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Comment by gizmondo | Hacker News Reader

The military experts I listen to all more or less agree that the focus on territory is just wrong. It's a war of attrition unsustainable in the long run for both sides, the question is who runs out of resources first (or if there is some sort of ceasefire before that). Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory!

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China has been supplying Russia missing materials (semiconductors, mostly; see: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Recent-Publications...) and permitting their citizens to serve as mercinaries (see: https://www.newsweek.com/china-news-mercenaries-killed-ukrai...).

For China, a balkanized nuclear Russia may be a greater threat than supplying them manpower (due to surplus men and civil unrest) and materiel. I would not expect Russia to run into the WW1 germany problem.

There's no evidence of a substantial number of Chinese nationals serving in the Russian military, rather then just a few notable examples. The largest foreign troop commitment by state-sanction was the North Koreans, which were about ~10,000 strong and have since been withdrawn (after heavy losses).

Yes, and the point I'm making is that (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions and (2) China can increase deployment if needed by either economic or prisoner release coercion.

This is a meatgrinder conflict. If China can reduce its dissident or potentially rebellious population while avoiding a collapse of Russia mirroring WW1 Germany, they may very well (and I would argue are likely) do so.

That doesn't follow: Ukraine has the international legion (probably about 3,500 people in country last I checked) and a number of Russian groups fighting on behalf of Ukraine.

The only thing Chinese nationals fighting for Russia tells us is that China is not expressly limiting freedom of movement to do so...but there has also been at least 1 American who tried to join Russia to fight Ukraine (and was tortured to death by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for his trouble).

First, 3,500 is a drop in the bucket. Second, just because China hasn't yet mobilized doesn't mean they won't if they feel a line is crossed like they did in Korea.

With a country like China, everything is on the table

> (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions

I wouldn't assume a small number of Chinese nationals volunteering to fight for Russia means China approves of their actions. Several Australians ended up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, that doesn't mean the Australian government approves of Australians fighting for ISIS, it just means it failed in those cases to stop them – it didn't realise they planned to do that before they left the country, or they didn't decide to do it until after they were already living overseas.

And one difference, is obviously Australia and ISIS are sworn enemies, so when Australians volunteered to fight for ISIS, the Australian government could openly condemn their action. Whereas, China and Russia are allies, so even if China disapproves of its citizens volunteering to fight for Russia, it can't condemn them publicly because it would harm the alliance.

China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds (see this account: https://x.com/whyyoutouzhele/ you will need to go back awhile) and recruiting is heavily concentrated among former PLA.

Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.

> China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds

I think the word "supposedly" is important here – I don't think we have any hard data on how many Chinese volunteers there are serving with Russia.

And I'd question how big a military contribution these Chinese volunteers are making. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in this war, even a thousand Chinese volunteers would be less than 1%.

> Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.

Even if the Chinese government is willing to "turn a blind eye" to this going on at a low volume, that doesn't mean they'd let it grow to a significantly higher volume.

It also isn't clear whether this is a deliberate initiative from the very top, or something that has grown organically bottom-up and the people at the top have decided to let it be for now rather than crack down on it.

Which military experts? If you listen to actually knowledgeable people like Kofman it's been known forever that 2024 would be (and as we now are seeing from Russia being pushed back) Russia's peak. Russia is out of equipment and is starting to get similar problems with manpower. In the meantime Europe's investments are starting to pay off and allow Ukraine to pull ahead in 2025.

Kofman among others. He has been saying for a while that "the war is on a negative trajectory for Ukraine", i.e. they are currently losing, no?

> Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory

It helped that the ww1 western front wasn't inside Germany http://www.greatwar.co.uk/places/ww1-western-front.htm

That's correct. Territory captured is useless for Russia, but it's what Putin wants, so his generals push for it at a great expense.

Ukraine is suffering 3-5 times fewer casualties than Russia, but it's also 3 times smaller than Russia.

> The generals push for territory at great expense

…by focusing on controlling sectors in mainly the East?

Sorry? What?

Russia is not gaining any strategic advances from the push. It's not a fight to get some magical prize.

Ukraine is sending troops over 26 or so years old now. They will need to dip into their prime-aged young population eventually, the 18-to-26-year-olds. That will be a hard moral choice they apparently want to avoid, but perhaps necessary.

All these 18 year old cohort - they dont exist in Ukraine anymore, a lot of them escaped Ukraine while they were minors before reaching 18, because this issue of conscripting 18+ has been discussed for quite a while.

If you look at the reports from Ukraine high schools - its all girls class, no boys

Sorry what? Reports from Ukrainian high schools?

I live in Ukraine, this is not true.

i have no way to verify, just judging from the news headlines from what I read

https://lenta.ru/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-klassy-ostalis-b...

translated: https://lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-k...

  There are almost no boys left in senior classes of Ukrainian schools. This was reported by the publication "Strana.ua" on the Telegram channel with reference to blogger Alena Yakhno.
  As the blogger said, the 17-year-old son of her friend studies in Kiev , but all his classmates have left. "Only girls are left in the class. There will be no moral. It's just a fact," she wrote.
  The publication recalled that upon reaching the age of 18, young people from Ukraine are no longer allowed to go abroad. In addition, the report notes, information about Ukrainian schoolchildren aged 16-17 leaving Ukraine en masse has appeared before.
  Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada reported on hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who left the country before the start of the school year. According to MP Nina Yuzhina, about 300 thousand students, mostly high school students, left Ukraine in July and August. In addition, due to the departure of young people, 2,114 schools have been closed in Ukraine over the past four years.

I don't know if original claim is true or not in general, but lenta.ru in particular is a poor source of information, it's heavily skewed into Russian-government side.

The media operation Strana is mentioned as the source for the lenta.ru story. Strana is sanctioned and banned by the Ukrainian government, though Ukraine government hands out a lot of media bans.

It's a bummer that just about every media outlet in Ukraine is either tightly linked to Russian propaganda, or on the other side its mostly super pro Ukrainian (formerly funded by USAID) outlets with ties to weird libertarian billionaires who want to turn Ukraine into free market paradise. Hardly any middle ground.

not everything is a conspiracy theory.

Sometimes, reported news are actually true, this is from Ukraine's Education Minister:

https://www-unian-net.translate.goog/society/osoblivo-hlopci...

Just think about it logically, if you are a mother of 16 y.o kid, and USA says you must conscript 18+ y.o to receive any further aid - would you just sit and wait for your child to get drafted on his next birthday?

oh totally, I would leave immediately. I financially helped a family with teenage kids smuggle themselves out of Ukraine to a different country a few months into the recent invasion.

There is nothing about girls only classes, nor that it has any numerical data.

Strana ua is funded by Russians.

You can count how many high school children there are in Ukraine. There is something like 4 millions now, so the loss of a couple hundred of students of both sexes does not make classes girls only.

People, families with kids, leave Ukraine, because living in a country during war is not nice, to say the least. The fear of mobilization is only one aspect of it.

https://rubryka.com/2024/06/25/v-ukrayini-kilkist-uchniv-u-s...

Yep, I left Ukraine 3 years ago when I was 16.

Wow. That's such a huge change. I hope it has been ok for you and wish you a great future.

Do you want to share a bit of your story? 3 years ago would mean you left right at the start of the war. How do you feel about that now?

There are pros and cons. I live in Canada now, and one major downside is that, because technically I would be an international student, I cannot afford a university. The tuition fee for international students is through the roof. But, ultimately, leaving Ukraine was a correct decision, because otherwise I would have ended up fighting Russia. In summary, it sucks but could have been worse.

Yes, that sucks. What would you like to study at university if you get the chance?

That would be Computer Science.

I was hoping you would say that, because it's a technical field you can do very well in without a university degree.

I don't mean to minimize your loss, but I cheer for you to succeed despite it.

You are correct. But, ironically, unlike in Ukraine, in Canada and probably in the US, entry-level jobs (also known as internships) are reserved for undergraduate students. You could call this is another downside of leaving Ukraine.

At least in the US, you can just make something complicated enough to show some skill and get a real job. That's what I did, anyway. I used to work in a factory.

Yeah, that's what I think too. I have been working on a project[0] to do just that, would you mind commenting if my project is something that can be considered complicated enough? In your experience, were you not blocked by the fact that companies are looking for "years of professional experience"?

[0]: https://github.com/mayo-dayo/app

That's plenty complicated. There are people out there who can't even fizzbuzz.

Tomorrow there will be the two monthly threads for who's hiring & who wants to be hired on HN. Use those.

Thanks.

Sorry for getting the day wrong, the two threads are up today, I guess they wait for the first weekday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243022

Try both. Hope that helps.

Yeah no worries, I was wondering why the threads didn't show up and found the bot profile where it said it's actually the first weekday of the month, so it's all good.

I just randomly saw this—the hiring threads go out on the first weekday of the month, so it'll be Monday March 3.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring

My bad, I thought it used to be the 1st? Or maybe I just saw too many months that started on weekdays and got the pattern wrong.

I appreciate the clarification, because I had wondered why I hadn't seen it yet.

Yeah, the USA is a giant free market for immigrant labour in tech.

As a graybeard with teenage kids, this is terribly disheartening... I would rather be cannon fodder than my sons. After all, I have already reproduced and I have taught hundreds of youngsters all what I knew. I would gladly accept that my contribution to mankind is already done and gone, before seeing one of my children go to war. Is youth so important for soldiers? Wouldn't it be better to send forty and fifty year olds to the front? Anything before 18-26 youngs? It makes no sense. Are they so much more competent than any random middle-age?

Ukraine has churned all their greybeards and middle age folks, and 18+ are the only ones not conscripted yet. (Hence Trump's comment that Ukraine is having manpower issues and has no strong cards left for negotiations)

It hasn't any strong cards only because the west (which is now Europe - the US is almost at Russias side now) is trickling the weapons supply. Open the taps!

What's the point of more recruits when the existing ones don't get enough training and adequate equipment? Ukraine needs weapons far more than it needs manpower.

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