Summary
U.K. defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin reported that Russia suffered its highest casualty rate since the start of the Ukraine war, with 1,500 Russian soldiers killed or wounded daily in October, totaling around 700,000 casualties since February 2022.
Radakin noted that these losses are for minor territorial gains, and emphasized the heavy strain of Russia’s defense spending.
While allies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump suggest Ukraine may need to cede territory to achieve peace, Radakin affirmed Western support for Ukraine “as long as it takes.” Trump, who aims to end U.S. support for Ukraine, has not outlined a specific peace strategy.
It seems to me like most European countries see supplying equipment to destroy the Russian army in Ukraine as preferable to destroying the Russian army on their own soil. Although I do hope Germany picks up the pace rather than reduces it.
However, even without Germany, there are plenty of other European countries that will be capable of buying truckloads of equipment from German manufacturers.
But considering that Ukraine has been facing consistent shortages of materiel – including things like various kinds of artillery ammunition (although part of the problem especially with shells is that production is still ramping up) – that really doesn’t seem to have been the case. A lot of the equipment they’ve been given has just been token amounts that are clearly not enough but makes it seem like at least we’re doing something.
I definitely think the ramping up is going far too slowly, and as such it isn’t strange that there are shortages.
This is a huge war- the largest land war since WWII. All of NATO is still operating on a peace-time economy, so ramping up production to the levels required to support a 500 k - 1 mill. strong army like the Ukrainians is taking far too long.
However, as far as I can tell, production in Europe is only heading one way: Up. Not only that, Russia is operating in a war economy, which is, more or less by definition, unsustainable in the long run. Europe has the economic capacity to double its production, and maintain it indefinitely. I just think we should prioritise more heavily, and scale up more quickly.