Russian offensive warning - Spring 2024Putin's been reelected, Ukraine is desperately short on men, ammunition and equipment, and Western resolve is cracking. It seems to me the time is ripe to end this war.What do the Russians have to attack with? Let's take a look
The Russians overprepared to defeat the Ukrainian 2023 offensive. I very strongly suspect they've overprepared for their own attack this year - and that they intend that blow to be so heavy as to foreclose intervention by NATO forces. But more on that later.
This leaves a million men to deal with Ukraine - considerably more, by the way, than even the most aggressive estimates of Russian force strength actually in theater, suggesting most of these troops are on standby in the deep rear. This is also much higher than any serious estimate of Ukrainian force strength at this point, most of which range from 400-600,000.
We're looking at a 500,000-man prewar force, plus 300,000 reservists, plus 540,000 volunteers (18 months at 30,000/month), minus 100,000 casualties, for a total army of 1.24 million men.