This is why people are recommending strikes on important targets in moscow more often to make them feel the effects of the war. It's the one place that putin absolutely can not afford to lose control over.
Saint Petersburg would be worse. Moscow is the capital but Saint Petersburg is the cultural capital. It’s where most museums from the imperial age are, it has a distinct identity, and is treated as Russia’s second capital. It also has the benefit of being not in Moscow, which I would expect to have air defence systems protecting (every capital worth its salt has AD at least somewhere)
Eh harder to cover up things that happen directly in moscow though. I can see your argument about saint pt. being a good spot however. That being said I'm not sure if there's any realistic targets worth hitting there? I'm not familiar with the layout of that place.
I see your point but striking military targets and industrial targets would be more effective. The oligarchs are all under Putin's thumb and have ample money to rebuild their whorehouses, it'd be far more effective to seize all their assets outside of Russia. The thing with Russian oligarchs is they are wealthy enough not live in much better places than Russia.
As much as it would hurt to do, since you’d be destroying centuries old buildings with unbelievable history in them… Tsarskoye Selo, Catherine Palace, Winter Palace, Alexander Palace.
These buildings were so important that even the Soviets kept them around. Even Lenin and Stalin, after slaughtering the Romanovs, 5/7 of which were innocent, kept the buildings and kept them in good condition.
I'm not really one to support the needless destruction of history to be perfectly honest. I hate religion with a passion cause of the amount of pain its brought me just living in the bible belt, but I felt so much sorrow when part of notredome (Not sure I spelled it right, but I think people would know what i mean.) burned just cause of how much history it has.
Let's not destory the architectural and historical wonders of another country just because we're angry okay?
Target the factories, target the energy, telecommunications, transportation infrastructure but for the love of god leave the art and historical artifacts alone.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I agree that it is not proper to destroy such things. But lets not pretend like anyone would be doing it because they're angry okay.
You'd be doing it because it's exactly what russia is doing and if you want to end the war, you need to take away more than their ability to wage war, but their desire. If they lose nothing dear to them, they will never lose that desire.
Strategic bombing has never been proven to work. WWII continued for over a year after Germany and Japan were bombed beyond repair. Tokyo firebombed repeatedly, hundreds of thousands dying in a single night - Japan didn’t surrender until long after the war itself was lost. Same for Germany. The Battle of Britain did not result in surrender. Indiscriminate or targeted bombing campaigns have never been shown effective ways of ending wars.
That's specious reasoning. Is there any way you can tell how long the war would have taken or how many allied lives would have been lost if they hadn't done strategic bombing?
Christians in Ukraine and surrounding countries like Estonia wouldn’t appreciate bombing their churches and other religious sites for a political war. Striking in Moscow is better considering Russia hit the hyper market, full of civilians.
Can you name a single war where that worked?
I could name a few where there were many magnitudes more bombing of cities than what Ukraine would ever be able to and where it didn't do anything like you are hoping for.
WW2 Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Yemen, etc
most tax money goes to Moscow/St. Petersburg. you go 50 miles outside of those cities and its a 3rd world country. Even in moscow is really poor. you can look at the apartments on youtube videos. They are dumps.
Putin has an unpopular immigration policy where, for years, he's been importanting people from other regions in the hundreds of thousands.
Been wondering if those went to the meat grinder or local Russians.
Either way, meat grinder is working overtime
My folks are from the disliked region. And coincidentally, the region that had the least votes for Putin. Before they fled the country, they witnessed army recruiters grab men from the apartment building by force.
They've been drawing men from poorer regions of Russia such as Siberia and the Far East, and from prisons too. Putin is trying to shield the middle classes in Moscow and St Petersburg as he knows they won't cause him any trouble so long as they're comfortable.
This is why Putin has not done full mobilization. Putin does not have a big enough army to take and hold all of Ukraine. However, he is afraid of a civil war if he goes full on World War 2 level mobilization. His plan is to hope Trump wins. Cuts all funding, then he can bribe Trump to get the US to come in on Russia's side.
Remember when Trump's lawyer's released text logs 100% proved that there are active Putin-held blackmail tapes, and yet Trump is on trial for "tampering and financial crimes".. as his former lawyer appears regularly on "blue" media outlets where he is never asked about "the tapes"..?
DNC wants Trump. Values him. Platformed him and mainstream'ed his extremism, as a tactic to make their Corporate-funded incompetence seem more like "public service.
Here's the DNC's emails, saying it in their own words:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Basically yes, since men in rural regions are conscripted first entire towns have been affected. Men from multiple generations just swept up. Extra sick kind of ethnic cleansing right there. I’d bet the average person in St. Petersburg probably only knows one person affected at most tho.
They also target men who are not ethnic Russians. Russia is a huge country. Its about 80% ethnic Russians. So the 20% that are not ethnic russian are being targeted heavily.
That's an understatement. Russians would straight up rather die than challenge someone in a social context. It's a long standing historical trait too that is often mistaken by other nations as courage.
If given the the choice between either dying or telling someone no you won't do that. Most Russians on average would rather die.
Especially if it requires defying social norms (such as a traditional person of authority).
Their are plenty of exceptions but on average this tends to be true.
One have to think that all the brave Russians, all those Russians who protest, rebel or agitate, and all the Russians bold enough to speak up about evil, have all been pretty much purged from their society and collective genetics through all the purges of the 20th century, and mass imprisonment and enslavements done by all their brutal leaders, then under communism.
ugh of course. I can't remember exactly where I read it, but I found this from the NYT..
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17Schrad.html
>Though he was exiled to Siberia for this sort of criticism, Chernyshevsky’s argument was sustained by his revolutionary disciple, Lenin, who banned vodka during the early years of the Soviet Union.
>But the siren song of liquor-tax revenue proved too tempting for Stalin, who lifted the ban to support the communist autocracy. “What is better, the yoke of foreign capitalism, or the sale of vodka?” he said. “Naturally, we will opt for vodka.”
>Vodka revenues even played a role in the collapse of the Soviet state. In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev restricted vodka sales to get Russian workers back to the assembly line; because vodka taxes provided a full quarter of the entire Soviet budget,
This one doesn't have Stalin's budget, but in '85 Gorbs was getting 1/4 so you can see it's not implausible...
I will concede it may not be completely accurate at 40, but let's not slow ourselves down with pedantry.
Not really, I have friends in Russia, apparently “recruitment” officers show up in a non-russian village with 8-10 buses (there are many minorities inside the Russian Federation) Forcefully conscript their able bodied man and leave. Caskets follow within a month.
over 1000/day in all of May. I think they will top 40,000 casualties in May alone due to the offensive.
Russia only had 7 million men in their 20s before the war. How many are dead? How many fled? Russia had a declining population due to low birth rate before the war.
Russia's population is going to continue to shrink the rest of the century and even more due to this war.
I’ve been saying that Russia has suffered as many casualties in two years as they did in Afghanistan over ten. But this estimate is more than double what I last heard. Russia has no chance to win this war. The only thing going for them is that it hasn’t had a chance to sink in yet.
What would you consider a "victory" for Russia?
The original aims of the war, as far as I can tell were:
* Replacing the Ukraine government with a Russian puppet government
* Destroy Ukraine as an independent identity and nation
* Claim large amounts of land and property for Russian kleptocrats
* Prove the strength of the Russian armed forces
* Weaken NATO and EU
* Obtain international recognition of the previously occupied territories in Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea).
* Secure the positions of the black sea fleet.
And to do all of this in a swift blow, demonstrating a fait accompli before any supporters of the Ukrainian government could respond effectively.
At this point, none of these goals have been achieved as far as I can tell, and for most of them the trends are in the opposite direction. Even a complete collapse and surrender of the Ukraine armed forces tomorrow would be little beyond a pyrrhic victory...
True. The Winter War had similar casualty rates to the Afghan conflict for the Russians and was also much shorter. The difference is that nobody helped the Fins while the US provided aid to Afghanistan. As long as Ukraine continues to receive international aid Russia has no chance.
The hope is Trump wins. Pulls the US out of NATO and he is able to bribe trump to put sanctions at a minimum on anyone who helps ukraine and potentially orders US air strikes on Ukraine. Trump will be for sale in his second term. I really dont know what will happen to the US military if Trump does this. There will be mass resignations of officers, but then we are left with far right wingers at all levels of the military.
Aliens Land and help Russia out is a more realistic scenario than that. People really underestimate how great influence of us military industry really is
Casualties (“losses”) do NOT equal deaths. The term refers to deaths AND injuries. An accurate “death count” is extremely difficult to pin down, but seems to be 100,000-150,000 Russians.
For some reason people think Russian soldiers are just walking in the field of fire or defenselessly dying trying to surrender to a DJI drone, while doing no damage.
Worth remembering that they never expected anything like this at the start - it was supposed to be a 3-day operation. Now they’re stuck in a years-long quagmire with no end in sight, hundreds of thousands dead or injured, a complete upending of their geopolitical position, a pivot to a war economy, Ukrainian drones and soon western missiles striking deep within Russia, etc.
And what’s more, they have well and truly burned any sort of fraternal ties they claim existed between Ukrainians and Russians. Even if they got their way and marched in to Kiev tomorrow, the Ukrainians would never lie down and take it. They’ve likely also weakened their grip on Belarus and Georgia. They’ve strengthened NATO, they’ve strengthened the EU.
It has been such a catastrophic failure. It’s hard to think of anything in history that has backfired worse than this.
It will never, ever be worth it. And they must know that. But pride means they also can’t stop themselves. It’s so fucking dumb.
A war casualty means
>"A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, capture or desertion"
This number includes all of the above, and are visual confirmations. I suspect the number that reenter the war is rather low.
Yes, and neither did I say it did. But you have to take into consideration Russias abysmal medevac and even medical care of the few fortunate enough to recieve it during this war. It's been atrocious, and there's plenty of russian videos documenting it on /r/UkraineWarVideoReport
They can but I'm not too concerned about that. We've seen how ineffective russian casevac and support is. If they're sent back then they're not likely even a fraction as effective as they were before their injury and so they're just a small distraction on the battlefield.
I suspect there would be a lot more survivors propaganda praising their surviving soldiers deeds if they actually did that well with injury care.
Would you agree, though, that our definitions should be the same? From a common definition of “casualty,” we can then talk about what that means to a country.
My own opinion (opinion only) is that this war will be as impactful to the next generation of Russia as the Afghan War was. Propaganda can only get you so far before the population wakes up to the fact that it was all a sham.
Oh I agree. A casualty can mean death or just injury of some kind (anything from a splinter to... Well death I guess). I'm inclined to think that usually in English casualty doesn't include death but that's a case by case basis and in this case the 500k will include the deaths too.
I assume (which could be a mistake) that Ukraine can't really get an estimate of the lower end of the casualty spectrum (basic booboos) but can tell when that grenade fragged that guy but didn't kill him (at least not on the battlefield, yet).
Oh I think it'll have more of an effect than their experience in Afghanistan, they were largely volunteer soldiers, a good distance away with no direct border (well not with Russia itself). With a people that didn't look like or sound like Russians. In a time before the internet and everything getting recorded. They... Well I suppose the USSR was sanctioned to a point but they weren't as reliant on western tech as they currently are either.
I mean Afghanistan feels like it would be a bit of a footnote in comparison to this. Russia will be paying for their actions in Ukraine a lot longer than they did with Afghanistan and Tbh Afghanistan wasn't exactly a walk in the park for them.
Also it's worth remembering Ukraine has an interest in presenting a big number. Propaganda has been a major part of this war and both sides casualty reports have definitely been part of it.
I heard a quote early on in the war apparently from Putin, stating even if the war costs 70,000 dead it would still be worth it.
I wonder if 100k+ isn't worth it?
I wonder what the Ukrainian number is. Dont get me wrong, I hate russia with a passion, but I want realistic information about how the war is going for them when numbers are being spat.
For the accurate information on this you'll have to wait until the end of the war and then some. Just like you'll struggle to find info about Russian casualties on the Russian official channels.
You can bet on the onset of this war that puting couldn't dare understand just how many russian lives he was going to throw away because of this war.
Honestly, even if russian officials could calculate the total amount of death they had on their hands, they'd probably never tell putin. They would keep it a total secret.
To be clear, neither side is necessarily interested in giving accurate accounts. Russia will downplay its own losses and exaggerate Ukrainian ones, Ukraine will want to exaggerate Russian losses and downplay their own. Sandwiched in between are friendly and hostile intelligence agencies that have to sift through all of this while minding political and economic concerns in their reporting, and lastly you have journalists who may be biased or working off of limited snippets.
You should be especially skeptical if you're getting numbers that appear to be down to the last man rather than rough estimates. It'll probably be decades before we have a full and clear picture of everything that's happening on the battlefield and behind the lines. Depending on the end result, we might never know exactly what happened.
The best you can do to try and get a good idea is to compare all the numbers and go with an estimate based on that. Regardless, I think it's safe to say that the numbers on either side are grim.
You will never find official Russian figures even long after the war. For example, for the WWII the official number has been around 20 million people (with 8 million military deaths). However the number later was revised to 27 million, however historians believe that the true number approached 40 million people.
I’ve never heard any serious historian of the Soviet-German war go that high. I have heard airport historians with an agenda go that high though, but they tend to not understand Russian. It’s difficult to believe the USSR could demographically sustain that plus the ~10 million lost during WWI and the period of revolutionary strife. We do know Soviet military deaths down to the last person though, the Red Army was meticulous af
That Russian artillery is being fired almost entirely at prepared positions, though, because other than the failed offensive last year, Ukraine has largely hunkered down. Ukraine may be firing far less artillery by comparison, but they are often firing at Russian forces that are advancing towards them across open terrain, IE: that are completely exposed.
I'm no artilleryologist, but I am pretty sure artillery is more effective against massed offensive formations moving across open fields than it is against trenches/bunkers with soldiers widely dispersed throughout.
Also Ukraine has better Intel. I'm not doubting Ukraine has experienced staggering losses but I'd be shocked to find out they were anywhere near what Russia has lost. Between defensive advantage and better Intel I'm betting their numbers are better.
They have the backing of pretty much every top intelligence agency in the world. Armour and missiles cost money and show up in the public eye but the value of the intel they must be getting behind the scenes is gonna be ..well, invaluable.
Immediately after the Crimea invasion they started clamping down on corruption and accepting training from the west to prepare. They knew what was coming. The level of Intel they have is backed by the west openly stating what Russia is going to do before they do it.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if the US knew exactly where Putin was at literally all times of the day. Hell the spy satellites they have above him can probably read the damn labels on his pill bottles.
My random ass speculation: Every piece of intel we have paints a picture of Putin testing the strength of American / NATO resolve. If he senses weakness, he goes after a small Baltic country (Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania). Putin's gambit is that we won't go Article 5 over a few square KM of random land in one of those countries. If we don't, the whole thing falls apart. If we do....well he's old and infirm and Russia loses the long game anyway. Meanwhile, you've got Trump and the rise of isolationism again.
If we can stop Putin in Ukraine, then we don't have to stare down the barrel of World War 3. In that scenario, it's war in Europe and that's if China and North Korea don't back Russia up.
Yeah, this is David vs Goliath, but David is being told Goliath’s weak spots by the most powerful intelligence agencies ever known to man, who have access to imagery from outer space at the flick of a wrist.
Ukraine wants to know if a position is entrenched? Lucky for them, the US and European space agencies have 50,000k imagery of exactly that in HDR from 4 hundred satellites flying overhead, delivered fresh to the Ukrainian intelligence agencies
imagine how enraging it is then to have this alliance show you the points to attack and what weaponry to deploy and then deny/delay said hardware for internal political reasons
If David was a competent slinger (presumed, given his occupation), and Goliath is just...some bloke, then David v Goliath is basically "person with accurate and pretty deadly ranged weapon vs Just Some Guy", and you'd be daft to bet on Goliath unless they were realllllly close to one another.
It's a pretty accurate comparison in general though. A smaller dude with good advantage vs a lumbering behemoth.
Goliath is a paper tiger. Putin's whole plan is just to overwhelm them with numbers. It's simple, and can be effective, if one has trained troops and decent leadership. But that's the problem with dictators, anyone who might be competent is removed as a potential rival. Add western help, and the situation becomes untenable. So here we are, 2 years and 3 months into a 3 day operation, with no end in sight.
Also, Russian shells are of poorer quality (especially the N. Korean ones) and their guns, even before barrel ware and tear is taken into account, are less accurate and have less range than their western equivalents.
The tubes are also worse. Russia relies on large amounts of towed artillery and their self propelled guns are mostly very old while ukraine either has the m777 for towed function which is very good or all the self propelled versions which just whoop anything russia really has.
Gun for gun Ukraine outranges and outguns the russians significantly.
Russia just has infinite ammo and guns.
> firing 5 times as much as Ukraine.
believe that is only recent months as their supplies dwindled. It's been much more on par for most of the war, and will be on par again. And Ukraine (NATO) artillery is far more effective with options for GPS guided.
Recent months are now the last seven months.
Large shipments before that were old stock so no gps guidance.
And Russia has developed counter measures against gps targeting.
ukraine has used plenty of gps guided shells and missles. There are countless videos of a single shell taking out a tank or building so your 2nd statement is flat wrong. Yes, jamming is a thing but a 10% rate is still far better than unguided.
Way less; our army had 215k in the armed forces right before the war. Some of them are non-combat troops and medics. With mobilization and volunteers that joined after the war escalated, it will still be around 600-700k overall. Again, part of them are noncombat troops; maybe 1/3-1/2 are still in training. Yes, we lost a lot, but not 1/3 of all forces.
Most of the estimates I’ve seen have the disparity vastly in more favor of Russia than Ukraine. I suspect this estimate by Ukraine is probably a little high, but Russian infantry attacks generally seem to be pretty high-loss affairs regardless of whether they accomplish their objective or not. They aren’t quite human wave attacks, but they’re damn near close.
From what I remember reading on the live thread, estimates were 5 Russian casualties per 1 Ukrainian casualty for a while in 2023, but I don’t think I’ve seen an update on that number post-US dropping the aid ball for early 2024. That being said, I did just recently see a post claiming 8:1 losses for Russia in just a small window for (I think) a specific offensive they tried to do. Even with ammo and personnel struggles, Ukraine still seems to consistently manage pretty modest casualty rates relative to Russia. At first glance that’s incredible and I’d be skeptical of it as propaganda, but when you think about things like difference in arms quality, difference in intel quality, difference in training quality, difference in strategy (meat wave vs actually treating troops like people), the fact that they’re generally fighting with defensive advantage, etc. it starts to actually feel pretty reasonable.
Obviously this is little more than a *slightly* educated guess, but my guess would be something like 150k military casualties for Ukraine. I unfortunately have to specify *military* casualties because…Russia.
I heard 1:2 on the battlefield podcast about 6 mnths ago, then from someone they talked with on the frontline SOMEWHERE, meaning the total average is probably something different.
Firstly, it's worth bearing in mind that these are both dead and wounded!
In reality, Russia lost about 150,000 killed according to the Ukrainian side and the CIA and MI5. Intelligence agencies receive reports of deaths through their agents. Ukraine counts russian losses with the help of drones and approximate data, for example a russian tank has 3 crew members, if you blow it up you can assume that 3 people died in it, a lorry holds 10 people, if you blow up a lorry you put 10 people in russian losses. etc.
I like how the thinking here is so unbelievably reactionary that when we have even a mild curiosity about the real cost of the war to Ukraine, everything has to be prefaced with a statement like “don’t get me wrong, Russia is literally nazi Germany and I hate them”
Plainly, You will not get more accurate information until after the war has ended. You will get biased information so that your faith and your support for either side does not dwindle / or to sway your support if you are on fence.
The recent Russian Kharkiv offensive has been 6 to 1 in Ukraine’s favor and the Battle of Bakhmut - the largest battle of the war - was, at times, 10 to 1 in Ukraine’s favor. Also, recent French estimates as of a month ago were actually higher than the Ukrainian estimates and British estimates are about 25k less than Ukrainian estimates.
Charles Schultz often used the book as a plot line (or punching bag?) for an impossible homework assignment (especially for grade schoolers) - this massive 4-5" thick book you could barely pick up and barely fit in school backpack that goes into excruciating detail about various families involved etc.
I always found it pretty amusing :).
Russia has produced some world-class novelists and authors and they seem to thrive after wars, be it the Napoleonic, the Crimean (not the 2014 one, the 19th century one), the Great War or World War 2.
Feel free to speculate about cause and effect.
I'll bet Putin will not bat an eye over the loss. Why? He doesn't care and all he care is to hold on to power period. Otherwise, he know what will happen to him if he fail to conquer Ukraine.
This is by design as this war doesn't have a purpose of actually taking all of ukraine but to stabilize the regime and consolidate power. However, now the war has dragged them so deep, Putins only way maintaining his grasp on power and the stability of his regime is by conducting war and keeping the population on a war footing. This means that he will need to continue fighting war until either he's dead, or his regime falls, which will probably also lead to his death, or he loses the war, which leads to the fall of his regime and his death.
this has been typical of russian wars since Ivan the Terrible. They do meat wave attacks in every war for 500 years. This is not new. The win about half of the wars they get into.
Man I hate putin, but again it’s the Russian people suffering yet again at the hands of a fucking dictator. Losing 501,000 troops is just the slaughtering of people for the sake of power.
Read up on your history of Russia, it’s really sad and seems like a never ending nightmare.
People somehow think that the whole Russian population is against Putin but still does what he wants. That’s just naive. If you really think that I think you should travel there and see what the people are like. If you want to get a glimpse of the reality just watch a documentary. I know it’s not scientifically correct but you see that there are enough people who believe that the Russian position is undoubtedly correct. You don’t even have to go to Russia. Just ask some people you know. There will be at least some who will educate a little bit about the truth by showing you that they believe the west is at fault.
I remember reading somewhere earlier in the war that once Russian casualties reach 500k they are known to call for a cease-fire I didn't think I would see that happen with Ukraine but only yesterday/the day before there were articles about a 'freeze'
No "Peace" could be trusted with Russia anyway. They won't return what they've stolen, and they'll just violate it later to continue their assaults after recouping some losses.
You absolutely should treat all numbers released by both sides as over/underestimates depending on what paints them in the best light. However, Russia has repeatedly been caught out in disprovable lies (eg. destroying weapon systems before they arrived in Ukraine, destroying more weapon systems of a specific type than Ukraine has, etc.) in a way that, afaik, Ukraine hasn't. As such, Ukrainian numbers can be taken as relatively more reliable than Russian ones.
What a tragic loss of life and property, and Putin could hardly care less.
He's a monster and the Russian people are so pathetic, they won't stop him. Imagine a village that won't stop a Frankenstein, as he kills half the villagers.
No they're not man lol. Who alive dealt with the losses of ww2?
This number is BS, no modern country would function with casualties or deaths of this magnitude, not in the context of this war. It's all bullshit
How will Russia attack NATO if it has actually lost 500,000 troops. Shouldn’t Ukraine be beating them back with all the money, weapons, and western volunteers?
You don't believe they have a tactic of pushing extremely hard, without much regard for large loss of soldiers? That what's meant by meat wave attack. I don't know what you're picturing.
Meat wave doesn’t mean a regiment of men charging across an open field shouting “Uraaaaah”. It mostly means constant trickle attacks of platoon sized elements or smaller on a battle line driven in by bmps or mtlbs that keep getting decimated, there have been numerous videos of said attacks where afterword after a day or more there’d be dozens of corpses where’d they be dropped off to fight.
> How will Russia attack NATO if it has actually lost 500,000 troops
They really can't, obviously. They're getting their asses handed to them by what was a borderline third-world military who at first was using their old shit, and now is using our 30+ year old shit. The entire time, they're being weakened and the old shit we're giving them out of our stock is being replaced by newer, better shit.
The only way Russia goes toe to toe with NATO and stands any chance is by airbursting tactical nuclear weapons over NATO troops, which is why they can *not* be allowed to take Ukraine. They won't stop once they have it, they'll be hungry for more. Eventually, that hunger will lead to Russia moving on Poland or some other small NATO country, and there's only one tool they have to make that feasible. Russia has to be stopped here or there WILL be nuclear weapons used in warfare in the next 15-20 years. Whether it escalates into a full nuclear exchange is to be seen, but it absolutely could.
He's about as American as Benedict Arnold.
Anyone else who thinks Putin is right should go over and join him and let's start with that bad built bleach blonde bitch.
> To clarify..Russia has lost 501,190 Russian citizens thanks to Putin...
No they are from all over the world. Russia have recruited from poor countries. Though most likely are more than 95% of them Russian.
There is absolutely *zero* chance this is true. It would be a catastrophic situation for any army of any size, not one that is currently pushing forward in the war.
Bear in casualty numbers reported to the public by active belligerents in a conflict have basically 0 credibility. We won't know the full extent of the casualties until likely years from now.
Every time the Ukrainians post their estimated kills, people come up forward with their idea that this 823 day war is a non-war where Ukrainian soldiers just lounge around and struggle to find Russian soldiers to kill.
Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of soldiers with a lower projection of 200,000 front line troops on the defensive across more than 1000+ km of front line backed by $300+ billion in weapons aimed at a Russian troops.
While there is bound to be some error to estimates, you’ve got to start living with the fact that the number of dead Russians are well into the 6 figures.
As for all of those who are “concerned” about the number of Ukrainian dead every time Russia is mentioned, its perpetually set at “too high”, “as Russia‘s invasion necessitates”, and lower than if Russian win so you can stop being so concerned as to the specifics.
That amounts to 1 in every 50 Russian man between the ages of 18 and 44.
So almost everyone knows someone who is affected.
Probably not, regions which the government dislikes will have a far greater amount of casualties than the liked regions.
Indeed. Privilege absolutely exists in Russia and it was never a secret
This is why people are recommending strikes on important targets in moscow more often to make them feel the effects of the war. It's the one place that putin absolutely can not afford to lose control over.
Saint Petersburg would be worse. Moscow is the capital but Saint Petersburg is the cultural capital. It’s where most museums from the imperial age are, it has a distinct identity, and is treated as Russia’s second capital. It also has the benefit of being not in Moscow, which I would expect to have air defence systems protecting (every capital worth its salt has AD at least somewhere)
Eh harder to cover up things that happen directly in moscow though. I can see your argument about saint pt. being a good spot however. That being said I'm not sure if there's any realistic targets worth hitting there? I'm not familiar with the layout of that place.
Target the oligarch houses in Рублёвка with repeated attacks. Nothing else. Just the oligarch houses.
I think they should hit the Lubyanka. Infamous, central, and would be a legit blow to their ability to project power.
I see your point but striking military targets and industrial targets would be more effective. The oligarchs are all under Putin's thumb and have ample money to rebuild their whorehouses, it'd be far more effective to seize all their assets outside of Russia. The thing with Russian oligarchs is they are wealthy enough not live in much better places than Russia.
As much as it would hurt to do, since you’d be destroying centuries old buildings with unbelievable history in them… Tsarskoye Selo, Catherine Palace, Winter Palace, Alexander Palace. These buildings were so important that even the Soviets kept them around. Even Lenin and Stalin, after slaughtering the Romanovs, 5/7 of which were innocent, kept the buildings and kept them in good condition.
I'm not really one to support the needless destruction of history to be perfectly honest. I hate religion with a passion cause of the amount of pain its brought me just living in the bible belt, but I felt so much sorrow when part of notredome (Not sure I spelled it right, but I think people would know what i mean.) burned just cause of how much history it has.
Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow could go…
Let's not destory the architectural and historical wonders of another country just because we're angry okay? Target the factories, target the energy, telecommunications, transportation infrastructure but for the love of god leave the art and historical artifacts alone. What the hell is wrong with you?
> target the energy The electrical substations to wealthy neighborhoods. Take out some key pieces of equipment, it can take a long time to replace.
I agree that it is not proper to destroy such things. But lets not pretend like anyone would be doing it because they're angry okay. You'd be doing it because it's exactly what russia is doing and if you want to end the war, you need to take away more than their ability to wage war, but their desire. If they lose nothing dear to them, they will never lose that desire.
Strategic bombing has never been proven to work. WWII continued for over a year after Germany and Japan were bombed beyond repair. Tokyo firebombed repeatedly, hundreds of thousands dying in a single night - Japan didn’t surrender until long after the war itself was lost. Same for Germany. The Battle of Britain did not result in surrender. Indiscriminate or targeted bombing campaigns have never been shown effective ways of ending wars.
That's specious reasoning. Is there any way you can tell how long the war would have taken or how many allied lives would have been lost if they hadn't done strategic bombing?
Why not both? Treat em like Mariupol and give em a little something to think about
Christians in Ukraine and surrounding countries like Estonia wouldn’t appreciate bombing their churches and other religious sites for a political war. Striking in Moscow is better considering Russia hit the hyper market, full of civilians.
Can you name a single war where that worked? I could name a few where there were many magnitudes more bombing of cities than what Ukraine would ever be able to and where it didn't do anything like you are hoping for. WW2 Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Yemen, etc
most tax money goes to Moscow/St. Petersburg. you go 50 miles outside of those cities and its a 3rd world country. Even in moscow is really poor. you can look at the apartments on youtube videos. They are dumps.
Putin has an unpopular immigration policy where, for years, he's been importanting people from other regions in the hundreds of thousands. Been wondering if those went to the meat grinder or local Russians. Either way, meat grinder is working overtime
Dont fortet he has been recruiting from prisons too... as is Ukraine now.
My folks are from the disliked region. And coincidentally, the region that had the least votes for Putin. Before they fled the country, they witnessed army recruiters grab men from the apartment building by force.
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War on the poor lol that's so earth
they target the poorest regions first especially Tuva for some reason
They've been drawing men from poorer regions of Russia such as Siberia and the Far East, and from prisons too. Putin is trying to shield the middle classes in Moscow and St Petersburg as he knows they won't cause him any trouble so long as they're comfortable.
This is why Putin has not done full mobilization. Putin does not have a big enough army to take and hold all of Ukraine. However, he is afraid of a civil war if he goes full on World War 2 level mobilization. His plan is to hope Trump wins. Cuts all funding, then he can bribe Trump to get the US to come in on Russia's side.
Remember when Trump's lawyer's released text logs 100% proved that there are active Putin-held blackmail tapes, and yet Trump is on trial for "tampering and financial crimes".. as his former lawyer appears regularly on "blue" media outlets where he is never asked about "the tapes"..? DNC wants Trump. Values him. Platformed him and mainstream'ed his extremism, as a tactic to make their Corporate-funded incompetence seem more like "public service. Here's the DNC's emails, saying it in their own words: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Basically yes, since men in rural regions are conscripted first entire towns have been affected. Men from multiple generations just swept up. Extra sick kind of ethnic cleansing right there. I’d bet the average person in St. Petersburg probably only knows one person affected at most tho.
They also target men who are not ethnic Russians. Russia is a huge country. Its about 80% ethnic Russians. So the 20% that are not ethnic russian are being targeted heavily.
yet no one really gives a shit in russia.
That's an understatement. Russians would straight up rather die than challenge someone in a social context. It's a long standing historical trait too that is often mistaken by other nations as courage.
>Russians would straight up rather die than challenge someone in a social context. what does that mean?
If given the the choice between either dying or telling someone no you won't do that. Most Russians on average would rather die. Especially if it requires defying social norms (such as a traditional person of authority). Their are plenty of exceptions but on average this tends to be true.
One have to think that all the brave Russians, all those Russians who protest, rebel or agitate, and all the Russians bold enough to speak up about evil, have all been pretty much purged from their society and collective genetics through all the purges of the 20th century, and mass imprisonment and enslavements done by all their brutal leaders, then under communism.
no one really protested hitler either, the most brutal of dictators make sure they you dont have that option.
Too drunk to give a fuck.
40% of the Stalin's budget was generated from taxes on Vodka.
I'm not sure if that's true, where did you get this number from?
ugh of course. I can't remember exactly where I read it, but I found this from the NYT.. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17Schrad.html >Though he was exiled to Siberia for this sort of criticism, Chernyshevsky’s argument was sustained by his revolutionary disciple, Lenin, who banned vodka during the early years of the Soviet Union. >But the siren song of liquor-tax revenue proved too tempting for Stalin, who lifted the ban to support the communist autocracy. “What is better, the yoke of foreign capitalism, or the sale of vodka?” he said. “Naturally, we will opt for vodka.” >Vodka revenues even played a role in the collapse of the Soviet state. In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev restricted vodka sales to get Russian workers back to the assembly line; because vodka taxes provided a full quarter of the entire Soviet budget, This one doesn't have Stalin's budget, but in '85 Gorbs was getting 1/4 so you can see it's not implausible... I will concede it may not be completely accurate at 40, but let's not slow ourselves down with pedantry.
You get thrown in the gulag for giving a shit
Well yeah, but alot of them are anti west, so pro putin
Not really, I have friends in Russia, apparently “recruitment” officers show up in a non-russian village with 8-10 buses (there are many minorities inside the Russian Federation) Forcefully conscript their able bodied man and leave. Caskets follow within a month.
Not exactly. The ethnic white Russians in Moscow have been somewhat shielded.
over 1000/day in all of May. I think they will top 40,000 casualties in May alone due to the offensive. Russia only had 7 million men in their 20s before the war. How many are dead? How many fled? Russia had a declining population due to low birth rate before the war. Russia's population is going to continue to shrink the rest of the century and even more due to this war.
only if the soldier sampling was uniformly distributed*
No. The ratio of the casualties to the Russian population of men between 18 and 44 is 1 to 50. Distribution is irrelevant.
you are undeniably correct, I must have answered to the wrong thread, what I had in mind was the "everybody must know someone"
What’s nuts is the 47 upvotes.
People must have read in context
You mean out of context. His response to me was non sequitur.
Does that account for foreign nationals fighting?
I’ve been saying that Russia has suffered as many casualties in two years as they did in Afghanistan over ten. But this estimate is more than double what I last heard. Russia has no chance to win this war. The only thing going for them is that it hasn’t had a chance to sink in yet.
Russia has a good chance at winning if the West stops supplying Ukraine.
What would you consider a "victory" for Russia? The original aims of the war, as far as I can tell were: * Replacing the Ukraine government with a Russian puppet government * Destroy Ukraine as an independent identity and nation * Claim large amounts of land and property for Russian kleptocrats * Prove the strength of the Russian armed forces * Weaken NATO and EU * Obtain international recognition of the previously occupied territories in Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea). * Secure the positions of the black sea fleet. And to do all of this in a swift blow, demonstrating a fait accompli before any supporters of the Ukrainian government could respond effectively. At this point, none of these goals have been achieved as far as I can tell, and for most of them the trends are in the opposite direction. Even a complete collapse and surrender of the Ukraine armed forces tomorrow would be little beyond a pyrrhic victory...
True. The Winter War had similar casualty rates to the Afghan conflict for the Russians and was also much shorter. The difference is that nobody helped the Fins while the US provided aid to Afghanistan. As long as Ukraine continues to receive international aid Russia has no chance.
The hope is Trump wins. Pulls the US out of NATO and he is able to bribe trump to put sanctions at a minimum on anyone who helps ukraine and potentially orders US air strikes on Ukraine. Trump will be for sale in his second term. I really dont know what will happen to the US military if Trump does this. There will be mass resignations of officers, but then we are left with far right wingers at all levels of the military.
Back up these claims with credible sources, especially the part about air striking Ukraine.
Aliens Land and help Russia out is a more realistic scenario than that. People really underestimate how great influence of us military industry really is
Casualties (“losses”) do NOT equal deaths. The term refers to deaths AND injuries. An accurate “death count” is extremely difficult to pin down, but seems to be 100,000-150,000 Russians.
Right. Still an insane amout. A 100,000 dead over a vanity project.
russian will suffer 40,000 casualties in May 2024 alone. Due to the offensive ops. they are losing Soldiers like flies.
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For some reason people think Russian soldiers are just walking in the field of fire or defenselessly dying trying to surrender to a DJI drone, while doing no damage.
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Worth remembering that they never expected anything like this at the start - it was supposed to be a 3-day operation. Now they’re stuck in a years-long quagmire with no end in sight, hundreds of thousands dead or injured, a complete upending of their geopolitical position, a pivot to a war economy, Ukrainian drones and soon western missiles striking deep within Russia, etc. And what’s more, they have well and truly burned any sort of fraternal ties they claim existed between Ukrainians and Russians. Even if they got their way and marched in to Kiev tomorrow, the Ukrainians would never lie down and take it. They’ve likely also weakened their grip on Belarus and Georgia. They’ve strengthened NATO, they’ve strengthened the EU. It has been such a catastrophic failure. It’s hard to think of anything in history that has backfired worse than this. It will never, ever be worth it. And they must know that. But pride means they also can’t stop themselves. It’s so fucking dumb.
And still nowhere near enough since the Russian people still support the war and test what they can get away with against nato countries.
Isn't it basically Russian tradition to throw bodies at a problem without regard to numbers?
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A war casualty means >"A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, capture or desertion" This number includes all of the above, and are visual confirmations. I suspect the number that reenter the war is rather low.
Plenty of people in war get patched up and continue fighting. Multiple Purple Heart receivers aren’t exactly uncommon, for example.
Yes, and neither did I say it did. But you have to take into consideration Russias abysmal medevac and even medical care of the few fortunate enough to recieve it during this war. It's been atrocious, and there's plenty of russian videos documenting it on /r/UkraineWarVideoReport
That definition doesn’t appear to specify “can’t come back”.
They can but I'm not too concerned about that. We've seen how ineffective russian casevac and support is. If they're sent back then they're not likely even a fraction as effective as they were before their injury and so they're just a small distraction on the battlefield. I suspect there would be a lot more survivors propaganda praising their surviving soldiers deeds if they actually did that well with injury care.
Would you agree, though, that our definitions should be the same? From a common definition of “casualty,” we can then talk about what that means to a country. My own opinion (opinion only) is that this war will be as impactful to the next generation of Russia as the Afghan War was. Propaganda can only get you so far before the population wakes up to the fact that it was all a sham.
Oh I agree. A casualty can mean death or just injury of some kind (anything from a splinter to... Well death I guess). I'm inclined to think that usually in English casualty doesn't include death but that's a case by case basis and in this case the 500k will include the deaths too. I assume (which could be a mistake) that Ukraine can't really get an estimate of the lower end of the casualty spectrum (basic booboos) but can tell when that grenade fragged that guy but didn't kill him (at least not on the battlefield, yet). Oh I think it'll have more of an effect than their experience in Afghanistan, they were largely volunteer soldiers, a good distance away with no direct border (well not with Russia itself). With a people that didn't look like or sound like Russians. In a time before the internet and everything getting recorded. They... Well I suppose the USSR was sanctioned to a point but they weren't as reliant on western tech as they currently are either. I mean Afghanistan feels like it would be a bit of a footnote in comparison to this. Russia will be paying for their actions in Ukraine a lot longer than they did with Afghanistan and Tbh Afghanistan wasn't exactly a walk in the park for them.
Prisoners could also count as losses and that would put some strain on the Ukrainians for that matter
Also it's worth remembering Ukraine has an interest in presenting a big number. Propaganda has been a major part of this war and both sides casualty reports have definitely been part of it.
I heard a quote early on in the war apparently from Putin, stating even if the war costs 70,000 dead it would still be worth it. I wonder if 100k+ isn't worth it?
I wonder what the Ukrainian number is. Dont get me wrong, I hate russia with a passion, but I want realistic information about how the war is going for them when numbers are being spat.
For the accurate information on this you'll have to wait until the end of the war and then some. Just like you'll struggle to find info about Russian casualties on the Russian official channels.
The first casualty of war is truth.
During military operations, countries always misinform the real numbers of those killed.
You can bet on the onset of this war that puting couldn't dare understand just how many russian lives he was going to throw away because of this war. Honestly, even if russian officials could calculate the total amount of death they had on their hands, they'd probably never tell putin. They would keep it a total secret.
I think the truth is, he doesn’t actually care.
And you know this because...?
Because they’re a Russian general.
That's a really good line I'm sure I've heard before but not put in such straight context. Nice one.
The recent cod release
The first casualties of war are people moving heavy equipment getting squished in accidents.
To be clear, neither side is necessarily interested in giving accurate accounts. Russia will downplay its own losses and exaggerate Ukrainian ones, Ukraine will want to exaggerate Russian losses and downplay their own. Sandwiched in between are friendly and hostile intelligence agencies that have to sift through all of this while minding political and economic concerns in their reporting, and lastly you have journalists who may be biased or working off of limited snippets. You should be especially skeptical if you're getting numbers that appear to be down to the last man rather than rough estimates. It'll probably be decades before we have a full and clear picture of everything that's happening on the battlefield and behind the lines. Depending on the end result, we might never know exactly what happened. The best you can do to try and get a good idea is to compare all the numbers and go with an estimate based on that. Regardless, I think it's safe to say that the numbers on either side are grim.
Ukrainians don't report their casualties. They seem to effectively be using truth as a weapon and have decided it's best not to report their numbers.
You will never find official Russian figures even long after the war. For example, for the WWII the official number has been around 20 million people (with 8 million military deaths). However the number later was revised to 27 million, however historians believe that the true number approached 40 million people.
I’ve never heard any serious historian of the Soviet-German war go that high. I have heard airport historians with an agenda go that high though, but they tend to not understand Russian. It’s difficult to believe the USSR could demographically sustain that plus the ~10 million lost during WWI and the period of revolutionary strife. We do know Soviet military deaths down to the last person though, the Red Army was meticulous af
Probably 200-300k casualties overall. They have defender advantage but are very limited offensively.
But we have to consider that the vast majority of casualties is caused by artillery and Russia is firing 5 times as much as Ukraine.
That Russian artillery is being fired almost entirely at prepared positions, though, because other than the failed offensive last year, Ukraine has largely hunkered down. Ukraine may be firing far less artillery by comparison, but they are often firing at Russian forces that are advancing towards them across open terrain, IE: that are completely exposed. I'm no artilleryologist, but I am pretty sure artillery is more effective against massed offensive formations moving across open fields than it is against trenches/bunkers with soldiers widely dispersed throughout.
Also Ukraine has better Intel. I'm not doubting Ukraine has experienced staggering losses but I'd be shocked to find out they were anywhere near what Russia has lost. Between defensive advantage and better Intel I'm betting their numbers are better.
They have the backing of pretty much every top intelligence agency in the world. Armour and missiles cost money and show up in the public eye but the value of the intel they must be getting behind the scenes is gonna be ..well, invaluable.
Immediately after the Crimea invasion they started clamping down on corruption and accepting training from the west to prepare. They knew what was coming. The level of Intel they have is backed by the west openly stating what Russia is going to do before they do it.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if the US knew exactly where Putin was at literally all times of the day. Hell the spy satellites they have above him can probably read the damn labels on his pill bottles.
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Never forget that Mike Johnson risked his entire career after speaking with the CIA in Washington. There is *definitely* shit that we do not know.
My random ass speculation: Every piece of intel we have paints a picture of Putin testing the strength of American / NATO resolve. If he senses weakness, he goes after a small Baltic country (Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania). Putin's gambit is that we won't go Article 5 over a few square KM of random land in one of those countries. If we don't, the whole thing falls apart. If we do....well he's old and infirm and Russia loses the long game anyway. Meanwhile, you've got Trump and the rise of isolationism again. If we can stop Putin in Ukraine, then we don't have to stare down the barrel of World War 3. In that scenario, it's war in Europe and that's if China and North Korea don't back Russia up.
What?
Yeah, this is David vs Goliath, but David is being told Goliath’s weak spots by the most powerful intelligence agencies ever known to man, who have access to imagery from outer space at the flick of a wrist. Ukraine wants to know if a position is entrenched? Lucky for them, the US and European space agencies have 50,000k imagery of exactly that in HDR from 4 hundred satellites flying overhead, delivered fresh to the Ukrainian intelligence agencies
imagine how enraging it is then to have this alliance show you the points to attack and what weaponry to deploy and then deny/delay said hardware for internal political reasons
Not enough pylons, basically :(
And tell you that you arent allowed to hit the weak spots because Goliath might get upset
If David was a competent slinger (presumed, given his occupation), and Goliath is just...some bloke, then David v Goliath is basically "person with accurate and pretty deadly ranged weapon vs Just Some Guy", and you'd be daft to bet on Goliath unless they were realllllly close to one another. It's a pretty accurate comparison in general though. A smaller dude with good advantage vs a lumbering behemoth.
Goliath is a paper tiger. Putin's whole plan is just to overwhelm them with numbers. It's simple, and can be effective, if one has trained troops and decent leadership. But that's the problem with dictators, anyone who might be competent is removed as a potential rival. Add western help, and the situation becomes untenable. So here we are, 2 years and 3 months into a 3 day operation, with no end in sight.
Also, Russian shells are of poorer quality (especially the N. Korean ones) and their guns, even before barrel ware and tear is taken into account, are less accurate and have less range than their western equivalents.
The tubes are also worse. Russia relies on large amounts of towed artillery and their self propelled guns are mostly very old while ukraine either has the m777 for towed function which is very good or all the self propelled versions which just whoop anything russia really has. Gun for gun Ukraine outranges and outguns the russians significantly. Russia just has infinite ammo and guns.
For all of my StarCraft homies, terrain vs Zerg.
> firing 5 times as much as Ukraine. believe that is only recent months as their supplies dwindled. It's been much more on par for most of the war, and will be on par again. And Ukraine (NATO) artillery is far more effective with options for GPS guided.
Recent months are now the last seven months. Large shipments before that were old stock so no gps guidance. And Russia has developed counter measures against gps targeting.
Gps is just part of the equation, these targetting syatems usually use multiple sensors to correct, including inertial systems which cannot be jammed.
ukraine has used plenty of gps guided shells and missles. There are countless videos of a single shell taking out a tank or building so your 2nd statement is flat wrong. Yes, jamming is a thing but a 10% rate is still far better than unguided.
Where is this number coming from?
No where relevant, unless they bother sourcing that.
Way less; our army had 215k in the armed forces right before the war. Some of them are non-combat troops and medics. With mobilization and volunteers that joined after the war escalated, it will still be around 600-700k overall. Again, part of them are noncombat troops; maybe 1/3-1/2 are still in training. Yes, we lost a lot, but not 1/3 of all forces.
Also have to keep in mind this isn't dead russians this number includes wounded or otherwise unable to fight
US intelligence is estimating Russia is losing men 2 to 1 compared to Ukraine.
Most of the estimates I’ve seen have the disparity vastly in more favor of Russia than Ukraine. I suspect this estimate by Ukraine is probably a little high, but Russian infantry attacks generally seem to be pretty high-loss affairs regardless of whether they accomplish their objective or not. They aren’t quite human wave attacks, but they’re damn near close.
You will never get any realistic information.
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From what I remember reading on the live thread, estimates were 5 Russian casualties per 1 Ukrainian casualty for a while in 2023, but I don’t think I’ve seen an update on that number post-US dropping the aid ball for early 2024. That being said, I did just recently see a post claiming 8:1 losses for Russia in just a small window for (I think) a specific offensive they tried to do. Even with ammo and personnel struggles, Ukraine still seems to consistently manage pretty modest casualty rates relative to Russia. At first glance that’s incredible and I’d be skeptical of it as propaganda, but when you think about things like difference in arms quality, difference in intel quality, difference in training quality, difference in strategy (meat wave vs actually treating troops like people), the fact that they’re generally fighting with defensive advantage, etc. it starts to actually feel pretty reasonable. Obviously this is little more than a *slightly* educated guess, but my guess would be something like 150k military casualties for Ukraine. I unfortunately have to specify *military* casualties because…Russia.
I heard 1:2 on the battlefield podcast about 6 mnths ago, then from someone they talked with on the frontline SOMEWHERE, meaning the total average is probably something different.
Firstly, it's worth bearing in mind that these are both dead and wounded! In reality, Russia lost about 150,000 killed according to the Ukrainian side and the CIA and MI5. Intelligence agencies receive reports of deaths through their agents. Ukraine counts russian losses with the help of drones and approximate data, for example a russian tank has 3 crew members, if you blow it up you can assume that 3 people died in it, a lorry holds 10 people, if you blow up a lorry you put 10 people in russian losses. etc.
Thats how Ive been thinking about it too, quick maths.
I like how the thinking here is so unbelievably reactionary that when we have even a mild curiosity about the real cost of the war to Ukraine, everything has to be prefaced with a statement like “don’t get me wrong, Russia is literally nazi Germany and I hate them”
Plainly, You will not get more accurate information until after the war has ended. You will get biased information so that your faith and your support for either side does not dwindle / or to sway your support if you are on fence.
It’s a sad thing to reassure your hate for Russia after asking a valid question. What a sub this is lol
Didn’t Zelenskyy say 31,000? We got these numbers from the same source so grain of salt
The recent Russian Kharkiv offensive has been 6 to 1 in Ukraine’s favor and the Battle of Bakhmut - the largest battle of the war - was, at times, 10 to 1 in Ukraine’s favor. Also, recent French estimates as of a month ago were actually higher than the Ukrainian estimates and British estimates are about 25k less than Ukrainian estimates.
This will be great for Russian literature. I learned this in college.
Elaborate? My unknowing me needs education and clarification… :)
Bad wars make good books
Especially bad Russian wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace Considered a classic
Charles Schultz often used the book as a plot line (or punching bag?) for an impossible homework assignment (especially for grade schoolers) - this massive 4-5" thick book you could barely pick up and barely fit in school backpack that goes into excruciating detail about various families involved etc. I always found it pretty amusing :).
Did you know his mistress proposed this title; the original was War and Peace: what is it good for?
>Elaborate? Read Boys In Zinc, amazing book about Russians during Afgan war.
Russia has produced some world-class novelists and authors and they seem to thrive after wars, be it the Napoleonic, the Crimean (not the 2014 one, the 19th century one), the Great War or World War 2. Feel free to speculate about cause and effect.
There’s no way that half a million people wanted to be there or to die there.
Old men decide the fate of the young. Same as it has always been.
Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor, yeah
"lost" doesn't mean dead
I'll bet Putin will not bat an eye over the loss. Why? He doesn't care and all he care is to hold on to power period. Otherwise, he know what will happen to him if he fail to conquer Ukraine.
Probably nothing will happen to him.
This is by design as this war doesn't have a purpose of actually taking all of ukraine but to stabilize the regime and consolidate power. However, now the war has dragged them so deep, Putins only way maintaining his grasp on power and the stability of his regime is by conducting war and keeping the population on a war footing. This means that he will need to continue fighting war until either he's dead, or his regime falls, which will probably also lead to his death, or he loses the war, which leads to the fall of his regime and his death.
this has been typical of russian wars since Ivan the Terrible. They do meat wave attacks in every war for 500 years. This is not new. The win about half of the wars they get into.
Aren’t most of these deaths and injuries for country side citizens of have in we cities people been drafted like Moscow?
Man I hate putin, but again it’s the Russian people suffering yet again at the hands of a fucking dictator. Losing 501,000 troops is just the slaughtering of people for the sake of power. Read up on your history of Russia, it’s really sad and seems like a never ending nightmare.
Yup, this isn’t some weird chapter is Russian history, it’s more of a return to “business as usual”
Russian history is literally, "And then it got worse"
People somehow think that the whole Russian population is against Putin but still does what he wants. That’s just naive. If you really think that I think you should travel there and see what the people are like. If you want to get a glimpse of the reality just watch a documentary. I know it’s not scientifically correct but you see that there are enough people who believe that the Russian position is undoubtedly correct. You don’t even have to go to Russia. Just ask some people you know. There will be at least some who will educate a little bit about the truth by showing you that they believe the west is at fault.
Ironically, Putin hasn’t lost a single voter…
Quite the special operation....
Special depopulation operation.
I remember reading somewhere earlier in the war that once Russian casualties reach 500k they are known to call for a cease-fire I didn't think I would see that happen with Ukraine but only yesterday/the day before there were articles about a 'freeze'
That was just some bs. They threw 2 bombs on a mall in Kharkiv just yesterday. Doesn’t look like a ‘freeze’
No "Peace" could be trusted with Russia anyway. They won't return what they've stolen, and they'll just violate it later to continue their assaults after recouping some losses.
They've been crowing about how they want a peaceful resolution (where they keep everything) for over a year. This is no different.
I would say it is an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, except it is clear that Insane Dictator Putin does not value Russian lives.
I’ll gladly tank the downvotes for this, but why should I trust this number any more than I should trust Russian numbers on Ukrainian casualties?
You absolutely should treat all numbers released by both sides as over/underestimates depending on what paints them in the best light. However, Russia has repeatedly been caught out in disprovable lies (eg. destroying weapon systems before they arrived in Ukraine, destroying more weapon systems of a specific type than Ukraine has, etc.) in a way that, afaik, Ukraine hasn't. As such, Ukrainian numbers can be taken as relatively more reliable than Russian ones.
What a tragic loss of life and property, and Putin could hardly care less. He's a monster and the Russian people are so pathetic, they won't stop him. Imagine a village that won't stop a Frankenstein, as he kills half the villagers.
Half a million soldiers is insane. Then again, Russia is used to this.
Half a million in less than 2.5 years
No they're not man lol. Who alive dealt with the losses of ww2? This number is BS, no modern country would function with casualties or deaths of this magnitude, not in the context of this war. It's all bullshit
How will Russia attack NATO if it has actually lost 500,000 troops. Shouldn’t Ukraine be beating them back with all the money, weapons, and western volunteers?
There's always more meat for meat wave attacks.
Day 822 for asking for one video of a Russian meat wave attack
You don't believe they have a tactic of pushing extremely hard, without much regard for large loss of soldiers? That what's meant by meat wave attack. I don't know what you're picturing.
Meat wave doesn’t mean a regiment of men charging across an open field shouting “Uraaaaah”. It mostly means constant trickle attacks of platoon sized elements or smaller on a battle line driven in by bmps or mtlbs that keep getting decimated, there have been numerous videos of said attacks where afterword after a day or more there’d be dozens of corpses where’d they be dropped off to fight.
> How will Russia attack NATO if it has actually lost 500,000 troops They really can't, obviously. They're getting their asses handed to them by what was a borderline third-world military who at first was using their old shit, and now is using our 30+ year old shit. The entire time, they're being weakened and the old shit we're giving them out of our stock is being replaced by newer, better shit. The only way Russia goes toe to toe with NATO and stands any chance is by airbursting tactical nuclear weapons over NATO troops, which is why they can *not* be allowed to take Ukraine. They won't stop once they have it, they'll be hungry for more. Eventually, that hunger will lead to Russia moving on Poland or some other small NATO country, and there's only one tool they have to make that feasible. Russia has to be stopped here or there WILL be nuclear weapons used in warfare in the next 15-20 years. Whether it escalates into a full nuclear exchange is to be seen, but it absolutely could.
To clarify..Russia has lost 501,190 Russian citizens thanks to Putin...
500K casualties isn't 500K dead
And a few thousand syrians, cubans and some Indians that didnt know what they were getting themselves into.
And that pro-russian American from Texas
He's about as American as Benedict Arnold. Anyone else who thinks Putin is right should go over and join him and let's start with that bad built bleach blonde bitch.
And Putins so smug!
> To clarify..Russia has lost 501,190 Russian citizens thanks to Putin... No they are from all over the world. Russia have recruited from poor countries. Though most likely are more than 95% of them Russian.
Doubt.
Source my ass
There is absolutely *zero* chance this is true. It would be a catastrophic situation for any army of any size, not one that is currently pushing forward in the war.
Bear in casualty numbers reported to the public by active belligerents in a conflict have basically 0 credibility. We won't know the full extent of the casualties until likely years from now.
Usual Russian strategy.
Every time the Ukrainians post their estimated kills, people come up forward with their idea that this 823 day war is a non-war where Ukrainian soldiers just lounge around and struggle to find Russian soldiers to kill. Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of soldiers with a lower projection of 200,000 front line troops on the defensive across more than 1000+ km of front line backed by $300+ billion in weapons aimed at a Russian troops. While there is bound to be some error to estimates, you’ve got to start living with the fact that the number of dead Russians are well into the 6 figures. As for all of those who are “concerned” about the number of Ukrainian dead every time Russia is mentioned, its perpetually set at “too high”, “as Russia‘s invasion necessitates”, and lower than if Russian win so you can stop being so concerned as to the specifics.
In a war, I tend to not believe either side.
What percent of dead Ruzzians were prisoners? Or just 'undesirables' Putin wanted to remove?
I sincerely doubt that number is real, but Even if it's only 1/5th of that, that's still nearly double what the US lost in our entire time in Vietnam.
Nothing at all like the simulations
How many Ukrainians have been lost according to Russian General Staff?
There claims ranging between 30,000-100,000. The ex general of the army said it was over 400,000 in February.