(January 15, 2024 at 4:03 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(January 15, 2024 at 3:51 pm)ShinyCrystals Wrote: I don't know...while I do have a feeling Russia may win the war, I don't think it would NOT be bittersweet for Putin, or Putinhead as I'd like to call him. If I recall correctly, he is using a lot of the population of his country for soldiers.
Not really. 2021 population: 145 million. 2022 invasion forces: ~ 200,000. Follow-on forces committed: about half-a-million more. A good portion of the latter 500,000 are indeed either convicts, immigrants, or Russians from distant, outlying oblasts. What this does is concentrate the losses amongst social pariahs or racial/ethnic minorities who live away from the centers of political power.
(January 15, 2024 at 3:51 pm)ShinyCrystals Wrote: I mean, Putinhead (that nickname is a pun of Puddin' Head, by the way) has already started resorting to using prisoners and has used mercenaries as soldiers, and is drafting people in Russia while giving them little training, too, if I heard correctly.
All of these factors undercut the development of both effective combat power and morale, especially when we look at how these troops are used tactically, in massed human-wave tactics that waste lives.
Thanks for clarifying the first part, Thumpalumpacus. Looks like I did not recall correctly, after all. Still, we do learn things and it is good to be corrected, too.
Anyway, yeah, I can see what you mean on the second part. It might be obvious already, but it goes to show that Putin does not care about the lives of even his own people, and it seems like he is desperate to win, but does not seem to know what he is doing.
