Manpower was always going to be their hardest-to-overcome problem in a protracted war. The relative population sizes when the war started meant they needed an extremely positive kill/death ratio (if you will) just to stay at parity.

Being on the defense and retreating gives exactly that parity. Soviet doctrine even has a number for that which is somewhat close to the ratio of Ukrainian to russian populations.

Yes, they have serious advantages from being on the defense, and a lot of other things working in their favor. I just mean that it was clear from the beginning that that was the thing that couldn't really be adjusted by aid (short of direct involvement of other militaries) and where the numbers were extremely not in their favor, so it'd be the thing to watch out for, as far as what might eventually force them to cede territory for peace or even to outright lose, even if foreign aid remained steady.

We have powerful weapons now. Manpower is not the (most) limiting factor. If the Ukraine had 10 times its current long range drone production, the Russians would start whining about peace deals.

> We have powerful weapons now.

Yes, and from the videos all over the Internet, a lot of what those weapons do is kill people. If just blowing up machines won the war, Ukraine would have declared victory in the first year.

There are lots of potential limiting factors, population's just one where Ukraine started at a big disadvantage and that can't really be made up for by foreign aid, unlike munitions or food or what have you (short of other countries outright sending troops). Weapons can be sent, but if they run short of people to use the weapons, to the point that they can't maneuver, can't credibly threaten counter-offensives, eventually can't cover the entire front... then things start to fall apart.

Like once they survived and repulsed the initial attempt at blitzkrieg, and things settled in to a stable-ish front, population is the particular figure that would tend to give you a knot in your stomach, looking at the on-paper situation from their perspective, and the prospect of a long war.

How will all those Russian soldiers going reach the front line if all refineries are gone and the train tracks are bombed daily? Walk?

Oh, sure, mess up their logistics network enough and they'll have trouble keeping their front resupplied. I don't see evidence that it's happening yet, but sure, saturate important targets with enough bombs and it will eventually, hopefully Ukraine finds a way to do just that. I'm sure it's at least helping, even what they've managed to do so far. It might be a big part of why Russia's having trouble putting together major offensives.

I'm not disputing that there are ways to win a war other than killing all the other dudes, I'm just pointing out that if Ukraine got backed into a corner, the smart money very early on was it'd happen either because "allies all pack their bags and go home" or "they run short of manpower".

> Ukraine is losing the war right now

Ukraine is _stalling_ the war right now. Russia is able to capture more moonscaped villages by forcing expendable (their words, not mine) manpower to assault Ukrainian positions.

Ukraine is slowly retreating, but at the rate that will require Russia _years_ to gain a meaningful amount of territory.

The military experts I listen to all more or less agree that the focus on territory is just wrong. It's a war of attrition unsustainable in the long run for both sides, the question is who runs out of resources first (or if there is some sort of ceasefire before that). Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory!

That's correct. Territory captured is useless for Russia, but it's what Putin wants, so his generals push for it at a great expense.

Ukraine is suffering 3-5 times fewer casualties than Russia, but it's also 3 times smaller than Russia.

Ukraine is sending troops over 26 or so years old now. They will need to dip into their prime-aged young population eventually, the 18-to-26-year-olds. That will be a hard moral choice they apparently want to avoid, but perhaps necessary.

As a graybeard with teenage kids, this is terribly disheartening... I would rather be cannon fodder than my sons. After all, I have already reproduced and I have taught hundreds of youngsters all what I knew. I would gladly accept that my contribution to mankind is already done and gone, before seeing one of my children go to war. Is youth so important for soldiers? Wouldn't it be better to send forty and fifty year olds to the front? Anything before 18-26 youngs? It makes no sense. Are they so much more competent than any random middle-age?

Ukraine has churned all their greybeards and middle age folks, and 18+ are the only ones not conscripted yet. (Hence Trump's comment that Ukraine is having manpower issues and has no strong cards left for negotiations)

It hasn't any strong cards only because the west (which is now Europe - the US is almost at Russias side now) is trickling the weapons supply. Open the taps!

What's the point of more recruits when the existing ones don't get enough training and adequate equipment? Ukraine needs weapons far more than it needs manpower.

All these 18 year old cohort - they dont exist in Ukraine anymore, a lot of them escaped Ukraine while they were minors before reaching 18, because this issue of conscripting 18+ has been discussed for quite a while.

If you look at the reports from Ukraine high schools - its all girls class, no boys

Yep, I left Ukraine 3 years ago when I was 16.

Wow. That's such a huge change. I hope it has been ok for you and wish you a great future.

Do you want to share a bit of your story? 3 years ago would mean you left right at the start of the war. How do you feel about that now?

There are pros and cons. I live in Canada now, and one major downside is that, because technically I would be an international student, I cannot afford a university. The tuition fee for international students is through the roof. But, ultimately, leaving Ukraine was a correct decision, because otherwise I would have ended up fighting Russia. In summary, it sucks but could have been worse.

Yes, that sucks. What would you like to study at university if you get the chance?

That would be Computer Science.

I was hoping you would say that, because it's the technical field most possible to succeed in without a university degree.

I don't mean to minimize your loss, but I cheer for you to succeed despite it.

You are correct. But, ironically, unlike in Ukraine, in Canada and probably in the US, entry-level jobs (also known as internships) are reserved for undergraduate students. You could call this is another downside of leaving Ukraine.

At least in the US, you can just make something complicated enough to show some skill and get a real job. That's what I did, anyway. I used to work in a factory.

Yeah, that's what I think too. I have been working on a project[0] to do just that, would you mind commenting if my project is something that can be considered complicated enough? In your experience, were you not blocked by the fact that companies are looking for "years of professional experience"?

[0]: https://github.com/mayo-dayo/app

That's plenty complicated. There are people out there who can't even fizzbuzz.

Tomorrow there will be the two monthly threads for who's hiring & who wants to be hired on HN. Use those.

Thanks.

Sorry for getting the day wrong, the two threads are up today, I guess they wait for the first weekday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243022

Try both. Hope that helps.

Yeah no worries, I was wondering why the threads didn't show up and found the bot profile where it said it's actually the first weekday of the month, so it's all good.

I just randomly saw this—the hiring threads go out on the first weekday of the month, so it'll be Monday March 3.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring

My bad, I thought it used to be the 1st? Or maybe I just saw too many months that started on weekdays and got the pattern wrong.

I appreciate the clarification, because I had wondered why I hadn't seen it yet.

Yeah, the USA is a giant free market for immigrant labour in tech.

Sorry what? Reports from Ukrainian high schools?

I live in Ukraine, this is not true.

i have no way to verify, just judging from the news headlines from what I read

https://lenta.ru/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-klassy-ostalis-b...

translated: https://lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-k...

  There are almost no boys left in senior classes of Ukrainian schools. This was reported by the publication "Strana.ua" on the Telegram channel with reference to blogger Alena Yakhno.
  As the blogger said, the 17-year-old son of her friend studies in Kiev , but all his classmates have left. "Only girls are left in the class. There will be no moral. It's just a fact," she wrote.
  The publication recalled that upon reaching the age of 18, young people from Ukraine are no longer allowed to go abroad. In addition, the report notes, information about Ukrainian schoolchildren aged 16-17 leaving Ukraine en masse has appeared before.
  Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada reported on hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who left the country before the start of the school year. According to MP Nina Yuzhina, about 300 thousand students, mostly high school students, left Ukraine in July and August. In addition, due to the departure of young people, 2,114 schools have been closed in Ukraine over the past four years.

I don't know if original claim is true or not in general, but lenta.ru in particular is a poor source of information, it's heavily skewed into Russian-government side.

The media operation Strana is mentioned as the source for the lenta.ru story. Strana is sanctioned and banned by the Ukrainian government, though Ukraine government hands out a lot of media bans.

It's a bummer that just about every media outlet in Ukraine is either tightly linked to Russian propaganda, or on the other side its mostly super pro Ukrainian (formerly funded by USAID) outlets with ties to weird libertarian billionaires who want to turn Ukraine into free market paradise. Hardly any middle ground.

not everything is a conspiracy theory.

Sometimes, reported news are actually true, this is from Ukraine's Education Minister:

https://www-unian-net.translate.goog/society/osoblivo-hlopci...

Just think about it logically, if you are a mother of 16 y.o kid, and USA says you must conscript 18+ y.o to receive any further aid - would you just sit and wait for your child to get drafted on his next birthday?

oh totally, I would leave immediately. I financially helped a family with teenage kids smuggle themselves out of Ukraine to a different country a few months into the recent invasion.

There is nothing about girls only classes, nor that it has any numerical data.

Strana ua is funded by Russians.

You can count how many high school children there are in Ukraine. There is something like 4 millions now, so the loss of a couple hundred of students of both sexes does not make classes girls only.

People, families with kids, leave Ukraine, because living in a country during war is not nice, to say the least. The fear of mobilization is only one aspect of it.

https://rubryka.com/2024/06/25/v-ukrayini-kilkist-uchniv-u-s...

> The generals push for territory at great expense

…by focusing on controlling sectors in mainly the East?

Sorry? What?

Russia is not gaining any strategic advances from the push. It's not a fight to get some magical prize.

China has been supplying Russia missing materials (semiconductors, mostly; see: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Recent-Publications...) and permitting their citizens to serve as mercinaries (see: https://www.newsweek.com/china-news-mercenaries-killed-ukrai...).

For China, a balkanized nuclear Russia may be a greater threat than supplying them manpower (due to surplus men and civil unrest) and materiel. I would not expect Russia to run into the WW1 germany problem.

There's no evidence of a substantial number of Chinese nationals serving in the Russian military, rather then just a few notable examples. The largest foreign troop commitment by state-sanction was the North Koreans, which were about ~10,000 strong and have since been withdrawn (after heavy losses).

Yes, and the point I'm making is that (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions and (2) China can increase deployment if needed by either economic or prisoner release coercion.

This is a meatgrinder conflict. If China can reduce its dissident or potentially rebellious population while avoiding a collapse of Russia mirroring WW1 Germany, they may very well (and I would argue are likely) do so.

> (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions

I wouldn't assume a small number of Chinese nationals volunteering to fight for Russia means China approves of their actions. Several Australians ended up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, that doesn't mean the Australian government approves of Australians fighting for ISIS, it just means it failed in those cases to stop them – it didn't realise they planned to do that before they left the country, or they didn't decide to do it until after they were already living overseas.

And one difference, is obviously Australia and ISIS are sworn enemies, so when Australians volunteered to fight for ISIS, the Australian government could openly condemn their action. Whereas, China and Russia are allies, so even if China disapproves of its citizens volunteering to fight for Russia, it can't condemn them publicly because it would harm the alliance.

China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds (see this account: https://x.com/whyyoutouzhele/ you will need to go back awhile) and recruiting is heavily concentrated among former PLA.

Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.

> China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds

I think the word "supposedly" is important here – I don't think we have any hard data on how many Chinese volunteers there are serving with Russia.

And I'd question how big a military contribution these Chinese volunteers are making. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in this war, even a thousand Chinese volunteers would be less than 1%.

> Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.

Even if the Chinese government is willing to "turn a blind eye" to this going on at a low volume, that doesn't mean they'd let it grow to a significantly higher volume.

It also isn't clear whether this is a deliberate initiative from the very top, or something that has grown organically bottom-up and the people at the top have decided to let it be for now rather than crack down on it.

That doesn't follow: Ukraine has the international legion (probably about 3,500 people in country last I checked) and a number of Russian groups fighting on behalf of Ukraine.

The only thing Chinese nationals fighting for Russia tells us is that China is not expressly limiting freedom of movement to do so...but there has also been at least 1 American who tried to join Russia to fight Ukraine (and was tortured to death by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for his trouble).

First, 3,500 is a drop in the bucket. Second, just because China hasn't yet mobilized doesn't mean they won't if they feel a line is crossed like they did in Korea.

With a country like China, everything is on the table

Which military experts? If you listen to actually knowledgeable people like Kofman it's been known forever that 2024 would be (and as we now are seeing from Russia being pushed back) Russia's peak. Russia is out of equipment and is starting to get similar problems with manpower. In the meantime Europe's investments are starting to pay off and allow Ukraine to pull ahead in 2025.

Kofman among others. He has been saying for a while that "the war is on a negative trajectory for Ukraine", i.e. they are currently losing, no?

> Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory

It helped that the ww1 western front wasn't inside Germany http://www.greatwar.co.uk/places/ww1-western-front.htm

And that will cost Russia a great deal. This has turned into a war that heavily favors defenders. Both sides are dug in, with a wide no-mans-land between the front lines, where anyone who enters is likely to get killed by a drone.

>And that will cost Russia a great deal.

How much is Russia spending on the war compared to Ukraine?

Here are just some of the reasons Russia is hastening its economic demise:

- spending all of its foreign reserves and weakening its currency

- killing tens of thousands of working age men

- permanently removing hundreds of thousands of working age men from the workforce

- increasing the demands on social benefits for disabled veterans by hundreds of thousands of men

- suppressing the birth rate by staying in a protracted 'special military operation'

What I mean is that attackers from either side will take a lot more casualties than defenders.

How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem, given that they need to rely on North Korea for people, have to send injured soldiers back to the front line, and suffer multiple more deaths and injuries compared to Ukraine?

> How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem

As strained, but not as bad as Ukraine's.

Russia's population is over 140 million. That's 100 million more than Ukraine's pre-war population. Russia's territory isn't meaningfully compromised, their cities aren't in ruin, their industry is mostly intact. They haven't sustained something like 15-25% population loss from people fleeing the way Ukraine has.

North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first

That's why earlier stages of this war involved ex-convict Wagnerite units, mercenaries from the third world, local militias raised from the "people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk, and conscription when necessary from poorer ethnic minority regions far away from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

> Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first

That's because a good chunk of untapped population would simply refuse.

> North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first

This is correct and shockingly obvious given the initial invasion used mercenaries. It's a straightforward exchange with an ally that benefits Russia the most and is great PR for NK, internally and locally.

At this point in time would anyone bet against US troops going in and "peacekeeping" for Putin against Ukraine? It seems pretty clear that the US is aligned against the West now.

Almost everything pouring out of his mouth today is replaying what is in Russian state media sadly.

Yes, I would bet highly against that.

The US is not "aligned against the West". The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.

You'd think that the left would be ecstatic about that considering how much it's criticized US involvement in other countries conflicts, but here we are - it's the left that is trashing the US for not wanting to get involved.

I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.

But certainly in the UK it was a party of "the left" that invaded Iraq with the US. It was a party of "the left" that invaded Afghanistan with the US. And it was a party of "the left" that is now bolstering the military after a decade of decline by a party of "the right".

"The left" were fighting fascism across Europe in the last century, from the International Brigade in Spain to the Soviets against Hitler.

The actual problem The West has now is that the guarantor of military power has gone. Trump and Vance were literally shouting propaganda from Russian state media to Zelensky (look up starting WW3, or VIP tours) and making false equivalency between being invaded and defending your country.

Trump has carried out the biggest rug-pull in history and aligned the USA with Russia. Against The West.

> I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.

This makes no sense. The current ideology is only 70 years old. The "West" has existed for centuries before that.

Maybe you're young and you think there are no options but the current path, but I can assure you there is.

The truth is that the US (or Europe) is not willing to go head to head with Russia. They have neither the public support or the willingness to take the economic hit.

So if they aren't willing to defeat Russia, what is the only possible outcome? A negotiated peace.

So rather than grinding up another few hundred thousand human lives in the war and end up in the same place a few years from now, why not just finish it now?

Because appeasing aggressors never works? I mean, we literally took the appeasement route when he annexed Crimea. A few years later and here we are. Guess what happens when we appease him now?

The term The West applies to those countries born out of European heritage which _assumed_ semi-direct lineage from the Graeco-Roman empires of Antiquity (notably the Late Antique split in the early church across Eastern/Western lines). Like all political terms it's in constant flux, but yes, today it largely means the superset of NATO + Five Eyes countries.

Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west - you only have to see the reaction of world leaders to see that - outside of Orban, the only people congratulating Trump were Putin and Lavrov. Who could singlehandedly stop the war - right now - by pulling their troops out of a sovereign, democratic state.

Not sure what my age has to do with anything but I was bought up during the Cold War if that helps.

> Because appeasing aggressors never works? I

Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".

NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.

So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?

> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west

No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.

It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).

How is it not appeasing when "finding the best peace deal" equals "letting an agressor state keep a chip of neighboring state", even more so when this repeats every few years?

Read again what Putin's stated aims are. Hoping for a peace deal with a totalitarian, expansive state does not work. It didn't work when it was "just Crimea", it won't work when it's "just some towns they took by force".

It's utterly naive, given all his history, to think Putin will just acquiesce.

Even if your geopolitical assumptions are correct, Trump and Vance's behaviour yesterday - humiliating a war leader in front of the worlds media, using the rhetoric and tropes of the invaders he is facing was unbelievably disgusting.

The paths ran before all led to endless war. ever bigger, ever more world war.

Also, please don't forget what Putin's stated aims are - reconquest of Russian border back to pre 1930 limits (maybe you understand why Polish defence spending is at 5% GDP) and the breakup of the EU. These are his aims - he doesn't just want that little bit of Ukraine he has - parts of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia all are at stake.

> The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.

The publicized ideology, is not always the reality. The US has always been involved with every international conflict. The CIA was the formalization of the interest.

It's bad, but not as dire. Russian losses are very likely higher, but if I have to guess - multiples of 2 and above are just propaganda mixed with wishful thinking. They still didn't need to resort to further rounds of mobilization since 2022 or large scale usage of conscripts. And I don't understand what "North Korea" argument even is - Ukrainians would love to rely on someone else! But no one is willing to help in this department.

Russian losses are significantly higher, from what I hear in first hand reports are 3-4x at the very conservative end.

What you are posting is not factual.

I mean, are Zelensky or Syrskyi willing to share truthful information with you in private? If so - good for you, otherwise I'm not sure what "first hand" reports you can use. I'm relying mostly on data about obituaries collected on both sides as proxy for true figures.

first hand reports from friends who are fighting the war every day. I'm sure the very lacking obituaries that Russia is actively fighting to suppress will give you a better picture.

If you use Russian recruitment and army size numbers, you get much more realistic figures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja6-espHVSE. Russia is up to ~700k to 800k casualties Russia has lost ~3-4x more people than Ukraine so far.

Ukraine didn't release casualty figures for a long time (though to be fair, Russia government doesn't exactly post daily casualty figures either, the Russian casualty figure is divined by infering what we can from Russian media), the Western press released a figure for the Ukrainian forces, which is probably quite low, and the figure hasn't increased in almost a year.

It's sort of like how Western press has been claiming for over a year that 20,000 people have perished in Gaza, and the figure never goes up.

I think that's probably a good estimate for the Russian side, while 200k casualties total for Ukraine is a joke. Aren't even their official figures for wounded in the 400k range?

Do invading armies suffer more casualties than defenders ?

sometimes yes, sometimes no. In both US iraq wars, the US had way fewer casualties than Iraq. Invading is harder than defending, but a country won't invade unless they think they are likely to succeed with acceptable losses.

It depends.

In this particular case Russia doesn't seem to care care about lives and uses WW1 style of waves of meat, which of course drastically increases losses

This is the most recorded war in history and I know someone(History Legends)offering a good amount if you can show him videos of these Russian meat wave attacks .

They're trying to avoid extensive drafts in their power-base cities for fear of unrest. Plus that's their reserve if they need to supply a second front for any reason.

Ukraine has been loosing a three-day-special operation for three years.

Russia's refinery's are getting hit and all that crude oil is worthless with a refinery. In the case of the campaign again Nazi Germany's refineries funny enough it's the allies who didn't think it as critical as the Nazis did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II#O...