'Wars are not won without people,' Budanov says of Ukraine's mobilization crisis
Posted by EsperaDeus@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 79 comments
BendicantMias@reddit
Idk, someone should tell Trump that. Despite literally whole books being written about how you can't just win wars with bombing i.e. that you need boots on the ground, the orange taco and his coterie seem to have thought they knew better. Hell, even their master Israel isn't so deluded - they use ground troops in both Gaza and Lebanon, and have been trying to get their lapdog America to invade Iran properly from the start. But president Taco is just too cowardly to actually do it.
procgen@reddit
Apparently Iran’s economy is utterly decimated now (estimated $300B-$1T damage so far). Not a bad return on investment for the US, and it will make Iran much more desperate to secure sanction relief in the negotiations.
BendicantMias@reddit
Lol sure. And they already got sanctions relief, and practically everything else they could ever want, including an over $50 BILLION/yr windfall of Hormuz toll fees (which over 5 TIMES their defense budget btw), with Trump agreeing to their humiliating 10 point plan for a ceasefire. Pretty much shows you who's desperate in these negotiations that he accepted that.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/middle-east-war-iran-10-point-plan-strait-of-hormuz-fee-war-guarantees-sanctions-relief-donald-trump-deadline/articleshow/130076629.cms
procgen@reddit
lol of you think they’re going to be able to collect a toll
Cloudboy9001@reddit
... they already are genius, as widely reported (eg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-01/strait-of-hormuz-ships-paying-iran-yuan-and-crypto-tolls-for-safe-passage ).
BendicantMias@reddit
They literally ARE already collecting a toll bub, that agreement just has the US giving it its blessing. And I notice you didn't back up your bravado with anything, nor had any answer for the US agreeing to ceasefire that all across media is being called a humiliating defeat.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2191592/trump-savaged-humiliating-iran-defeat
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/trump-savaged-after-humiliating-iran-defeat-trump-always-chickens-out/ar-AA20pgRj
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-america-has-lost-in-the-war-with-iran/
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/08/politics/trump-iran-taco-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz-analysis
Etc. You're in the wrong sub to be reassured by your echo chamber, MAGAt.
procgen@reddit
no tools are being collected. None
imunfair@reddit
Says the guy who as "a person" wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near the front. Zelensky's entire administration is just a bunch of fratboy ghouls happy to send others to die until it all collapses around their ears.
Mii009@reddit
May we see this so called "collapse"?
imunfair@reddit
Sure, take a look at Ukraine's army and their inability to conduct offensive operations after four years of war. This spring they pulled a bunch of guys off the front, concentrated them in one spot, and out of four attempts the best result they had was a half-capture of several objectives, in some cases being completely repelled by Russian forces.
That's extreme degradation. The next stage is no ability to project force at all, and the final stage is complete inability to maintain the defensive integrity of the front. That's why Zelensky has been begging for a long ceasefire for like a year now, hoping to be given time to regroup and rearm and snatch some more men from the streets to throw in trenches.
Mii009@reddit
Whatever you say Xueqin Jiang
Oh I'm totally sure he has been lol
You mean what Russia does? And a way worse job at it too considering the lives lost day by day lol
imunfair@reddit
Tell me you don't follow this war at all without telling me. You look silly when you question standard widely documented facts because you feel like they make your team look bad.
No, Russia pays people (relatively) huge salaries to go die for them. And are losing less men than Ukraine, despite the propaganda you clearly consume heavily. Ukraine have to kidnap people because their efforts to bribe their citizens to fight have failed miserably, they tried it with young people and got less than a hundred iirc. It was impressive how little desire Ukrainians have to fight for Zelensky's regime.
Practical-Pea-1205@reddit
Considering that Russia hasn't even managed to take all of Donbas after four years of full-scale war I strongly doubt Ukraine have lost more soldiers than Russia.
imunfair@reddit
So Russia's force projection and army size has risen, Ukraine's is through the floor, but your reasoning is too few sqkm taken somehow cancels out all the actual data we can see?
MrDemonRush@reddit
Inability to take land cancels it out. Putin told Trump Donbas was to be taken by the end of 2025, according to Witkoff and Zelensky, but they haven't managed to take even this small bit of land. Slavyansk/Kramatorsk battle hasn't even started after 4 years of war, and the last time Russian army went into such a stronghold they lost 16k people in 4 months of siege, with certain regiments sending even techies into storm operations since they had no more manpower left.
Russia can't go further without a draft of their own, and Putin isn't keen on attempting that, considering the last time even with a soft sell and certain regions being basically excluded(Moscow, for example) people just ran for the hills the moment the draft was announced.
imunfair@reddit
No it doesn't - once you attrit the opposing army past the point they can defend you get all the remaining land at once. This isn't a new concept it's often the way wars play out, that's why pro-UA making linear projections of territorial gains is so silly.
MrDemonRush@reddit
So how much longer do you think attrition will go on then? Russia barely took land since 2022, and I think they still have less land taken overall than they had at the beginning before they were forced to run from Kherson. If you think an army with no active draft has more people than an army that drafts nearly indiscriminately, all you are doing is wishful thinking. The truth is, as long as the West supports Ukraine, Russia cannot take it. The russian economy isn't strong enough to casually shrug off oil exports hits, sanctions and military spending.
Again, if attrition strategy worked, they would have taken the remaining Donbas territories already, the fact that they didn't and relied on enemy tools to make even small advances(Starlink was in fact a very key thing here) means the strategy isn't working out of them the way you think it does.
imunfair@reddit
Another year or two max - they aren't going to make it another four at the current rate of decline.
If you look at the gains since Russia consolidated (aka "forced to run") they've been steadily growing every year. The last three months have been rough, with Ukraine's assault attempts basically zeroing out the gains in other places, but if they continue to assault the way they have been they'll just lose men faster and it'll quickly lose effectiveness. It's another one of Zelensky's silly PR attempts, taking a minor amount of land with no strategic value so he can pretend they have hope of freezing the lines when negotiating.
Even Ukraine admits you're objectively wrong, you may want to reconsider where you get your information because clearly it's detached from reality.
That's obviously not true from the decline we're discussing, unless the west is willing to put boots on the ground, which seems unlikely.
Why are you regurgitating the same illogical talking points we just finished debunking?
MrDemonRush@reddit
You debunked nothing, just regurgitated Putin's own words from 2023, which are no more believable than Trump saying he won everything on the ME.
This sub man, so many people thinking that a military that failed to achieve any of its goals in 4 years of war against an inferior opponent is gonna win any minute now. Ukraine will fall in ~~2022~~ ~~2023~~ ~~2024~~ ~~2025~~ ~~2026~~ ~~2027~~ 2028!
Do you not realize how funny it sounds? Ukraine was accused of excessive draft and expected to run out of men years ago by such thinkers, and yet here we are.
imunfair@reddit
The fuck are you talking about? lol. I give you objective facts and you go on some rant about Putin and god knows what because you can't rebut the actual data, just stop dude. Go outside if you can't cope with talking to people on the internet.
MrDemonRush@reddit
Because your data is a nothing burger. All these things could be said about 2023 after the failed Rabotino advance, and yet, nothing really changed. Ukraine has repeated that they are on the backfoot since 2022, but the actual reality is that Russia is in no position to make use of it.
The reason why I mentioned Putin is that he said these words about attrition roughly in 2023, namely with a saying "Chicken eats one seed at a time", which everyone but the russian gov run media mocked for years now.
Again, if the only things you have are Ukraine stating they need support(which they do, first and foremost to give time to the EU to arm up) and pro-Russian cope, I have no interest in talking.
imunfair@reddit
Pro-UA have mocked a lot of things that either ended up biting them in the ass, or that they ended up imitating themselves in the end.
The substantial decline of Ukraine's capabilities is literally what we're discussing - if that isn't a change I don't know what you'd think was one. Yes both years they were losing, and if they continue losing the same way for much longer it will be a permanent state of loss of nationhood.
MrDemonRush@reddit
What's the difference, losing nationhood to war, or losing the nationhood to war? Putin denies the right for Ukraine to exist(watch his "history" discussions, those are literal goldmine for ridiculous citations if you know a bit of history), it is in fact an existential war.
Where did I say that only pro-UA media mocked it? You may not believe it, but there are a lot of russian media sources that are unaffiliated to the gov and support the war, and they aren't optimistic about the current state of affairs or the "attrition" that costs them the same amount of people Ukraine is losing. I don't read UA gov sources and pro-UA channels from UA, and most of russian pro-UA media does way too much wishful thinking.
imunfair@reddit
Hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainian men. We're around 500k dead right now, which is a pretty stupid amount of your own people to kill to reach a far worse result than you could have had from negotiations. Zelensky is basically the worst leader anyone could have picked - intransigent with zero foresight.
anotherserf@reddit
> We're around 500k dead right now
No credible analyst supports this number for the Ukrainian side.
imunfair@reddit
The bare minimum is about 400k dead Ukrainian soldiers, 100k a year, unless you slurp Ukrainian propaganda in which case they've only lost 40k soldiers despite over half that number being returned in body exchanges in the past year.
Anyone who isn't completely delusional can see the 200+ glide bombs being dropped per day, along with the Russian drone supremacy and the Kursk massacre and realize the Ukrainian numbers are off by a factor.
Not to mention that mysteriously the Russian casualty rate declared by Ukraine rises every time Ukraine is doing poorly, so you can use those numbers to get some sense of Ukraine's losses, since they'll never publicly declare Russia to have losses lower than their own actual losses.
100k a year also matches well with the force degradation we're seeing on the battlefield, if you assume 2x casualties, 20k a month "recruitment" (given they've admitted undershooting their 30k a month target), and the 1mil man army they claimed a couple months into the war. That puts them at about half to two-thirds strength bodies wise, although they've lost a lot of experienced men and replaced them with kidnapped dudes who have no desire to be in the trench, so that compounds issues further.
MrDemonRush@reddit
Citation needed. All negotiotions would have resulted in was Russia attacking Ukraine in a much worse position for Ukraine itself, there was never a chance of peace. When Ukraine decided they were done with russian money ruling the country, they revolted and got supported by western money. Putin couldn't live with that, whcih resulted in ATO(which only happened due to "ex" military and FSB officers organizing both the "republics"). If they left the country alone and didn't annex one part and fired an indefinite war in another, none of that would have happened.
I suppose he had more foresight than you, considering him surrendering would have resulted in Ukraine being the next one in the line of nations seeking for nationhood and being denied it, while serving as russian boots when they inevitably come to conflict with EU or China.
imunfair@reddit
Unfalsifiable Zelensky propaganda to justify the death and destruction he's caused. Russia has adhered to past goals so there's no reason to think an attack would have been imminent if Donbas had been resolved.
Even the Duma slip-up at the start of the war where the guy talked about future goals it was only about integrating Donbas into Russia, they didn't even want Zap or Kherson at the time. But Zelensky's hubris cost Ukraine dearly and once Russia invaded the minimum ask went from 2 oblasts to 4 pretty rapidly. Now it's more like 7 if their demands from Turkey are accurate. And yet somehow Zelensky is still stuck in the mindset that he can somehow get a deal that just freezes the current lines after four years of fighting, lol.
Nah, I (and anyone with a slight knowledge of history and some foresight) knew exactly where this war was going and how many people were going to die once Russia got bogged down. They have very specific grinding tactics that they've used successfully repeatedly in the past. It was no surprise this war went the way it did, and any pro-Ukrainian who didn't see it coming and was cheering for it to continue should be ashamed.
MrDemonRush@reddit
Here's where russian programming starts, I guess. If they adhered to anything, they would remove their own leaders and money from rebels on Donbas, not allow them to covertly keep the ATO going.
As I said, I have no interest talking to russian bots, and all of your grandstanding about it just confirms you don't have a shred of your thought, only what propaganda put into you. Not to mention grinding tactics of Russia, whoever the fuck you are repeating either doesn't know a difference from his nose and his toe or is a blatant idiot otherwise. Blocked.
imunfair@reddit
You'd have a more realistic perspective on the war if you didn't mentally dismiss every fact you don't like as "[R]ussian programming"
anotherserf@reddit
The simple fact is that both sides violated the terms of the MInsk accords.
In this context, the statement "Russia has adhered to past goals" is such blatant nonsense that one never hears it outside of blatantly Russian government sources or those who mindlessly copy from them.
BendicantMias@reddit
Lmao! Source? A source better than "Witkoff and Zelensky said it" lol.
MrDemonRush@reddit
Source on Ukraine losing 1k men for 50?
BendicantMias@reddit
I asked you for a source bub, apart from ya boi's propaganda. As for me, there's actual confirmed bodies to back up the claim - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hands-ukraine-1000-war-dead-rbc-says-2026-04-09/ And it's 1000 for 41 btw. Now get us a source for your claim that's not obviously biased.
MrDemonRush@reddit
Confirmed bodies, lol. Again, tell me, if Ukraine lost 1000 men per 50 of the enemy, where do they clone them?
Find a source for your claim of body trade meaning Ukraine loses 20 times more people than the other side while being ion the defensive and then I will bother providing anything. Tho, you won't actually provide anything, since you are just a happy little propaganda bot, who this sub seem to attract like candy. I am tired of writing anything to your kind, kindly fuck off.
BendicantMias@reddit
The latest body exchange had 1000 Ukrainian soldiers exchanged for just 41 Russian ones. And they've ALL been extremely lopsided like that..
MrDemonRush@reddit
And all that proves is that Ukraine doesn't bother collecting bodies. If they lost a thousand people for every 50, they would have had more losses than the entire adult male population of the country.
piray003@reddit
Uh he fought on the ground in the Donbas War in 2014 and was wounded in action several times, including during an amphibious raid he led in Crimea in 2016.
Try again.
chillichampion@reddit
He was probably talking about Zelensky who’s a well known draft dodger.
balvonas11@reddit
So the president should go fighting to the front line, that is the best use of his abilities? Fuck russia and their supporters, we will see the destruction of that evil empire in our lifetime.
SludgeFilter@reddit
Used to be the monarchs of the middle ages rallied their troops and rode into battle with them. Even the British Empire used some aristocracy to command the battleships. If you look at the epstein files the filth that drags us to wars nuw is is not even remotely physically involved in the dieing.
BendicantMias@reddit
People keep calling for a return to leaders fighting their wars by confidently arguing that it would stop them from launching wars if their own necks were on the line. Even a cursory perusal of history would show how misguided and utterly wrong that idea is. We've had kings lead wars, and die in them, and the world had more wars then, not less. Honor based societies, that have such norms, very much don't avoid war.
SludgeFilter@reddit
Good points but still, I would rather live in a world where I die on the battlefield and Baron dies with me than the one we live in now.
ForeignEchoRevival@reddit
You'd rather live in Feudal state with a Lord running over your life? Simp.ly weird vatnik behavior.
SludgeFilter@reddit
Yeah so much better now when our lords are hiding behind so called democracy raping children and playing theatre with lives of global humanity
chillichampion@reddit
First of Zelensky wasn’t a president when he was a draft dodger. Second of all imagine having a Palestine flair and support Zelensky and Ukraine 🤡
Duck_87@reddit
Well now he doesn't have to dodge right because he can send other people to die instead while making billions 🤡
AnHerstorian@reddit
Supporting Palestine and Ukraine is the consistent position, actually.
fuckshitballscunt@reddit
Believe it or not. Some people aren't brain dead and don't just follow what daddy government tells them to believe.
Mii009@reddit
It's called being ideologically consistent, any person with an actual working brain would know that Russia is just as much an imperialist power as Israel is 🤡
keithabarta@reddit
I feel like the principled take is to be on the side of the people being invaded by imperialistic powers…
piray003@reddit
Yeah I guess that makes sense if you completely ignore the words that he said and the context in which he said them 😂
Duck_87@reddit
Wiki is one hell of a random story generator.
imunfair@reddit
2014 is not 2024+ warfare. Although I grant his disastrous amphibious raid does somewhat resemble the suicide missions Zelensky sends spec ops teams on to this day, it doesn't hold a candle to sitting in a trench waiting to die via a glide bomb or FPV drone to the face.
Big_Dinner3636@reddit
Budanov spent years fighting the Russians, being wounded a number of times in high risk Special operations against Russia and has regularly visited the front lines to meet with troops.
Saying Budanov wouldnt be caught near the front is probably one of the dumbest fucking things you can say.
Duck_87@reddit
They didn't tell you his "special operations" were a clown show that cost the lives of other agents for no logical reason. But propaganda always sounds so much sweeter 🤡
Stufilover69@reddit
They didn't choose this war. The only one here who's happy to send people to die is Putin, the agressor And this would've been over if Trump didn't start supporting Russia instead
b0_ogie@reddit
The only one who is happy to send people to their deaths is Zelensky. He has zero popularity and legitimacy, and he is literally alive as long as the war is going on and he can remain in power at the expense of the state's counter-control through his friends in the SBU. His life physically depends on whether he kills about 200 Ukrainians at the front every day or not. This is literally a bloody ritual of prolonging power.
Stufilover69@reddit
Care to show any sources?
In the most recent data I could find 65% of Ukrainians approved of his actions:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100076/volodymyr-zelensky-s-approval-rating-ukraine/
>he kills about 200 Ukrainians
Zelensky isn't killing anybody, it's the Russists who are killing Ukranians every day and proud of this. Ukranians are defending their own homes, while the Russists can just leave every day and many of them even just come on a voluntary contract for the money.
imunfair@reddit
Actions speak louder than words. It's easy to say you approve, a lot harder to be in favor when your life is on the line. The second Ukraine starts drafting women those support numbers will drop by 40%.
Stufilover69@reddit
And they're still defending their country
That's pure speculation
imunfair@reddit
As already discussed, the ones that wanted to are mostly dead the desertion rate is sky high and the ability for any sort of offensive is mostly gone after they got slaughtered in Kursk.
crusadertank@reddit
Those numbers are KIIS numbers which are practically pure propaganda
They are the same who claimed that 79% of Ukrainians wouldn't move to the US or Europe even with citizenship
Which should tell you how trustworthy KIIS are. The numbers they output are just to laugh at but not to take seriously
Stufilover69@reddit
Blah blah blah
Most people have strong family ties, their homes there and lived there for their entire lives and don't speak English so they'd prefer not to leave their entire lives behind, especially if they're not living on the front lines.
Since you know so well, do you have any better statistics, or is your comment just a way to pretend most Ukrainians would like to live under Russian occupation instead?
crusadertank@reddit
There is no use trying to justify it. They also claimed from the same article that
Which we know was a complete lie. We also know that for Norway at least only 10% want to return when the war ends
So no, KIIS numbers are meaningless and should not be taken as any kind of facts unless you want to get laughed at. They do not match reality in any kind of way
Stufilover69@reddit
So it decreased significantly as the war progressed, sounds like effective propaganda.
People who built their lives abroad already are a different demographic from those still in Ukraine. In fact, Ukrainians already have a special status, so many who wanted to leave already did so a long time ago.
It can be more challenging so we might have to accept some uncertainty. But since you know they're "pure propaganda", I'm sure you have some statistics which represents the will of the people. If not, say after me: "I wish Vladimir Putin ends his illegal invasion of Ukraine so that we can get more accurate polling data"
crusadertank@reddit
No, KIIS claimed that only 9% would want to leave the country "despite everything". Yet according to refugee numbers shortly after the poll, the number that ended up leaving was around 25%, not including those that wanted but were unable to
That is a very serious miscalculation and should cast serious doubt on any numbers released by them
But despite all the times that they were lying before, this time they must be right because you like what they say right?
Right and so we can agree that the numbers released by KIIS are meaningless. Becaue KIIS claim 82% want to return from abroad. Quite the difference to the 10% measured not by KIIS
It is indeed more challenging, you will not be able to get an accurate representation of the country and also there is a strong incentive to make sure that the results align with the government.
Even if we assume that they could get polling results accurately and it came out that the majority were against Zelensky, do you think they would release that data? Or do you think they only release data that goes along with the government position to help boost support for the Ukrainian side of the war. i.e propaganda
The point remains, KIIS do not release realistic numbers, they release propaganda and that is all as does any information agency during a war
Stufilover69@reddit
>, KIIS claimed that only 9% would want to leave the country "despite everything". Yet according to refugee numbers shortly after the poll, the number that ended up leaving was around 25%, not including those that wanted but were unable to
You have the timing backwards, the poll is in september 2022, while the ruSSist invasion of Ukraine started in february 2022, in those six months of intense bombardments many Ukrainians who wanted to flee already did.
>Right and so we can agree that the numbers released by KIIS are meaningless. Becaue KIIS claim 82% want to return from abroad. Quite the difference to the 10% measured not by KIIS
Your 10% statistic is from Norway, which has an extremely small number of Ukranian refugees and is one of the richest countries in Europe. For it to be true those statistics need to be both generalizable to other refugees in Europe. Obviously the experience and demographics differ a lot between Norway and Poland, Czechia or even Germany. Also the KIIS research is from spring 2024, in which the sentiment about the war was still more optimistic, while the Norwegian one is more recent. It is more representative of Ukrainian refugees in Europe as it measures the countries most of them went too, though.
>to agree to conditions of leaving Donbass
Do you have any arguments why the burden should be on Ukraine to leave the territory Russia invaded (and still does not fully occupy) apart from your love for the Soviet Union? In fact, Russia barely advanced over the last two years, so there's very little reason why Ukraine should be giving them up now.
BendicantMias@reddit
Not a chance. Biden had supporting Ukraine for most of this wars duration, and it didn't end. For most of that time Ukraine was being pushed back too. Trump may have made things worse for them, but it wasn't going to end even if Kamala had won the election and continued with Bidens' support program.
Mii009@reddit
Lol so they should just surrender then and let the Russians have their way with the entire population?
bluecheese2040@reddit
Ukraine can get loads of men...just go to mallorca, Monaco, biarritz and all the wealth hot spots. Then maybe go to Poland...Germany and the UK and you'll find loads standing on street corners demanding that these nations go to war in Ukraine.
Federal_Thanks7596@reddit
Nah, the majority of people who fled want nothing to do with Ukraine, especially men. On the other hand, we have a lot of Westeners who are keen to continue the war no matter what. I wonder whether they'd go if given the option.
bluecheese2040@reddit
There are thousands of redditors that sound like they would also be willing to sign up
Chimp3h@reddit
I would… but my bad knee you know….
bluecheese2040@reddit
Ah don't worry comrade.. by posting on reddit you're as worthy and brave as the guys on the front line.
BendicantMias@reddit
The west doesn't even have the guts to prosecute their own wars properly, let alone fight in Ukraine. Instead they just bomb from the safety of the sky (and only if the enemy has weak air defense) and hope that does it. We're seeing another example of this now in Iran. Risking western blood is haram to them.
ForskinEskimo@reddit
I think the people who are the most ardently saying this aren’t at any risk of being drafted. On account of not being Ukrainian and all.
kaschperli@reddit
Well, why did they let them leave in the first place? Did none of those morons in your government realize that letting able men leave the country during a war was a Russian ops?
At least make sure they can't receive benefits in EU countries nor take part in further tax evasion with the help of the Ukrainian government at least.
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