Not a good sign for a country that depends on its military to maintain a hegemony. It’s also not like our “enemies” are reducing their armies or anything.
Russia's human waves were just means to reduce the prison population: practical stalinism 101. They are phasing out prisoner benefits as the recruiting pool is getting smaller. Also there is an increased chance Putin might order be mass mobilization after he wins the elections in May.
Increased but still highly unlikely. The Russian military inducts ~260,000 men annually just from conscription. Now that the Ukrainians have exhausted their supplies of ammunition, manpower, and funding, it's unlikely that the AFU can sustain its ability to attrite Russian manpower faster than it can be replaced.
A surprisingly straightforward article from Xinhua correspondent Zhang Zhang:
"The central locations involved in the drill are the Baltic nations, identified by NATO as particularly vulnerable to a possible Russian assault. Other areas include Norway and Romania, situated on the outskirts of the alliance; Poland on the alliance's eastern flank; and Germany as a central hub for reinforcements."
https://english.news.cn/20240128/95fbdec4ab7b4285b8f017ffeb1...
This is a very wrong take.
A big continental war like this one in Ukraine is fought with artillery and with enough men capable of holding the territory (already under control or conquered), i.e. the story of WW1 and the WW2 (when it came to the Eastern Front). You don't have that, you lose. Trouble for Ukraine (and for the West supporting Ukraine) is that they're running out of artillery shells and they're running out of Ukrainian men.
I guess the Germans or the Brits didn’t get the memo that the Greek aviation would be enough of an opposing force.
Why there’s not more Western defense of Ukraine I can’t explain except for present greed over future problem solving, but nothing is that surprising.