Ask Lemmygrad

"I strongly believe Ukraine is currently the best and strongest military in the world, their advances in weaponry are incredible and they were able to defend themselves properly even now that the US has abandoned them."

Ukraine is the only country in the world currently waging what is basically a total war. They mobilized their entire society on a war footing. They have virtually no economy left that is not tied to the war effort. Their industry is mostly decimated to the point that they have civilians making drones in their apartments since every larger factory gets blown up by Russian missiles. Their media has all been brought under state control, security services (mostly staffed by Nazis) are everywhere arresting any dissenters, and opposition parties no longer exist.

They have been under permanent martial law since February 2022. They are forcibly drafting every able bodied (and even some disabled) adult male they can catch who cannot pay the bribe to get out of service. Even with this, they still admit that by now they are outnumbered by the Russians. This didn't use to be the case. In 2022 they decisively outnumbered Russia, and in 2023 they were about on par. Russia has not had to forcibly mobilize anyone and have largely relied on volunteers signing up.

How can this be if Ukraine has "the strongest military in the world"? The only way this is explainable is if they have had enormous casualties, much higher than the Russians. The exchange ratios of bodies and POWs reflect and confirm this disparity.

These casualties are a logical consequence of their severe disadvantage in weaponry. They have far less artillery, they have no long range missiles, they have no navy and basically no air force (whereas Russia's frequent use of glide bombs has been one of the most cost-effective weapons of this war), and as of last year (and Ukrainian generals themselves have admitted this) Russia has even overtaken them in drone production both in quality and quantity. So what "advances in weaponry" are we talking about? Russia has hypersonic missiles, Ukraine doesn't. Russia first introduced fiber-optic drones. Russia has much more advanced EW systems.

Since around 2024 the Ukrainians have essentially totally exhausted their huge stocks of Soviet weapons that were gifted to them when they got independence and are now totally dependent on Western weapons. So any advanced weapons that the Ukrainians have (except for drones) are there because they got them from NATO. Tanks, artillery, MLRS systems, air defense, infantry fighting vehicles, all Western by now. But Ukrainian soldiers themselves admit when interviewed about this that most Western weapons, with one or two exceptions, are inferior for the type of war that is being waged.

Let's also consider their infantry. Maybe they don't have better artillery, better tanks, better missiles, better air power, better AD or better drones, but do they at least have superior infantry? Well, by Western pro-Ukrainian media's own admission, Ukraine now has the highest average age of any military in the world. It's something between 40 and 50 iirc. They take completely unwilling, middle aged men off the street, beat them up to "break" them, throw them into a boot camp for a couple of weeks where they get practically no training, then stick them into a trench. Their sole purpose is to slow down the Russians for the Ukrainian drone teams to try and take out.

They have very few real professional assault units left. These are mostly the hardcore Nazi battalions that have been fighting since before 2022. These have taken heavy casualties and now mostly stay far away from the front lines. When Ukraine invaded Kursk they let the forcibly mobilized conscripts go in first to be slaughtered, and the Nazis came in after to torture, rape and murder civilians. Because despite all of their fancy NATO-gifted assault gear, that is what they are best at. That and shooting their own poor conscripts in the back if they try to desert or surrender.

So no, Ukraine does not have better infantry than Russia. As we can see by the fact that Russia keeps advancing despite Ukraine being heavily entrenched in fortified positions and ubiquitous battlefield surveillance coupled with drone warfare making advancing very difficult in this war.

However, the Ukrainians do have two big advantages over Russia:

One is that their rear, where most of the production happens, is essentially untouchable because it is in NATO countries that Russia doesn't yet want to strike. Same with their energy supply, materiel supply, fuel supply, etc.

The other is that practically their entire ISR, their command and control, their battlefield surveillance and targeting, mapping of Russian positions and Russian AD, is done by NATO. Mission planning for every large strike is done in Rammstein, Germany. Neither their AD nor their HIMARS could be used without Western targeting assistance. They are totally dependent on Starlink for communication, and on advanced US spy satellites and spy drones (flying outside of Russian and Ukrainian airspace in the assumption that Russia will forever restrain itself from hitting them) for reconnaissance.

This makes them the world's best proxy perhaps, but definitely not "the best and strongest military in the word". The US most definitely has not abandoned them, and neither has the EU that just gave them another tens of billions of Euro "loan" and practically funds the entire Ukrainian government by now (my taxes literally pay their salaries). If they actually abandoned them, aka turn off all the support they currently give them, the Ukrainian army and state would collapse in a month.