"Forced conscription", aka slave soldiers. Ukraine lowered the draft age but that only gets them so far. They continue to have chronic troop shortages on the front, 150k desertions and climbing, and the original volunteers are 2 months from being in combat for 4 straight years. Their last offensive was Jan-March of this year, it made it 10 kilometers and was then pushed back by Russian waves. Territory occupied continues to slowly tick in Russia's favor. Total casualty count is 3 russians for 1 ukranian.

Don't get me wrong, they're running the world's most effective elastic defense, but it's because of a critical lack of troops forcing that situation on them. One sector was held by a lone combat robot for awhile.

Is the Russian strategy to keep sending meat waves against the Ukrainians so they won't have time to re-occupy territory?

#12 | Posted by Zed at 2026-07-27 09:55 AM | Reply | Flag:

Time to reoccupy? No, Russia is grinding forward to encircle and capture territory. Look back at that map I linked. Zoom in on Orikhiv, it was central to Ukraine's early NATO geared offensive that stalled out just South of there when it ran into Russian defense in depth. Notice the tendrils creeping around the sides of it? Eventually those meet and Orikhiv falls. It will take many, many Russian lives, but they seem to have those to spare and historically always have.

Because they're cheaper than Russians.

"The United States heavily relies on private military and defense contractors to support operations, supply logistics, and build complex weapon systems."

Mercenaries and foreigners.

Also, NK is getting extensive combat experience for their army. Did you see what happened when they first hit the scene? They lined up and went forward like it was the 60s. They were butchered. Now they're a lot smarter, and that's bad for everybody around them.

They're on army #3 or #4 depending on how you count them.