My understanding is that Russia’s decision to call this a “special military operation” limits the number of people they can drag in to the war. Calling it what it is and mobilizing people who have not signed up for the army would also risk unrest in the population when your average, non-Z-fanatic folk is dragged in to the battle.
Also, the expert opinions I’ve read have estimated that both sides will run out of people this year.
For the most part, yes. Before Feb 24th, hey had estimated that the forces amassed around Ukraine would not be enough to take over Ukraine and thus did not think Russia would actually attack. They ended up being correct about the former, though Russia has since scaled down their ambitions dramatically and have had more success as a result. These are Finnish military experts which have focused on Russia specifically for decades.
Given that Russia is currently taking over Ukraine seems that they were wrong on both accounts. If anything, Russia has expanded their ambitions since the war started. The original goal war Donbas, now they have an open ended goal that has expanded much past that. If these Finnish experts have focused on Russia for decades and got everything so catastrophically wrong, they should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
My understanding is that Russia’s decision to call this a “special military operation” limits the number of people they can drag in to the war. Calling it what it is and mobilizing people who have not signed up for the army would also risk unrest in the population when your average, non-Z-fanatic folk is dragged in to the battle.
Also, the expert opinions I’ve read have estimated that both sides will run out of people this year.
These are same experts who predicted that Russia will run out of equipment and ammunition any day now for four months straight?
No.
Let me put it another way then, has anything these experts you’ve been reading predicted that actually came to pass so far?
For the most part, yes. Before Feb 24th, hey had estimated that the forces amassed around Ukraine would not be enough to take over Ukraine and thus did not think Russia would actually attack. They ended up being correct about the former, though Russia has since scaled down their ambitions dramatically and have had more success as a result. These are Finnish military experts which have focused on Russia specifically for decades.
Given that Russia is currently taking over Ukraine seems that they were wrong on both accounts. If anything, Russia has expanded their ambitions since the war started. The original goal war Donbas, now they have an open ended goal that has expanded much past that. If these Finnish experts have focused on Russia for decades and got everything so catastrophically wrong, they should be deeply ashamed of themselves.