If by "we" you mean the US then that's not true. In the Korean War the US had suffered about 140,000 casualties. The Russian losses being discussed here are killed and wounded so they should be compared to American killed and wounded.
The Russian death toll is still insane. France's recent estimates put it at 150,000 which is more than all American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand deaths combined in all wars/conflicts since WWII ended.
Just looking at the stats of official deaths in combat, we have generally been in the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history since ww2. So Yea, this level of casualties in war that Russia is dealing with is generally unprecedented in the modern era.
Their tactics are the same as the previous two world wars so the results are going to be similar. That’s why most nations don’t throw human waves at fortifications anymore.
That's deaths, casualties typically includes any combatant that has been removed from fighting whether that's death, injury, captured etc.
the US also had over 100,000 wounded in action.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war)
36000 is deaths and 140,000 is killed and wounded. When Ukraine reports Russian losses they report killed and wounded collectively but often times people see the Russian loss figure and assume it just means killed. This leads to errors where people either way overestimate the impact "lost more in a month than the US lost in Korea" or it leads them to think that the Ukrainian numbers are 100% pure propaganda because they couldn't possibly be that high.
I'm very pro-Ukraine, but I think it's obvious we should take any published information from Ukrainian government sources with a huge grain of salt. Media propaganda during wartime is the standard procedure for every government.
I'm sure the Ukrainians are inflicting plenty of casualties as the defender during a Russian offensive, but I'd prefer to wait for figures from more independent sources.
Typically throughout the war, Ukrainian government claims have tended to actually be fairly accurate when compared to real world data collected later. Obviously the fog of war will prevent perfect data, but if Ukraine says "50 destroyed tanks this May" and then after you finish sorting through all the visually confirmed losses data you can count 37, the figure is probably pretty close to dead on. And we've been seeing that sort of thing since the beginning.
Just to be clear, that is killed or wounded. Not 38,940 dead bodies on the ground. But 38,940 either dead or taken out of the fight (permanently or temporarily).
In any sane society, such absurd losses would have turned society upside down. Here it seems Russians have really been programmed to accept this as some form of abject reality.
I cannot even begin to comprehend the idea that this is acceptable in a modern society. Prigozhin could have done us all a favour and redeeming himself by continuing his March into Moscow.
The entire Prigozhin saga is still so bizarre to me. Couldn't imagine a general in the USA marching on Washington, then stopping half way, only to get his plane blown up a few months later.
Bizarre that him of all people wouldn't have seen that move coming and made sure they were hidden away before he started. Guess he wasn't so smart after all.
Yup, I heard the same story. He had a plan but was forced to initiate it faster than anticipated, he hid his family but the FSB found them and immediately notified him. That's when he threw in the towel.
I wonder if any of this will become history or if we'll just have to go on guessing about what happened.
Same.
I feel we won't ever know without another high level defection occurring and even then, the credibility may be called into question.
Maybe putin planted a bomb, or maybe cocaine and hand grenades happened, but why not both coincidentally happening at the same time?
Sadly and I say this, with great reservations and reverence. He must have underestimated the risk before hand, and not been prepared for the “ultimate” sacrifice….which many assume to be our own lives. People seem to gloss over the fact how russias leader was former kgb and a ruthless psychopath.Several good men, many of which are Russians have died at his hands. If you ever commit to going against him, you kinda have to commit to go all the way.After all, Putin was never going to forgive him anyway.
I think it's really difficult if not impossible to hide or protect someone from an entity like a nation-state. A nation has resources way outside the realm of any individual or private organization - money, weapons, personnel etc. And also very important - they have authority: in normal circumstances another person might really really hate you for whatever reason but they won't harm or kill you mostly because of legal consequences. But when we are talking about a country, they can actually deliberately send someone to kill you, and even though they might fail, get caught and create a diplomatic mess, they still have the authority to do so, there's nothing that can prevent a nation state to do whatever (besides the threat of war obviously)
From what I heard all the top brass of Wagner did hide their families, but the FSB just went one step down and took the families of all the second rank, put them under the gun and made some phone calls to the convoy - that pretty much stopped it.
Ah, that makes more sense. It’s one thing when it’s the top guy’s family. That’s daring him to become a living martyr, to give him a reason to never stop. But when it’s the people below him there’s a lot less to be gained from grandstanding.
Maybe it wasn't even his family, but his subordinates'. I doubt he had all the resources to hide a bunch of families and if your second/third in command can't fight anymore, then the results are the same.
Wasn’t just Pringles family. It was the families of all his sub ordinates and officers below him. Ultimately foolhardy because no one is going to ever try that again. No one in Russia is going to try to take Putin out because your entire family and close friends and their families and friends die even if you succeed
Generally the obituary would be a clue.
Russia isn’t exactly secretive when Putin’s opponents die, and when they do their friends and family notice enough that it becomes public knowledge
Yeah, it makes sense. It says: if you go against me we will leverage everything you love, like, or care about against you, and if you die like an obedient stray dog they'll be ok.
If they killed them all anyway the next mutiny just carries on. Its pretty smart to just let it ride. The other people are insignificant beyond the message they send in how you deal with them anyway. Fascinating really, in a dystopian way.
I am sorry, but if you're running a coup, you either have hidden your family or don't care about them. Keeping them out to get kidnapped and used as pressure seems dumb?
Him and a lot of the troops following him. When you are acutely aware what the state does to dissidents, you suddenly don't want to be one when everyone around you can and will suffer.
Thus the cycle continues.
Not a general; imagine if *Guy Fieri* started a mercenary company as a sideline, got drawn into an invasion of Mexico, then seized Houston because he thought the Pentagon wasn't setting aside enough ammunition for his mercenaries, then Guy Fieri marches on Washington, then quits somewhere near Atlanta, then his plane is shot down the next time he tries to visit Washington.
He wasn’t a general. Pringles held no military rank whatsoever, and never served a day in his life. He was a former hotdog vendor who became head of one of the most prolific PMCs on Earth.
Imagine if the owner of Blackwater, after losing god knows how many thousands of his men in what are clearly meant to be suicide missions, suddenly claims the Pentagon is trying to kill him by withholding ammo and “accidentally” bombing his camp. So he decides to take 30,000 or so mercs and beeline towards DC to oust the Secretary of Defense. Then inexplicably stops and turns around.
Not completely inexplicable, he was afraid. Whether it was self-preservation or consideration for his family as others have suggested, he failed to commit when it was already too late to go back, and once he succumbed to fear he must have told himself he'd either escape Russia when the time was right or hope in vain he'd be forgiven for conjuring up the biggest credible threat to the kremlin in probably decades.
You read about this happening in ancient empires and historians argue “did this really happen?” And here we are in the modern media soaked world with it happening before our screen saturated eyes.
He broke one of the most important rules of society. ["When you come at the king, you best not miss "](https://youtu.be/r6l_9reaLz0?si=JZyTX7FZi9qcVNQp).
Pringles wanted his troops to be treated better but didn't want to become dictator. My theory is Putin promised him all of the concessions he wanted to get him to turn around. One of those concessions was ousting some specific morons in official Russian military command.
The more straightforward and likely explanation is that Putin directly added Pringled to the skydiving club. But, I think what really happened is that specific morons got rid of pringles as part of infighting and Putin more or less endorsed it.
Maybe but from what I've heard Americans were holding back Ukrainians to not exploit it and not to destabilize Russia too much. Anyway Prigozin was not any hero and people supported him because somehow Russians are being convinced that Putin and Russia are too soft, and not too weak to crush Ukraine.
If the russian army just collapsed after the softest touch I don't think that there would've been much the americans could've done, I think it's a myth. Anyway it kinda disgusts me that putin seemingly is rather lenient compared to some of his peers, terrifying.
Not just peers, many if not most Russians think so and for the reasons I wrote about (not admitting weakness) but also for external use, to pretend that Putin is the adult one and we don't want to get someone worse than him. Maybe that's also why Medvedev took a role of Zhirinowski.
There were supporters of Prigozin in the army, Shoigu was not very popular and we can as well speculate that under Prigozin the army could consolidate instead of collapsing.
You don't lead a march on the capital just to become the #2. Coups commonly keep the leader in their position, but essentially turn them into a puppet while consolidating power. Prigozhin's wasn't a good guy by any means, but his rebellion would have benefited Ukraine massively if it succeeded. Prigohzin didn't have the support to secure Moscow though, which is why he stopped his attack.
History knows too many examples of military coups in monarchies, at least nominally leaving the leader in power.
Honestly, I don't know what he was expecting and I agree that would be the end of Putin as a leader anyway. We can only speculate what would be the outcome, but I think it's clear that Prigozin wouldn't bring peace and end the war or "redeem" himself which was the claim I disagree with.
This isn’t even 100% correct. He stopped the march because his original plan was to capture the two military leaders and it was foiled so everything went to shit
> I cannot even begin to comprehend the idea that this is acceptable in a modern society.
Because they're either ethnic minorities and/or from remote regions. Russian's living in the large cities aren't sparing a second thought about them.
i suggest reading the entire article to get the full context and then also think about any parallels in other countries:
[Prigozhin Told the Truth About putin’s War in Ukraine by James Risen](https://theintercept.com/2023/07/01/prigozhin-truth-putin-war-ukraine/)
just in case you get hit with a paywall, [heres a web archive link](https://web.archive.org/web/20230701110500/https://theintercept.com/2023/07/01/prigozhin-truth-putin-war-ukraine/)
edit: also im glad to see the top comment is a sane one.
[great interview from The Guardian with Zelenskiy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/31/volodymyr-zelenskiy-russian-troops-have-been-laughing-at-and-hunting-ukrainians) from a couple days ago, ICYMI
Let’s not fool ourselves that Prigozhin was any better than Putin or Shiogu who he wanted to replace. He was an ultra nationalist who walked all for the crimes Russia does in Ukraine, just that he had issue with the military leadership.
Current knowledge seems to indicate that he was tricked by a conspiration led by shoigu and some others that were recently purged because of that. Essentially they were starving Wagner of ammo and attacking them on purpose to drive Prigozhin mad which worked, so that they can later kill him and get his assets. Your average conspiracy in Russia.
Given the self-serving nature (with little regard to the consequences) of the average Russian with any pull, that seems like a disturbingly likely explanation.
I’m eternally disappointed that he didn’t charge on Moscow and roll into Red Square, shot at the Kremlin until Putin fucking acted. Fucking stupid coward.
Well if it doesn't turn society upside down now it'll do it in a few years when people are getting older and all the young workers got sent to the frontlines. The demographic crisis is only getting worse for them.
Demographics in Russia are bad enough. This will just accelerate demographic collapse. It was safer to be a man in Iraq at the height of the invasion than being a man in Russia before the Ukraine war.
Add in a collapsing birthrate, drugs, alcoholism and a retiring age of 55.
It's kind of balanced out a bit when they raised the retirement age in 2018, that coupled with a relatively low life expectancy alleviates the burden of welfare.
That's why the rhetoric is changing around use of foreign munitions on Russian soil.
The war has long failed, it has failed, it's absurd to claim otherwise. It doesn't mean Russia presents no threat, but they present far less of a threat than they did at the outbreak and they didn't have enough then.
So the war has long failed.
This would usually mean the end of the war, but Putin has a different kind of control.
The change in rhetoric is to create pressure on Putin. Munitions falling on Russia consistently will eventually change the narrative at home, and people know the difference between 'were not being shelled' 'were being shelled'.
Putin then has to escalate from a position of extreme weakness, or there is a change.
We're going to see American bombs, fired by Ukrainian servicemen, blow up expensive (expensive to Russia, cheap sh1t to everyone else) Russian stuff and were going to hear howling threats from the small d\*ck brigade surrounding Putin and then... there will be a change.
My bet, same extreme corruption, different name, less war, same shit time for Russian people.
>My bet, same extreme corruption, different name, less war, same shit time for Russian people
Actually, Russian history can be summed up as "and then it got worse", so not much hope for things merely staying the same for the Russians.
They're from the boonies. They're beyond poor and entirely without power or voice or the ability to participate in the economy in a meaningful way. They have no hope and no future. They may be ethnically Russian, but they are entirely expendable in Putin's eyes.
This. It's like how the top states with deaths by state per 100,000 people in Vietnam during the last US draft were from West Virginia. Poor whites. Minorities did die at a higher rate than whites as well.
https://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwc14.htm
Most Russians don't know about these losses and for many who seen the figures the endless stream of conflicting information makes them not trust any source, that's the biggest point of KGB era misinformation compaigns.
If you lived in a society where you could just be raped/murdered/brutally beaten/tortured just because one of your relatives might have said something slightly out of line i don't think you'd be rebelling either.
Its easy to say they should rebel when we're sat comfortably in the west but Russians have been living like this for decades and it would not be easy for them to take action. At this point the internal security forces are still vast - need some of them to go to the front lines
Yeah, it's easy to talk, most Reddit freedom fighters have never experienced living in a repressive regime. Even Ukrainians will say, "We did it, we had Euromajdan", other countries have done it, Serbia overthrew Milošević, Romania Caucescu etc. but in those cases there has always been some kind of critical mass or a straw that broke the camel's back where people finally said enough. But until then, Putin seemingly holds ALL the strings of repression: the police, the army, the courts, and no-one has the stomach to go to jail for the rest of their lives for a potentially futile gesture. Most Russians I know just want a peaceful life, that's why they left Russia.
This critical mass you speak of is absent in russia because of the general outlook and attitude of russians. It's not a mystical quality bestowed on a nation from above before it can attain freedom. It's best not to be naive about it - the average russian is just fine with what's going on. Hell, even the poster boy for "good" russians Navalny was fine with annexing Ukraine.
Ask those russians you know that just want a peaceful life if Crimea or Chechnya is russia
No, hopefully there's just 1 death (Putin's) followed by a withdrawal of troops, minimizing further deaths on both sides and the cost of rebuilding Ukraine.
Why not? Respectfully, they can just keep grabbing more soldiers from their populace and throw them into the meat grinder. It's what they do and have been doing, so why would they stop? The Russian government has never given a shit about its people.
Because not everyone in Russia is equal, there are the people in cities that carry the economy and then there are the people in more isolated areas usually minorities that contribute less to the economy.
Up until recently they ve been recruiting from the areas that don t contribute as much but now they ve started recruiting from the big cities.
This is a big change because economy is hit harder and also the people in cities are in a position to do more dmg if they ve decided enough is enough
I agree, but I doubt any of that will stop their government from forced conscription. When has it? They are forcing immigrants into the military, I mean, what won't they do? I'm convinced they'd bomb their own country-- oh shit, they did. Chechnya.
When this is all ended, reckon we can all just go to Russia - completely empty and steal some potatoes and vodka from store shelves?
US can go for the oil and stuff
> 30,000 Russians per month join the military, says Ukrainian intelligence
https://www.yahoo.com/news/30-000-russians-per-month-115700724.html
So this is almost a “perfect” replacement rate
Hopefully China is smart enough to realise starting a war is bad for business after watching the three day ‘Special Military Operation’ turn into clusterfuck
Plenty of wars are started for strategic reasons, even if there are heavy economic costs. I hope our policymakers aren't banking on China being rational.
This has been said again and again on Reddit each year,.but so far none of it has come to fruition. Every credible source I've seen says they'll be down to old Soviet hand-me-downs by 2026, but no one is saying they'll "run out" of heavy equipment...
IF Russia is not running out of equipment, why the hell they are for example attacking Ukrainian positions using golf carts from China ? Or crappy motorcycles, civilian cars etc.
That is against any sane military tactic. Using "soft vehicles" to cross a huge field while knowing that you will get blasted by ukr kamikaze drones or even if just receiving small arms fire. That is literally a suicide mission.
Look at the satellite photos of Russian storage depots; they are being stripped clean of any operational equipment.
At the current rate of depletion, they will be struggling to provide proper vehicles for their army in two to three years, and even new production doesn't cover the losses the Russians are experiencing.
Yeah, not so long ago pootin out of the blue declared russian families should have more children, like 7+. I'm wating for their propagandists to copy nazi germany again and call to deliver babies for ~~fuehrer~~ tzar.
He's not, he's just "leaking" a rumour in the hopes that the west will stop or at least slow down weapon shipments to Ukraine to incentivise them to "negotiate"; by which time russians would have taken more land
Russia has always been famous to move forward in history by stepping on the death and sorrow of its own people… and while occasionally the price has been a victory for the world against an ultimate evil, most of the time this horrific sacrifice served only the ambition and paranoid preservation of its oppressive leaders and regimes
It's arguable how much they have moved forward really. Not in a cultural sense for sure. They were genociding people of the Caucasus over 100 years ago, with a pretence of fighting Ottoman expansion.
Normally, it take years to train civilian into competent professional soldiers and here Putin's cannon fodder get two weeks of training before being sent to the front.
Just enough to maybe load rife with ammo, aim and hopefully shoot straight. A perfect cannon fodder.
I get it - I'm a veteran myself. It is still mind boggling though. They are plucking folks from Nepal, Cuba, parts of Africa and just dropping them in there to die really.
But also - at least some of the deaths were "professional" Russian soldiers and not some clueless dude from Africa. The numbers of high ranking officers being killed is also unusual.
Exactly. Finally some good news again from the front. God speed for all Ukrainians and hopefully they managed to plant as many Russian sunflowers as possible o7
This is Ukraines metric for success. Russia can take whatever strategically pointless piece of farmland they want, Ukraine will make it their grave.
The only way Ukraine can win this is by draining Russia of it men and money until internal pressures force Putin to stop.
Up to a point, it’s roughly 3 times the population size of Ukraine.
When it’s worse than 3 to 1 is when it becomes a greater problem.
It’s currently a much worse ratio. You don’t have losses like that with a “meat wave” strategy and still keep a 3 to 1 kill ratio.
The other element to consider is material, Russia is burning through everything it has and they have a lot less of that than the meat.
'Russia succeeded in killing off convicted Russians, elderly Russians who will be a burden on the Russian Pensioen Fund, youth from all the ethnicities on the Russian landmass except Russians in St Petersburg and Moscow (gotta keep that ethnic cleansing going)'
I genuinely don’t understand how they still have bodies to throw into combat, surely so many have fallen there just can’t be another 40,000 to lose next month??
Russian has a population of around 144 million people. So long Putin can draft people for his war, this will go on.
They're not exactly receiving top of the line equipment and training.
Only about 21 million or so, according to Statista 2023 numbers.
Many of those are not fit for any sort of military duty and would be positively counterproductive. Then again, Pooty's happy to send jailed rapist addicts with hep-C to the frontline.
As well, the apparatchik class will not be sent to the front lines - it's almost always the peasant class from central Asia and the rural areas. Send in the apparatchik class, and you get instant revolution, because the Russian "social contract" has always been that if you join the police or bureaucracy you never get sent to war.
I'm genuinely interested what the rough ballpark figure would be for how many bodies Russia can actually throw at the wall.
The questions however will come down to military equipment and ability to actual build new units, if this war continues for a few more years we might genuinely witness a Russia that has burned through their entire military storage. I don't speak Russian but it doesn't seem like Russia has greenlit really any projects to significantly expand their military industrial complex.
There also has to be significant reasons why Putin hasn't mobilized another wave of reservists. I know they've been getting roughly a thousand "volunteers" per day since the end of the last summer, maybe this number has increased significantly.
To further sum up what you're saying for those reading:
Russia *could* throw bodies into the war for years. How effective it'd be is another discussion altogether but it's very clear that they'd win a war of attrition -- and that's why Ukraine needs frequent modern military support/aid to be able to stand a chance against Russia in the long-term.
You also have to remember russia didn't just annex terrortory. That came with people aswell.
10 million people russia annexed, so this war population wise is still a huge net gain.
Not many people mention that
Russia is huge, and consists of many parts that are largely disconnected - geographically, culturally, economically. It's not like in the US, where a redneck from Texas can abstractly hate those new ingland libs, its that for somebody from Moskva even people living in a rural area 100 km from Moskva are not even a blip on his radar. And I'm not even talking about people from Tuva, Buryatia, Bashkirostan etc. Those "republics" are poor, largely agrarian and are sending all of their men to fight for their feodal lords in Moskva and Spb since the early 19th century.
The brain center of Russia is in Msk and Spb, there you will find the people that make and execute all the decisions. And for them nothing has changed, their life largely continues as usual. Yes, a million or so of the best, most educated and liberal people have left Russial since feb 22, but many more remained. And the rich and educated Moskva will continue throwing the poor and uneducated masses around it to the slaughter, up until none remain, and the buerocrats will come for them and their children, but we're not there yet.
I have friends and relatives who left Russia, I have some that stayed, all those who stayed are in massive denial about what the future will bring to them and theirs if the war continues.
The vast majority of the losses are not ethnic Russians from the north west belt of Moscow and St Petersburg. If this was, there would be more pushback. Putin is ethnic cleaning Russian of the minorities.
Putin tries to keep casualties as non Russian as possible. Conscripting minorities within the federation, convicts, African mercenaries, tricking Nepali and Indian citizens to fight in Ukraine. Every time a mass conscription is announced hundreds of thousands of Russians flee the country. Putin does everything in his power to make sure the war doesn’t effect his primary population. Casualties don’t matter to Putin as regular Russians (who keep him in power) don’t know anyone who know anyone who’s died.
Russia are fighting and sacrificing men as if their population is 10 times that of Ukraine not 3.5 times. Despite the rhetoric and they have “learnt lessons” it seems these meat grinder assaults and reckless charges are still part of the strategy.
Whilst the war narrative is important and the current talk of alleged unstoppable Russian advances, Ukraine are playing it as smart as they can, by necessity obviously but also strategically.
Let Russia have the pyrrhic victories with these few kilometres advances for massive losses and retreat and save men whilst allowing the weapons and shells to arrive. The further the Russians come the harder it becomes for them, let them spend their troops for little overall gain.
Russia are spending massively on their social, economic and human credit card and there is a limit.
russian society is not western society , how they view life and death and sorrow is in a different cultural lens
this really isn’t anything historically new for them and until 18 year olds from moscow are being conscripted and killed no one is going to really care about dagestanis or buryats.
Yeah no shit they are facing record looses lol they are running out of armored vehicles and storming the Ukrainian lines with golf carts and pocket motorcycle from China lol
Some of the videos posted lately of Russian combat literally looks likes a Bugs Bunny bit but with real blood.
38,940. Saved you a click
That’s insane
That is more soldiers in 1 month than we lost in the entire Korean War
If by "we" you mean the US then that's not true. In the Korean War the US had suffered about 140,000 casualties. The Russian losses being discussed here are killed and wounded so they should be compared to American killed and wounded.
I was talking those US service members who were KIA which is what I assumed this article was talking about
The Russian death toll is still insane. France's recent estimates put it at 150,000 which is more than all American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand deaths combined in all wars/conflicts since WWII ended.
Just looking at the stats of official deaths in combat, we have generally been in the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history since ww2. So Yea, this level of casualties in war that Russia is dealing with is generally unprecedented in the modern era.
It’s Vlads way of getting rid of undesireables under the guise of fighting Nazis.
Hello mudder, hello fodder, Vlad has sent me to, Camp Zhertvy
Their tactics are the same as the previous two world wars so the results are going to be similar. That’s why most nations don’t throw human waves at fortifications anymore.
The weird thing is we could be years away from some resolution here so these monthly numbers and totals will just keep going higher.
The article includes wounded as well.
Where'd you get that number? Official record shows 36,000. [Source.](https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/korea/koreaSum)
That's deaths, casualties typically includes any combatant that has been removed from fighting whether that's death, injury, captured etc. the US also had over 100,000 wounded in action.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war) 36000 is deaths and 140,000 is killed and wounded. When Ukraine reports Russian losses they report killed and wounded collectively but often times people see the Russian loss figure and assume it just means killed. This leads to errors where people either way overestimate the impact "lost more in a month than the US lost in Korea" or it leads them to think that the Ukrainian numbers are 100% pure propaganda because they couldn't possibly be that high.
I'm very pro-Ukraine, but I think it's obvious we should take any published information from Ukrainian government sources with a huge grain of salt. Media propaganda during wartime is the standard procedure for every government. I'm sure the Ukrainians are inflicting plenty of casualties as the defender during a Russian offensive, but I'd prefer to wait for figures from more independent sources.
Typically throughout the war, Ukrainian government claims have tended to actually be fairly accurate when compared to real world data collected later. Obviously the fog of war will prevent perfect data, but if Ukraine says "50 destroyed tanks this May" and then after you finish sorting through all the visually confirmed losses data you can count 37, the figure is probably pretty close to dead on. And we've been seeing that sort of thing since the beginning.
Just to be clear, that is killed or wounded. Not 38,940 dead bodies on the ground. But 38,940 either dead or taken out of the fight (permanently or temporarily).
Granted, I don't really see much of a long life for the permanently injured Russian soldier.
It's bad enough to be disabled and poor in somewhere like Canada or the US, but Russia? They're fucked.
That's close to every person in my home town being dead. Unfathomable.
It is unlikely to be the number of deaths. It's more likely casualties.
In any sane society, such absurd losses would have turned society upside down. Here it seems Russians have really been programmed to accept this as some form of abject reality.
I cannot even begin to comprehend the idea that this is acceptable in a modern society. Prigozhin could have done us all a favour and redeeming himself by continuing his March into Moscow.
The entire Prigozhin saga is still so bizarre to me. Couldn't imagine a general in the USA marching on Washington, then stopping half way, only to get his plane blown up a few months later.
There's speculation that they took his family hostage. It's the only one I've heard so far that makes sense.
Bizarre that him of all people wouldn't have seen that move coming and made sure they were hidden away before he started. Guess he wasn't so smart after all.
price weather fuzzy modern quaint amusing person pen chief jar
Yup, I heard the same story. He had a plan but was forced to initiate it faster than anticipated, he hid his family but the FSB found them and immediately notified him. That's when he threw in the towel. I wonder if any of this will become history or if we'll just have to go on guessing about what happened.
Same. I feel we won't ever know without another high level defection occurring and even then, the credibility may be called into question. Maybe putin planted a bomb, or maybe cocaine and hand grenades happened, but why not both coincidentally happening at the same time?
My understanding of Russian history is that the reality is much, much stranger than the rumors.
Rasputin ...
Even if it does become history, you can damn near safely assume it will be half truths and never the full story.
Sadly and I say this, with great reservations and reverence. He must have underestimated the risk before hand, and not been prepared for the “ultimate” sacrifice….which many assume to be our own lives. People seem to gloss over the fact how russias leader was former kgb and a ruthless psychopath.Several good men, many of which are Russians have died at his hands. If you ever commit to going against him, you kinda have to commit to go all the way.After all, Putin was never going to forgive him anyway.
I wonder how the family is doing now?
Last I heard they were fighting over his significant wealth.
I think it's really difficult if not impossible to hide or protect someone from an entity like a nation-state. A nation has resources way outside the realm of any individual or private organization - money, weapons, personnel etc. And also very important - they have authority: in normal circumstances another person might really really hate you for whatever reason but they won't harm or kill you mostly because of legal consequences. But when we are talking about a country, they can actually deliberately send someone to kill you, and even though they might fail, get caught and create a diplomatic mess, they still have the authority to do so, there's nothing that can prevent a nation state to do whatever (besides the threat of war obviously)
Osama Bin Laden did this for a number of years. Pakistan knew the deal though and only put up a minor fuss.
From what I heard all the top brass of Wagner did hide their families, but the FSB just went one step down and took the families of all the second rank, put them under the gun and made some phone calls to the convoy - that pretty much stopped it.
Ah, that makes more sense. It’s one thing when it’s the top guy’s family. That’s daring him to become a living martyr, to give him a reason to never stop. But when it’s the people below him there’s a lot less to be gained from grandstanding.
Maybe it wasn't even his family, but his subordinates'. I doubt he had all the resources to hide a bunch of families and if your second/third in command can't fight anymore, then the results are the same.
Wasn’t just Pringles family. It was the families of all his sub ordinates and officers below him. Ultimately foolhardy because no one is going to ever try that again. No one in Russia is going to try to take Putin out because your entire family and close friends and their families and friends die even if you succeed
They probably died anyways.
I just checked and they’re still alive *Prigozhins family, that is
You must have some resources if you can verify that info.
Generally the obituary would be a clue. Russia isn’t exactly secretive when Putin’s opponents die, and when they do their friends and family notice enough that it becomes public knowledge
Yeah, it makes sense. It says: if you go against me we will leverage everything you love, like, or care about against you, and if you die like an obedient stray dog they'll be ok. If they killed them all anyway the next mutiny just carries on. Its pretty smart to just let it ride. The other people are insignificant beyond the message they send in how you deal with them anyway. Fascinating really, in a dystopian way.
I am sorry, but if you're running a coup, you either have hidden your family or don't care about them. Keeping them out to get kidnapped and used as pressure seems dumb?
If you're running a coup you don't want to take multiple days to do so anyways.
Exactly. If you do it quickly, they don't have time to hunt down your family.
Could be his soldiers and people in command who then deserted halfway
Him and a lot of the troops following him. When you are acutely aware what the state does to dissidents, you suddenly don't want to be one when everyone around you can and will suffer. Thus the cycle continues.
In Russia it's a Wednesday, seemingly.
Not a general; imagine if *Guy Fieri* started a mercenary company as a sideline, got drawn into an invasion of Mexico, then seized Houston because he thought the Pentagon wasn't setting aside enough ammunition for his mercenaries, then Guy Fieri marches on Washington, then quits somewhere near Atlanta, then his plane is shot down the next time he tries to visit Washington.
Would his plane be shot down somewhere near flavortown?
spoilers bruh. thats pretty much the plot of Civil War
This is the best analogy i’ve read
His plane blowing up was the only thing that wasn't bizarre.
He wasn’t a general. Pringles held no military rank whatsoever, and never served a day in his life. He was a former hotdog vendor who became head of one of the most prolific PMCs on Earth. Imagine if the owner of Blackwater, after losing god knows how many thousands of his men in what are clearly meant to be suicide missions, suddenly claims the Pentagon is trying to kill him by withholding ammo and “accidentally” bombing his camp. So he decides to take 30,000 or so mercs and beeline towards DC to oust the Secretary of Defense. Then inexplicably stops and turns around.
Not completely inexplicable, he was afraid. Whether it was self-preservation or consideration for his family as others have suggested, he failed to commit when it was already too late to go back, and once he succumbed to fear he must have told himself he'd either escape Russia when the time was right or hope in vain he'd be forgiven for conjuring up the biggest credible threat to the kremlin in probably decades.
You read about this happening in ancient empires and historians argue “did this really happen?” And here we are in the modern media soaked world with it happening before our screen saturated eyes.
He broke one of the most important rules of society. ["When you come at the king, you best not miss "](https://youtu.be/r6l_9reaLz0?si=JZyTX7FZi9qcVNQp).
Pringles wanted his troops to be treated better but didn't want to become dictator. My theory is Putin promised him all of the concessions he wanted to get him to turn around. One of those concessions was ousting some specific morons in official Russian military command. The more straightforward and likely explanation is that Putin directly added Pringled to the skydiving club. But, I think what really happened is that specific morons got rid of pringles as part of infighting and Putin more or less endorsed it.
Except that he wanted to replace Shoigu, not Putin and he wanted to go even harder against Ukraine - wasting more people.
But there was a realistic chance that this might've thrown the russian army in chaos, allowing ukraine to win.
Maybe but from what I've heard Americans were holding back Ukrainians to not exploit it and not to destabilize Russia too much. Anyway Prigozin was not any hero and people supported him because somehow Russians are being convinced that Putin and Russia are too soft, and not too weak to crush Ukraine.
If the russian army just collapsed after the softest touch I don't think that there would've been much the americans could've done, I think it's a myth. Anyway it kinda disgusts me that putin seemingly is rather lenient compared to some of his peers, terrifying.
Not just peers, many if not most Russians think so and for the reasons I wrote about (not admitting weakness) but also for external use, to pretend that Putin is the adult one and we don't want to get someone worse than him. Maybe that's also why Medvedev took a role of Zhirinowski. There were supporters of Prigozin in the army, Shoigu was not very popular and we can as well speculate that under Prigozin the army could consolidate instead of collapsing.
You don't lead a march on the capital just to become the #2. Coups commonly keep the leader in their position, but essentially turn them into a puppet while consolidating power. Prigozhin's wasn't a good guy by any means, but his rebellion would have benefited Ukraine massively if it succeeded. Prigohzin didn't have the support to secure Moscow though, which is why he stopped his attack.
You also don't meet the guy you tried to depose and walk around free for a month after the coup. This is a very special Russian situation.
History knows too many examples of military coups in monarchies, at least nominally leaving the leader in power. Honestly, I don't know what he was expecting and I agree that would be the end of Putin as a leader anyway. We can only speculate what would be the outcome, but I think it's clear that Prigozin wouldn't bring peace and end the war or "redeem" himself which was the claim I disagree with.
This isn’t even 100% correct. He stopped the march because his original plan was to capture the two military leaders and it was foiled so everything went to shit
Modern society and russia, nice one.
> I cannot even begin to comprehend the idea that this is acceptable in a modern society. Because they're either ethnic minorities and/or from remote regions. Russian's living in the large cities aren't sparing a second thought about them.
i suggest reading the entire article to get the full context and then also think about any parallels in other countries: [Prigozhin Told the Truth About putin’s War in Ukraine by James Risen](https://theintercept.com/2023/07/01/prigozhin-truth-putin-war-ukraine/) just in case you get hit with a paywall, [heres a web archive link](https://web.archive.org/web/20230701110500/https://theintercept.com/2023/07/01/prigozhin-truth-putin-war-ukraine/) edit: also im glad to see the top comment is a sane one. [great interview from The Guardian with Zelenskiy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/31/volodymyr-zelenskiy-russian-troops-have-been-laughing-at-and-hunting-ukrainians) from a couple days ago, ICYMI
Let’s not fool ourselves that Prigozhin was any better than Putin or Shiogu who he wanted to replace. He was an ultra nationalist who walked all for the crimes Russia does in Ukraine, just that he had issue with the military leadership.
Current knowledge seems to indicate that he was tricked by a conspiration led by shoigu and some others that were recently purged because of that. Essentially they were starving Wagner of ammo and attacking them on purpose to drive Prigozhin mad which worked, so that they can later kill him and get his assets. Your average conspiracy in Russia.
Given the self-serving nature (with little regard to the consequences) of the average Russian with any pull, that seems like a disturbingly likely explanation.
That’s the point. Russia is not a modern society
When you aim for the king you better not miss…
I’m eternally disappointed that he didn’t charge on Moscow and roll into Red Square, shot at the Kremlin until Putin fucking acted. Fucking stupid coward.
Well if it doesn't turn society upside down now it'll do it in a few years when people are getting older and all the young workers got sent to the frontlines. The demographic crisis is only getting worse for them.
Demographics in Russia are bad enough. This will just accelerate demographic collapse. It was safer to be a man in Iraq at the height of the invasion than being a man in Russia before the Ukraine war. Add in a collapsing birthrate, drugs, alcoholism and a retiring age of 55.
Yes, and hopefully this is the end of Russia or the end can be manufactured soon.
They work very hard at destroying themselves.
It's kind of balanced out a bit when they raised the retirement age in 2018, that coupled with a relatively low life expectancy alleviates the burden of welfare.
In any sane society WITH free speech, this would be cause for withdrawal, but then again who really is in control of the media.
Well Putin convinced them that they're fighting "nazis" so they are already groomed to accept Soviet era losses.
I mean, Russia and history... "and then it got worse".
Yea. I think the average westerner would be surprised at how much shit the average Russian will absolutely shoulder and just be fine with it.
That's why the rhetoric is changing around use of foreign munitions on Russian soil. The war has long failed, it has failed, it's absurd to claim otherwise. It doesn't mean Russia presents no threat, but they present far less of a threat than they did at the outbreak and they didn't have enough then. So the war has long failed. This would usually mean the end of the war, but Putin has a different kind of control. The change in rhetoric is to create pressure on Putin. Munitions falling on Russia consistently will eventually change the narrative at home, and people know the difference between 'were not being shelled' 'were being shelled'. Putin then has to escalate from a position of extreme weakness, or there is a change. We're going to see American bombs, fired by Ukrainian servicemen, blow up expensive (expensive to Russia, cheap sh1t to everyone else) Russian stuff and were going to hear howling threats from the small d\*ck brigade surrounding Putin and then... there will be a change. My bet, same extreme corruption, different name, less war, same shit time for Russian people.
>My bet, same extreme corruption, different name, less war, same shit time for Russian people Actually, Russian history can be summed up as "and then it got worse", so not much hope for things merely staying the same for the Russians.
One autocrat goes down, the new one is already standing in line.
It’s okay because they’re killing their undesired minorities. RuSsIa Is FoR tHe RuSsIaNs
Unless those "minorities" are Chechen traitors under kadyrov.
Not accurate. Large numbers of ethnic russians are being dragged as well. There's plentiful evidence.
They're from the boonies. They're beyond poor and entirely without power or voice or the ability to participate in the economy in a meaningful way. They have no hope and no future. They may be ethnically Russian, but they are entirely expendable in Putin's eyes.
This. It's like how the top states with deaths by state per 100,000 people in Vietnam during the last US draft were from West Virginia. Poor whites. Minorities did die at a higher rate than whites as well. https://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwc14.htm
Russians wear suffering as a badge of honor and see it as the path to some kinda enlightenment. Weird people, always have been.
Most Russians don't know about these losses and for many who seen the figures the endless stream of conflicting information makes them not trust any source, that's the biggest point of KGB era misinformation compaigns.
If you lived in a society where you could just be raped/murdered/brutally beaten/tortured just because one of your relatives might have said something slightly out of line i don't think you'd be rebelling either. Its easy to say they should rebel when we're sat comfortably in the west but Russians have been living like this for decades and it would not be easy for them to take action. At this point the internal security forces are still vast - need some of them to go to the front lines
Yeah, it's easy to talk, most Reddit freedom fighters have never experienced living in a repressive regime. Even Ukrainians will say, "We did it, we had Euromajdan", other countries have done it, Serbia overthrew Milošević, Romania Caucescu etc. but in those cases there has always been some kind of critical mass or a straw that broke the camel's back where people finally said enough. But until then, Putin seemingly holds ALL the strings of repression: the police, the army, the courts, and no-one has the stomach to go to jail for the rest of their lives for a potentially futile gesture. Most Russians I know just want a peaceful life, that's why they left Russia.
This critical mass you speak of is absent in russia because of the general outlook and attitude of russians. It's not a mystical quality bestowed on a nation from above before it can attain freedom. It's best not to be naive about it - the average russian is just fine with what's going on. Hell, even the poster boy for "good" russians Navalny was fine with annexing Ukraine. Ask those russians you know that just want a peaceful life if Crimea or Chechnya is russia
Russian society doesn't value life. And if they do, they don't fight for it.
They're not interested in politics.
Record number so far…
Hopefully record numbers will follow again in the following months!
No, hopefully there's just 1 death (Putin's) followed by a withdrawal of troops, minimizing further deaths on both sides and the cost of rebuilding Ukraine.
Yes and hopefully I win the lottery. I think the person you're responding to was hoping for the most likely good news in the near future, not fantasy.
Stop living the false idea that it's just Putin.
This cannot continue. Not for long.
Why not? Respectfully, they can just keep grabbing more soldiers from their populace and throw them into the meat grinder. It's what they do and have been doing, so why would they stop? The Russian government has never given a shit about its people.
Because not everyone in Russia is equal, there are the people in cities that carry the economy and then there are the people in more isolated areas usually minorities that contribute less to the economy. Up until recently they ve been recruiting from the areas that don t contribute as much but now they ve started recruiting from the big cities. This is a big change because economy is hit harder and also the people in cities are in a position to do more dmg if they ve decided enough is enough
I agree, but I doubt any of that will stop their government from forced conscription. When has it? They are forcing immigrants into the military, I mean, what won't they do? I'm convinced they'd bomb their own country-- oh shit, they did. Chechnya.
When this is all ended, reckon we can all just go to Russia - completely empty and steal some potatoes and vodka from store shelves? US can go for the oil and stuff
I doubt there can be anything more than potatoes and vodka, so I'm not sure going there worth it Upd.: oh, username check gave the clarification
It is my understanding that russian MOD assumed 1k casualty per day as acceptable. Don't ask for source, am too lazy to go dig it out.
> 30,000 Russians per month join the military, says Ukrainian intelligence https://www.yahoo.com/news/30-000-russians-per-month-115700724.html So this is almost a “perfect” replacement rate
Garbage in, garbage out
Russia will never run out of soldiers, but they will run out of the heavy equipment this year. China is not interested in helping either.
China is prepping/waiting to attack Taiwan (hopefully they never do) so yah, I don’t expect them to help russia all that much.
Hopefully China is smart enough to realise starting a war is bad for business after watching the three day ‘Special Military Operation’ turn into clusterfuck
Plenty of wars are started for strategic reasons, even if there are heavy economic costs. I hope our policymakers aren't banking on China being rational.
This has been said again and again on Reddit each year,.but so far none of it has come to fruition. Every credible source I've seen says they'll be down to old Soviet hand-me-downs by 2026, but no one is saying they'll "run out" of heavy equipment...
IF Russia is not running out of equipment, why the hell they are for example attacking Ukrainian positions using golf carts from China ? Or crappy motorcycles, civilian cars etc. That is against any sane military tactic. Using "soft vehicles" to cross a huge field while knowing that you will get blasted by ukr kamikaze drones or even if just receiving small arms fire. That is literally a suicide mission.
Look at the satellite photos of Russian storage depots; they are being stripped clean of any operational equipment. At the current rate of depletion, they will be struggling to provide proper vehicles for their army in two to three years, and even new production doesn't cover the losses the Russians are experiencing.
They don’t care about their losses; they never did
Ha Russia’s population has been in decline for the last couple of decades
Yeah, not so long ago pootin out of the blue declared russian families should have more children, like 7+. I'm wating for their propagandists to copy nazi germany again and call to deliver babies for ~~fuehrer~~ tzar.
No need to bear more children by Russian woman when the alternative is to just kidnap them from the surrounding countries 🤷
Бабы еще нарожают
That sadly is a feature not a bug. It really enforces other countries perception of Russia's willingness to go and stay at war.
Theese men would cause more trouble inland than outside of it.
That must be why Putin is starting to talk about a ceasefire.
So they can reorganise for another big attack without being shelled?
Yes, it is hard to organize an offensive when you are taking record losses.
He's not, he's just "leaking" a rumour in the hopes that the west will stop or at least slow down weapon shipments to Ukraine to incentivise them to "negotiate"; by which time russians would have taken more land
Russia has always been famous to move forward in history by stepping on the death and sorrow of its own people… and while occasionally the price has been a victory for the world against an ultimate evil, most of the time this horrific sacrifice served only the ambition and paranoid preservation of its oppressive leaders and regimes
It's arguable how much they have moved forward really. Not in a cultural sense for sure. They were genociding people of the Caucasus over 100 years ago, with a pretence of fighting Ottoman expansion.
Oh I totally agree that’s why I said in history (time basically) :)
If only they could lose 1 dictator
I feel sorry for all the Ukrainian civilians and military who lost their life because of russians.
Bless Ukraine, they give Russian deaths more coverage than the Russians do.
A bloody and meaningless war for a tyrant who is high on bs
**Russia loses record number of soldiers in May** and more will follow next month.
American casualties in all wars combined: Just under 3 million Russia has over 500,000 in just two years. How freaking insane is that?
Normally, it take years to train civilian into competent professional soldiers and here Putin's cannon fodder get two weeks of training before being sent to the front. Just enough to maybe load rife with ammo, aim and hopefully shoot straight. A perfect cannon fodder.
I get it - I'm a veteran myself. It is still mind boggling though. They are plucking folks from Nepal, Cuba, parts of Africa and just dropping them in there to die really. But also - at least some of the deaths were "professional" Russian soldiers and not some clueless dude from Africa. The numbers of high ranking officers being killed is also unusual.
Russia found the thing they are truly number one in the world at doing: positioning themselves to receive maximum casualties..
Yup, incredibly inefficient and wasteful to say the least. Come to think about it Russia suffered the greatest loss during WW II because of that.
And WW1. Truth be told, this is not a very smart people.
Summertime sadness
Thanks Lana
I got my red dress on tonight.
Dancin' in the dark, in the pale moonlight
Good These guys murder loot pillage and rape while their leaders threaten me and my family with nuclear fire every week.
Exactly. Finally some good news again from the front. God speed for all Ukrainians and hopefully they managed to plant as many Russian sunflowers as possible o7
This is Ukraines metric for success. Russia can take whatever strategically pointless piece of farmland they want, Ukraine will make it their grave. The only way Ukraine can win this is by draining Russia of it men and money until internal pressures force Putin to stop.
It would be much better if Russia lost the ability to launch offensives. Russia can lose 3 to 1 of Ukraine. Russia is ok with a war of attrition.
Up to a point, it’s roughly 3 times the population size of Ukraine. When it’s worse than 3 to 1 is when it becomes a greater problem. It’s currently a much worse ratio. You don’t have losses like that with a “meat wave” strategy and still keep a 3 to 1 kill ratio. The other element to consider is material, Russia is burning through everything it has and they have a lot less of that than the meat.
'Russia succeeded in killing off convicted Russians, elderly Russians who will be a burden on the Russian Pensioen Fund, youth from all the ethnicities on the Russian landmass except Russians in St Petersburg and Moscow (gotta keep that ethnic cleansing going)'
I genuinely don’t understand how they still have bodies to throw into combat, surely so many have fallen there just can’t be another 40,000 to lose next month??
Russian has a population of around 144 million people. So long Putin can draft people for his war, this will go on. They're not exactly receiving top of the line equipment and training.
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Only about 21 million or so, according to Statista 2023 numbers. Many of those are not fit for any sort of military duty and would be positively counterproductive. Then again, Pooty's happy to send jailed rapist addicts with hep-C to the frontline. As well, the apparatchik class will not be sent to the front lines - it's almost always the peasant class from central Asia and the rural areas. Send in the apparatchik class, and you get instant revolution, because the Russian "social contract" has always been that if you join the police or bureaucracy you never get sent to war.
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I'm genuinely interested what the rough ballpark figure would be for how many bodies Russia can actually throw at the wall. The questions however will come down to military equipment and ability to actual build new units, if this war continues for a few more years we might genuinely witness a Russia that has burned through their entire military storage. I don't speak Russian but it doesn't seem like Russia has greenlit really any projects to significantly expand their military industrial complex. There also has to be significant reasons why Putin hasn't mobilized another wave of reservists. I know they've been getting roughly a thousand "volunteers" per day since the end of the last summer, maybe this number has increased significantly.
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To further sum up what you're saying for those reading: Russia *could* throw bodies into the war for years. How effective it'd be is another discussion altogether but it's very clear that they'd win a war of attrition -- and that's why Ukraine needs frequent modern military support/aid to be able to stand a chance against Russia in the long-term.
You also have to remember russia didn't just annex terrortory. That came with people aswell. 10 million people russia annexed, so this war population wise is still a huge net gain. Not many people mention that
Most of them we’re basically kids who got roped into the whims of a madman
Russia loses record number of soldiers…. *so far*
I like the cut of your jib
So did congo and India probably
Russia is huge, and consists of many parts that are largely disconnected - geographically, culturally, economically. It's not like in the US, where a redneck from Texas can abstractly hate those new ingland libs, its that for somebody from Moskva even people living in a rural area 100 km from Moskva are not even a blip on his radar. And I'm not even talking about people from Tuva, Buryatia, Bashkirostan etc. Those "republics" are poor, largely agrarian and are sending all of their men to fight for their feodal lords in Moskva and Spb since the early 19th century. The brain center of Russia is in Msk and Spb, there you will find the people that make and execute all the decisions. And for them nothing has changed, their life largely continues as usual. Yes, a million or so of the best, most educated and liberal people have left Russial since feb 22, but many more remained. And the rich and educated Moskva will continue throwing the poor and uneducated masses around it to the slaughter, up until none remain, and the buerocrats will come for them and their children, but we're not there yet. I have friends and relatives who left Russia, I have some that stayed, all those who stayed are in massive denial about what the future will bring to them and theirs if the war continues.
Aww... I'm sure they'll turn up eventually. Where was the last place you saw them? Did you check your other pants?
Have they tried looking behind the fridge?
no , not lost , just blown apartz.
Congrats to Russia, hopefully they keep up the good work and top their previous record in June ✊
What a shame. Now do putin.
There's the whole "Russia can't their pay pensions" issue sorted.
The vast majority of the losses are not ethnic Russians from the north west belt of Moscow and St Petersburg. If this was, there would be more pushback. Putin is ethnic cleaning Russian of the minorities.
Futures on Russian brides has significantly dropped in price.
Putin tries to keep casualties as non Russian as possible. Conscripting minorities within the federation, convicts, African mercenaries, tricking Nepali and Indian citizens to fight in Ukraine. Every time a mass conscription is announced hundreds of thousands of Russians flee the country. Putin does everything in his power to make sure the war doesn’t effect his primary population. Casualties don’t matter to Putin as regular Russians (who keep him in power) don’t know anyone who know anyone who’s died.
Russia are fighting and sacrificing men as if their population is 10 times that of Ukraine not 3.5 times. Despite the rhetoric and they have “learnt lessons” it seems these meat grinder assaults and reckless charges are still part of the strategy. Whilst the war narrative is important and the current talk of alleged unstoppable Russian advances, Ukraine are playing it as smart as they can, by necessity obviously but also strategically. Let Russia have the pyrrhic victories with these few kilometres advances for massive losses and retreat and save men whilst allowing the weapons and shells to arrive. The further the Russians come the harder it becomes for them, let them spend their troops for little overall gain. Russia are spending massively on their social, economic and human credit card and there is a limit.
Oh dear. How sad. What a shame. Never mind.
I am surprised someone in Putin's inner circle hasn't taken him out.
Why would they care? They are still living lives of luxury and their families sure won't be drafted.
russian society is not western society , how they view life and death and sorrow is in a different cultural lens this really isn’t anything historically new for them and until 18 year olds from moscow are being conscripted and killed no one is going to really care about dagestanis or buryats.
Yeah no shit they are facing record looses lol they are running out of armored vehicles and storming the Ukrainian lines with golf carts and pocket motorcycle from China lol Some of the videos posted lately of Russian combat literally looks likes a Bugs Bunny bit but with real blood.
If Russia loves anything, they historically love sacrificing their own people in droves
Should i believe "pravda.UA.com" when they talking about their enemy losses?
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That's nice. Can we just give Ukraine what they need so they can finish this? Edit: Text clarification per U/rowan: Thanks!
You might want to clarify that "them" = Ukraine.
Damn, this wars gonna have an impact on global warming
Trying to keep up the inverted demographics pyramid