine so that it cannot concentrate all of its power on China. And this resonates with Trump’s strategy as well. If I am correct D. Trump withdrew from Afghanistan for the same reason. I think he wants to limit foreign rivalries to Israel and Taiwan.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-tells-e...04994.html
 
While no one knows what’s his position with Russia everyone seems to agree that he is taking the China issue more seriously. If you put aside the human / ideological aspect of the issue, He isn’t entirely wrong about it either right?

(July 5, 2025 at 10:41 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: China is admitting that its strategy is to keep the US (and Allies) focused on Ukraine so that it cannot concentrate all of its power on China. And this resonates with Trump’s strategy as well. If I am correct D. Trump withdrew from Afghanistan for the same reason. I think he wants to limit foreign rivalries to Israel and Taiwan.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-tells-e...04994.html
 
While no one knows what’s his position with Russia everyone seems to agree that he is taking the China issue more seriously. If you put aside the human / ideological aspect of the issue, He isn’t entirely wrong about it either right?

Defeating Russia in Ukraine quickly would allow him to better focus on China. If, as you assert, that is his goal, then he ought to give more, and more deadly, aid to Ukraine, not less.

Quote:THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Two Dutch intelligence agencies said on Friday that Russia is increasing its use of prohibited chemical weapons in Ukraine, including the World War I-era poison gas chloropicrin.

The Netherlands' military intelligence and the security service, together with the German intelligence service, found that the use of prohibited chemical weapons by the Russian military had become "standardized and commonplace" in Ukraine.

According to the findings, the Russian military uses chloropicrin and riot control agent CS against sheltering Ukrainian soldiers, who are then forced out into the open and shot.

Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans called for more sanctions against Moscow, and continued military support for Kyiv.

Brekelmans, who stayed on in a caretaker role after the Dutch government collapsed last month, said that he doesn't want to see the use of chemical weapons become normalized.

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russi...0683628712

I look forward to the day Ukrainian SpecOps finally gets to Putin.

(July 5, 2025 at 10:55 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(July 5, 2025 at 10:41 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: China is admitting that its strategy is to keep the US (and Allies) focused on Ukraine so that it cannot concentrate all of its power on China. And this resonates with Trump’s strategy as well. If I am correct D. Trump withdrew from Afghanistan for the same reason. I think he wants to limit foreign rivalries to Israel and Taiwan.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-tells-e...04994.html
 
While no one knows what’s his position with Russia everyone seems to agree that he is taking the China issue more seriously. If you put aside the human / ideological aspect of the issue, He isn’t entirely wrong about it either right?

Defeating Russia in Ukraine quickly would allow him to better focus on China. If, as you assert, that is his goal, then he ought to give more, and more deadly, aid to Ukraine, not less.

D. Trump might not be the most virtuous man on earth but I think he knows what he is doing on this issue. Afghanistan was a financial quagmire for the United States. There was no other solution for the US but to stay there indefinitely. Because it was not possible to create a Taliban-Proof Afghan government because the Afghan Government was basically a thing on paper that has nothing to do with the democratic governments in Japan or South-Korea after the end of the war in these regions.
 
I don’t know if Ukraine is very different from that. Let me explain: Many Ukrainians have simply fled the country and are not paying the ultimate price for their freedom. Corruption is also very widespread (like in many former-socialist countries). But it is true that the majority of Ukrainians will fight the Russians until the end if they have to.
 
Still: Russia is a formidable opponent. Putin is making the economy work based on military spending and export of oil. Russian who are not at the front have a rather good life with a good income. As strange as it mat sound, with 1/4th of the workforce dead or fighting on the front and another 1/4th who have fled to whatever country they can, the one who remain have good job offers and salaries. There are even people who come from central Asian states to work and end up being recruited in the Russian military.
 
So Russia is like another planet (for the first time since the end of the USSR). So you cannot defeat them “quickly”.
 
But as I said, A more emotional person may not have seen this as it is in both countries.
 
In fact the only issue with Trump is that the US might become a less democratic country when he is gone. That would be my focus if I was a US citizen.