We started to talk about the Ukraine war.

First a few facts.
The Russian military has not changed their strategies since the last Crimean war 1853-56.
All frontal assault and what they call meat charges. Put as many bodies in harms way and hope they cross the distance and kill the other side.
This was last seen in Iran Iraq war where Iran tried to kill Iraq.
Also, WWI in the trench warfare
It did not work then, and it will not work now.

Only now, before being sent into the attack, Russian are order to hand over their bank cards with pin, so the command staff can then transfer out any money the recruit would have in the bank, when they are killed. Things are that despicable. The officers know most if not all will die so they might as well make some money off the meat attack.

Russia may have lost some 1.4 million people killed or wounded sufficiently to never go back to the frontline. We know this as we have seen video captures of Russian troops on literal tree branches for crutches hobbling to the front. It is not pretty.

Russia used to have stockpiles of weapons. Literally, what do you do with old tanks, carriers, artillery etc? America has the same sort of stockpile in Arizona for planes. You can see it in Google Earth. Literally thousands of old planes left to rot in the desert. Russian depots are well known and wildly considered their class “C” reserves. Class A are the young troops, 18–30 years of age, just finished training, young fit and fully capable of using everything involved. Class B are those who are older 30-50. Out of shape but many still good to go. Anyone older, i.e. us, is class c. The good thing is these soldiers are trained on using older weapons systems so they need little training to use their old tanks. The problem is, in the last 10-20-30-50 years technology has improved, and older tanks do not survive modern fighting. Well, the Russian is using T34, last seen in WWII against the Nazi. Fitting perhaps as Russian propaganda says they are still fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

The depots, grown since the end of WWII were huge. It was seen as one of the deterrences for NATO as Russia did not have a lot of new tanks, they just had a lot of tanks. So much so, that this was a consideration for any war with Russia.

The last 4 years have seen those stockpiles shrink and disappear. Again, this is seen on things like Google Earth or any of the many YouTube channels covering things from the Ukraine side.

Money, sanctions are working in that you have a lot of things to burn through. You have a lot of supplies from Iran, China, North Korea. Etc. It takes time. Hence, why they shadow fleet was so important. It earned solid foreign money to pay for such supplies.

Ukraine, gets things on credit. Russia has to pay cash for things.
The Ukes know this and hit place where they know Russia will have a hard time to replace like their oil production facilities. They don’t have to destroy the place. Just knock it offline for a while and wait, once repairs are done, hit it again. The Ukes are getting very good at this after 4 years.

That leaves us the main consideration, the battlefront. Russia is by no means out of the war. They can send meat waves forward. Such that it becomes the question of: do I have enough bullets to kill as many men coming forward?
Treating a human life as a joke is never funny but the question still stands.

Here is what is new. The Ukes are short on man power so some extent. They have a smaller army but are getting real volunteers. IE ex combat troops from around the world show up at the airport to enlist. Many people from Uke communities in Canada send soldiers and recruits. Ex armed forces and pilots show up and form units.

The war however has a new element. Drones, both in the air and on the ground. A war drone cost anywhere from $300 to $10 000. The cheaper they are, the more they are there to suicide on tanks and vehicles or a man. All they have to do is carry bomb and poof you have a dead tank or worse a dead man. What to send for Christmas? Shotguns, they use fléchette round to hit the control cables and hopefully take out the drone as it is coming in to kill you…

You put a thousand of those in front of a meat wave attack, and it leaves a field of hamburger.

So where is this war? It’s been 4 years. Russian op plan said to surround Kyiv on Day 1 and invade Moldavia on day 3. Instead, they have gain only so much territory as they have lost. What people forget is that Ukes invaded Russian territory in the first year and are still sitting there.

So the meat grinder continues to operate. People keep dying. Russia keeps bringing in new people to die for them. The war is at a stalemate. Who can bleed the most? Who can afford to throw a generation of men? If you look at post WWII recovery and the gap with all the mean dying in the war, or post Afghanistan you will see the same gap in genders.

But all is not lost, Russia has just raised the tax on Vodka. 25% big deal you think. Let me explain. In Russia, the average age of death for men is like 60 before Ukraine happened. Why? They drink themselves to death very early. Drinking is their copping mechanism. Fine. So they raised the taxes why? Because they are running out of money and do this in desperation. If men cannot get booze, they will drink antifreeze or colon or anything that might have alcohol in it. So raising the price makes such measure more likely than not.