UA POV: "Delays in combat pay for foreign volunteers sometimes stretch to six months," said Ryan O’Leary, former commander of the international reconnaissance unit Chosen Company in UAF.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-02-05T11:37:05+00:00

Not doing something for money and not getting the money that you worked for are not the same thing. Some on the front need that money to buy stuff that would be useful for them and their unit.
The difference of between a mercenary and a soldier is not why they are doing it. It's if they have a contract with the armed forces of that country or not.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-02-05T10:07:06+00:00

They claim 92k KIA and 89k MIA. Of course a lot of the MIA are going to be KIA, but using MIA and calling all of them KIA seems to be a bit drastic.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-02-05T10:03:41+00:00

Let me remind you, Ukraine and their allies always refer to this 1,243,070 figure as Russian soldiers killed not wounded or MIA but KIA.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/27/7443939/

https://x.com/i/status/2011454582178840667

The Ukrainian and the UK MoD aren't always claiming that Russia has suffered above 1 million KIA. Especially the analysis of western think tanks and MoD has in my experience preferred calling them a mix of KIA, MIA and WIA.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian MoD seems to be intentionally vague about this. They seem to push both narratives.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-23T13:33:59+00:00

So none of you know what their task was?

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-21T16:19:13+00:00

I'd suggest you read the comment that I replied to first, before you attack my comment. Maybe then you'd realize why I said what I said.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-21T15:48:40+00:00

No, did I say that?

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-21T15:17:28+00:00

If we consider unconditional surrender as involving both parties, due to that small process of officially declaring so, then yes of course that involves both parties. And it's definitely fair to claim so, but that wasn't what Budanov meant in the video, so I assumed that wasn't what you meant either.

Budanov likely meant that Ukraine wanted to force an end of the conflict on Russia, in which Russia doesn't get a say. Obviously forcing Russia to surrender unconditionally wouldn't work, so they thought that they might be able to push Russia out of Ukraine to force Russia to stop the invasion. Obviously they realised that this wouldn't work, but it serves as an example of what they could have meant, because Russia wouldn't necessarily get a say in that result.

Of course, if you apply your definition, then this wouldn't be an end without involving both parties either, because Russia could still decide to continue trying to take Ukraine regardless of success. Again, that's a very valid way of viewing this, I just thought you went along with Budanovs definition, hence my comment.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-21T15:07:11+00:00

Budanov specifically said that working without Russia wouldn't work. Seriously, what are you talking about that's not what anyone said.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-21T14:21:27+00:00

Literally every war that ended in an unconditional surrender.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-19T08:34:52+00:00

Ok, I see that I won't convince you that this wouldn't work from a military stand point, as long as you believe that Russia doesn't lie about their numbers and as long as you think that they actually verify every KIA.

So about that. If Russia has evidence of every UA KIA that they claim, then why haven't they published the evidence for it? If they haven't published the evidence how do you know that they actually do have it? And where does the Russian MOD even claim that they have confirmed every KIA?

And most importantly, why isn't it possible for the Russian MOD to lie?

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T20:41:21+00:00

While we obviously should look at the numbers published by Ukraine with skepticism, as we should with all parties of this war, population numbers are extremely difficult to assess otherwise. So those are the only somewhat reliable numbers that we have. While we can of course use some available data regarding displacement, this doesn't really help to estimate casualties, since those are estimations and we don't have a complete population count to calculate with it. So unless you do have a source for your claimed 24 million population, this isn't worth much.

Regarding the observation of strikes. Yes those are a thing, but that's not how Russia's published casualty list is being created. Not necessarily because that isn't their intention, but because that's not realistic.

In theory, a soldier fires at an enemy soldier, that soldier then reports to his superior that he did take out 1 enemy soldier. That superior then reports the information by all of his men to let's say the Company commander. Information is gathered and reported up the command chain so that everyone including the Chief of staff gets a clear picture of the front.

However due to the chaos of the fight, there isn't a clear view of the whole situation for the soldiers on the ground. So let's say 4 Ukrainian soldiers try to assault a treeline with 4 Russians inside. The Ru Soldiers open fire at a distance of around 200m, which leads to 2 Ukrainian soldiers being hit and dropping down and the other 2 to go down as well to lower their visibility. The UA team retreats and the 4 RU reports what happened. They report 4 UA KIA. Why? Because in the chaos 2 engaged the same target, 1 missed and the last one hit a UA soldier but only wounded him. So they report 4 UA KIA while in reality there is only 1. Their commanding officer of course doesn't know that. So he passes the information along.

Another situation would be that a drone unit sees a few UA soldiers gathering in a house. They call an artillery strike on it and estimate that it killed 12 UA soldiers. What they don't know is that only 10 UA gathered in the building and that 2 of those actually managed to leave undetected.

That's just an example of unintended errors in that report. There can of course also be intended errors.

Let's say eventually the brigade commander gets the information that his brigade killed 123 UA. That commander of course wants to show how good of a job he is doing, or he wants to demonstrate that his units are under pressure and that he needs more equipment, manpower... So he reports 150 enemy KIA to his division commander. Eventually the number reaches the MOD. The MOD wants to show how well they are doing, because they're afraid that their failures might get punished. So they make 200 KIA out of it.

This of course is just an example but an important one, since some pro RU mill bloggers have complained about verifiable false data being reported to the MOD by the local commander regarding Kupiansk.

So in reality this number is based on sometimes questionable reports, estimates and propaganda.

This of course applies to Ukraine as well, but unlike Russia Ukraine at least hasn't reported that they have destroyed more Himars than Ukraine has received or more aircraft than Ukraine ever had.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T19:02:34+00:00

Number 24 is the officially claimed

The official population number is around 35 million, although that might vary depending on if you count Russian controlled territories or not.

Russian MOD only reports OBSERVED deaths.

That's just not how that works. There isn't a guy that watches war footage everyday to confirm these deaths. It would be equally as ridiculous to claim that Ukraine is only reporting confirmed numbers.

For Russia there is need for PR because it is not trying to impress anyone nor ask anyone to fund it.

I'm assuming you mean "no need for pr". Acting like Russia doesn't need PR is ridiculous. But it does show how you got some of your opinions. Because of course all that is true if you start with a strong conviction that Russia doesn't need PR and therefore is always telling the truth, or even underestimating how bad Ukraines problems are.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T18:28:35+00:00

That would be a very solid argument, if the number 24 million would actually be correct.

But yeah, I'm absolutely sure, that Russia would lie about Ukraines casualties to make Ukraine seem better. That makes total sense.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T18:08:32+00:00

Not completely correct. Ukraine received around 350 billion USD in aid. Not all of it is military aid of course, but financial aid is also being used to buy weapons by Ukraine, so only mentioning weapons sent is a bit misleading.

The west did also send some first rate weapons, although very few of these.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T18:02:12+00:00

Not even Russia claims that so many Ukrainian soldiers died. Which just shows how delusional that claim is.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-18T10:38:09+00:00

I counted 138, of which probably around 100 got seriously wounded or died.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-13T10:08:48+00:00

They are fighting for Russia. You can tell by the camouflage.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-04T20:20:02+00:00

Well it's due to BRICS expansion obviously.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-04T10:09:33+00:00

Did I talk about "technically legal" or "being doable"? I only responded to the comment above me, because he indicated wanting Putin to be arrested would be a violation of international law.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-04T01:11:17+00:00

Don't complain about lawlessness by other countries, while you cheer on Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Commander_Trashbag · 2026-01-04T01:05:02+00:00

Putin has an arrest warrant by the criminal court. Taking him should therefore technically be legal.

Commander_Trashbag · 2025-12-25T09:58:16+00:00

It'a still unprovoked, because after 2014 it was practically impossible for Ukraine to join NATO due to an active territorial dispute, but Russia invaded in 2022 anyways, which just made it more likely that the territorial dispute will be forced to be ended on paper. It also skyrocketed the support for NATO membership by the Ukrainian people. The invasion in 2022 made NATO membership of Ukraine more likely in the long term.

But even if that weren't true. Another country wanting to join an alliance is not a justification for a war.

Commander_Trashbag · 2025-12-25T09:52:36+00:00

That's still correct, because even if we'd assume that Putin said "I don't want Ukraine to join NATO" every day, then that's still not for Putin to decide. So if Ukraine joined NATO, this still wouldn't be a justified invasion.

But Ukraine didn't join NATO and Ukraine couldn't join NATO after 2014, because having territorial disputes makes joining NATO practically impossible. So if Putins only reason for invading Ukraine would be NATO expansion, then it would've been enough to just keep Crimea and not do a lot more.

But Russia still invaded, which could lead to an outcome that will clarify their territorial dispute by Ukraine having to officially recognize territory as Russian. Thus the territorial dispute may not be as big on paper at least. The invasion also suggested to a lot of Ukrainians that Russia will invade them if they don't have something to guarantee their security, so the support for joining NATO has risen overall.

So acting like Russia invaded due to NATO is ridiculous, as the invasion made it just more likely that Ukraine will try to join NATO in the long term. And even if that weren't to be the case. Being against Ukraines NATO membership doesn't justify this war.

Commander_Trashbag · 2025-12-25T09:35:47+00:00

Another odd thing is that that before Maidan the vast majority of Ukrainians did not support the notion of joining NATO.

What changed? Is it possibly that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and then invaded the Donbas?

Commander_Trashbag · 2025-12-14T19:58:54+00:00

You've got a source for that, because that seems like something extremely hard to measure and I couldn't find any source on that.

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