Oh no, the second strongest army in
the worldUkraine is gonna kick everyone’s ass.As of 2025, Russia has approximately 1.32 million active military personnel and around 2 million reserve personnel. The total size of the Russian Armed Forces, including active military and reserves, is about 3.57 million, following presidential decrees that increased the troop numbers in January and December of 2023.
The number of enlisted personnel in all of Europe is approximately 1.6 million active-duty troops, though exact figures vary by source and the inclusion of different types of forces. European Union countries alone had an active-duty military size of about 1.9 million in 2020, while other estimates place the total active-duty personnel across all of Europe (including the UK) around 1.5 to 1.6 million.
Using quotes doesn’t mean much when you don’t list where the quote is from. Either way, Ukraine was supposed to be a week-ish special military operation, and the notion that Russia can meaningfully threaten the EU at-large (without resorting to nukes) remains laughable.
What’s funny is that you say this now and then in the same breath say that Europe must build up NATO and destroy Russia to protect Europe from Russia. Nice cognitive dissonance you got there.
Which is it? Russia is an existential threat that must be met with increasing budgets, military build up, possibly a draft, and preemptive violence, or Russia being a threat to the EU is laughable?
I said nothing about whether the EU should build up, don’t put words in my mouth.
The EU has been up front and open about why they are increasing their military budgets - because they no longer view the US as a reliable partner. Russia hasn’t changed. The EU wants to use veiled military threats to project power and influence like they used to do alongside the US, and doesn’t rule out that Russia will do something stupid like starting a costly war it can’t win. So yeah, it’s the latter - Russia being a military threat to the EU is laughable, but them not having a feasible chance at meaningful military gains doesn’t mean it’s not worth disincentivizing them from flailing around and hurting people.
Don’t think I didn’t notice you still haven’t cited the sources for your numbers, or that you’re a week old account that does little else other than attack the US and EU and glaze Russia and China.
Don’t worry. I have been posting on the grad for a long while. Just decided I wanted to get into more debates and too many instances block the grad.
As for the sources for those numbers I just copied and pasted the AI overview from Google. Low effort. Happy to dig in though.
Looks like it uses Wikipedia as it’s first source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Armed_Forces
The number for enlisted military on that page is sourced as an article from the AP https://apnews.com/article/putin-finland-sergei-shoigu-ee953abf7f9bf217ccdaa61ec1b35ddd
Which states in December of 2022:
The Russian military currently has about 1 million soldiers
But it provides no source for that claim.
The numbers for Europe also are backed by Wikipedia here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel
And here’s a useful article that breaks it down pretty well
Russians are existential threat for anyone that believes in democracy, self determination and human rights.
Yeah but 4 Russian troops is like 1 in any other country thanks to how disposable they are to the brass. The nukes are spooky though.
Is this that thing about going into Ukraine without helmets, body armor, and guns?
I wish you could see what that really means because if it were true that Russian soldiers were sent in without gear in the last couple of weeks it is also true that Ukraine is still losing ground to those soldiers which means unarmored and unarmed Russian soldiers who are eating tree bark for sustenance and scavenging for guns and ammo are still able to push the UA back.
So which is it? The Russians are not gaining ground or they are and they’re doing it without gear?
Also. If it was 4:1, with Ukraine having lost at least 400k, that would mean Russia losing 1.6M which is at least 20% more than the entire size of the Russian military before the invasion.
That math just ain’t mathing.
No it’s a thing about how Russia (even back into the SU) has had a military culture of feeding the meatgrinder.
America gets pissed off if you touch their boats and will make foreign kids afraid of the sky. Canada will say sorry while inventing new and interesting ways to commit war crimes. The French will surrender unless it’s someone else’s war. And Russia will dominate battlefield logistics by making their enemy run out ammo.
All of these stereotypes are exaggerations, but have some basis in historical truth.
It’s wild how you think your interpretation of history is water tight.
America has never been invaded and has never had to defend it’s territory with the life of its people. Neither has Canada.
Russia was fighting for its survival against Napoleon and against the Third Reich. Massive militaries with a singular focus invading The Borderlands (The Ukraine) and crossing into Russia. Those campaigns were massive existential threats. Russia never attempted to invade Vietnam with superior air cover the way the US did.
You can’t compare American battle tactics to Russian tactics when the entire context is fundamentally different. Did Russia invade Afghanistan? No. Did it use human wave tactics when it intervened in Czechoslovakia? No.
So then what actual examples do we have? Napoleon’s invasion and Hitler’s invasion. Both existential wars of defense.
Imagine blaming a country’s military strategy for its soldiers dying under the worst invasions the world has literally ever seen.
