20179

Janster’s process seems to be: you take every possible negative factor and extrapolate worst-case scenarios (from the perspective of Ukraine). Then you take any possible positive factor and discount it as Ukrainian propaganda.

100,000 dead or wounded Ukrainians? That was their best troops, their brightest people, they have nothing left. 100,000 dead or wounded Russians? Well, they were Ukrainian conscripts, the worst equipped, and it really hasn’t impacted Russia much.

Ukraine making slow/steady progress in Kherson? Evidence that they are out of gas and on their last leg. Russia withdrawing from Kherson? Luring them into a trap while their million well-armed reinforcements arrive.

It’s pretty much been 9 months of that straight.

20180

I mean, I’m just hoping to spark some introspection about the nature of the claims @Janster keeps making. They seem like personal beliefs without much (if any) foundation.

We know that many Russian units have been mauled in the fighting, because it has been heavily reported, verified, confirmed; in some cases by Russian authorities themselves. We know that new Russian replacements are being sent with very little equipment and supplies and training because it has been heavily reported, verified, confirmed; in some cases by Russian sources. We know that some of those replacements are being defeated, routed, captured because it has been heavily reported, verified, confirmed; in some cases by Russian authorities themselves.

So I don’t really know where a claim like this one:

…even comes from. What is its source? What are the details behind it, e.g. what percentage of those losses com from Donbas militias, from Luhansk militias, from Russian conventional forces? How have those numbers been confirmed, by whom?

It seems a reasonable set of questions, and they should be easy to answer, if you’re sitting on sources of data and confirmation that have convinced you. Let’s have it.

20181

The foundation probably is the claptrap making the rounds in tankie telegram groups. I hear much of the same coming from the “true left” here in Spain. If anything he softens it to post here, trying to make it more balanced than the absolute bananas idiocy he´s probably reading.

20182

I agree with this. I’ve spent time going down Tankie rabbit holes myself to try and see if there is good evidence for “other narratives” and to counter the information vacuum about Ukrainian losses. The problem is the information space on the Russian side is sealed pretty tight from objective checks; official sources are completely untrustworthy and trusted third-party to sources are circumspect about revealing what they know So real reports of Russian successes/Ukrainian losses are seized on by tankies without appropriate contextualization.

20183

Not advocating for this, but according to this there’s only 8k Russian KIA that’s been confirmed in Russia - I’m guessing Janster is trusting that this number is accurate and all other deaths reported by Ukraine is from the Donbas region

20184

Having your hopes dashed is soul crushing. I understand why he’d want to take a worst case scenario in all of this because you can only go up from there. I feel like if Russia doesn’t lose it makes dictatorships look even better to every fight wing fascist the world over,

20185

Right now internal Russian discourse is that this is all happening exactly because the system is closed and obfuscated. They don’t put it like this, it’s more like “internal enemies of the state has lied to the glorious leader”. But it’s obvious this is exactly what you get when you destroy all dissenting opinions and put “loyalists” in key positions.

It’s so fascinating cause it’s exactly what you’ve expect to happen if you are not enamored with the supposed effectiveness of dictatorship. This is your effectiveness, no one cries about stolen elections, no gridlocks due to uncooperative branches of government, no crises with PMs losing their positions. Just a perfect government by philosopher king with his wise advisors.

20186

That’s the nice thing about not caring about your soldiers or good record keeping. Fewer confirmed KIAs! Presumably all those extra tens of thousands of MIAs will show up some day. They probably just went for a smoke or something.

20187

But 77k casualties isn’t 77k killed. It includes wounded, captured, missing. You’d expect a lot more of the latter than the former, so an official number of 8k killed Russian forces isn’t at all out of line with 77k Russian force casualties.

I’m happy to believe that some of the killed / wounded / captured / missing were ragtag local militia. It seems quite likely that some were. I’m asking @Janster for a reason to believe that most of them were, or to believe that it is only the local militia who suffer from supply and equipment shortages.

20188

It’s quite a bit out of line. The ratio for most modern conflict is 3:1, with the numerator going up with the capabilities and willpower of the organization to recover and support their wounded.

With 77k casualties, I’d anticipate ~20k killed with the balance wounded. Whether Russia has the capacity to care for those ~60k wounded is an open question and I think there’s good reason to assume that their ratio is substantially worse.

That said, I could buy a total of 8k KIA from Russian sources if they lump PKIA in another category. Particularly given their demonstrated lack of concern about leaving their troops where they fell.

Edit: I think we’re saying the same thing. I just wanted to elaborate on the ratio a little.

20189

Sure. I’m assuming some motivated flexibility in Russian reporting. The point was that an 8k KIA Russian forces number from Russia isn’t evidence that ‘most of’ the casualties in all categories have been local militia.

20190

True - I believe Ukraine is touting 90k+ KIA while the US is touting 100k+ casualties.

I guess it depends on which number you hone in on as the basis for the true number

20191

Ukrainian numbers have been in line with captured or leaked Russian internal documents - at this point they’re probably the most accurate figure out there.

20192

Hah! Those documents are all Ukrainian deep fakes so of course it lines up with their numbers!

20193

I diagnose Janster as at least somewhere on the Tankie spectrum. Or maybe it’s pure contrarianism (though I’ve often thought that contrarianism is also a component of the modern Tankie mindset); signalling that he’s an independent free-thinker by automatically disagreeing with what the majority think.

His evidence-free wild-ass guesses give the biggest insights into his prejudices. In this case, where we’re discussing signs of Russian failure, by jumping to whichever explanation maximises Russian competence by shifting blame elsewhere. (Even though the “elsewhere” in this case are militias that Russia created and funded, and since September are supposedly an integral part of the Russian Federation. So if they’re the high-casualty-suffering weak link, exactly whose fault is that?)

20194

NATO Imperialists, surely

20195

It’s a great catch, that catch-22.

20196

Unconfirmed rumors of a major hit on the Antonovsky bridge

20197

I guess if the Russians were planning to blow it up on the way out anyway no reason to leave it one piece when they are trying to leave over it.

20198

All Russian commentators now:

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