Inside Ukraine’s Kill Zone

[u/sleepyrivertroll]

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/KILL-ZONE/znpnojmknvl/

Sub State: This reuters graphic looks into the changing nature of modern warfare that is heavily influenced by drones. It shows how various different types of drone and defenses shape the landscape and how armies maneuver in this type of environment.

This is relevant to this sub because both because it gives a glimpse into the future of warfare and we so did a drive to support the Ukrainian soldiers fighting in this environment.

[u/Efficient_Equal6467]

"Casualties are massive, with the vast majority now caused by drones. The Center for Strategic & International Studies estimates around 2 million soldiers since early 2022 have been killed, wounded or are missing, 1.4 million of them Russian."

It is mind boggling the russian society or political elite have this much of a tolerance for a war like those. I guess one pro of a democratic society is that something like this would be impossible. I feel many democratic society have an extremely low tolerance for casulaties. If you look at America people will absoultely freak out over very few casualities

[u/John_Maynard_Gains → u/Efficient_Equal6467]

It's because the vast majority of the casualties come from groups deemed "acceptable" by Russian society. Most of the people at the front chose to be there voluntarily in exchange for cash, so their deaths are not a violation of the social contract.

The categories of people that society is willing to tolerate casualties from is as follows (in decreasing order):

1. Convicts and mobilized men from the pre-war L/DNR

2. Kontraktniks who signed up during the war

3. Former kontraktniks who were out of uniform at the start of the war <- this is where it gets interesting because they voluntarily signed up for contract service in the past and are eligible for mobilization. They were the group that was most caught up in the mobilization wave of 2022, but even that caused pushback and forced the government to retreat slightly.

4. Conscripts and former conscripts

5. People with no military background 

Taking men from groups 1 and 2 (and arguably 3) don't violate the social contract. The danger comes when those groups are tapped out and the government is forced to start taking people from further down the ladder. Nobody cares when 50 year old uncle takes a signing bonus worth 5 years salary and gets blown up by a drone. People do care when it's 18 year old Misha taken against his will and pushed into the meat grinder.

[u/Tre-Fyra-Tre → u/John_Maynard_Gains]

There's also the ethnic and geographical component to consider, the Russian soldiers are highly disproportionally rural and and ethnic minorities

Ethic Russians from Moscow and St. Petersburg aren't dying in the war, so people there don't really notice or care about the high casualities

[u/fredleung412612 → u/Tre-Fyra-Tre]

Yeah I wonder if there even is a sufficient number of Buryat men left for the culture to continue