Casualties, shamulties, scamulties.
Since Ukraine is losing by every measurable REAL metric, we retreat into the realm of make belief casualties like in Vietnam: https://youtu.be/jeKQvfnrFGw?si=DoT_T2CAd7VRruVc
The problem with that is Ukraine has nearly the same casualties, despite us avoiding that subject, AND Russia with 3.5 TIMES the population can absorb those casualties while Ukraine cannot.
Ukraine’s true casualties can be guestimated. Casualty notification of family, a burial, and the local papers are still happening. What you have is a blackout of those numbers at the national level where they are aggregated for Ukraine, while you get hyper inflated numbers not even remotely realistic for the Russians in our entirely factual and non-propagandist media which is willing to play along with the Ukraine. These stories are intended to keep up morale.
There are websites which aggregate these numbers for you: https://ualosses.org/
Since all these casualties can be looked up and you can find the names listed elsewhere as casualties, it makes it fairly believable.
BUT the true casualties are far worse, since these numbers are the KIA and MIA, not the WIA which almost always are far higher in a bigger conflict like this. In Ukraine you’re looking at about 5:1 WIA (serious injury which takes you out of the fight) for every KIA (based on CSIS). They likely are basing this off historical data they tweak and generally higher than this. Considering some of the issues plaguing both sides in this conflict (casualty evac can be difficult in the era of drones and massive proliferation of MANPADS etc.) as well as access to high level medical care.
If you look at the Newsweek leaks you realize Russian casualties were about 1/3 - 1/2 what were being reported in our media at the time for Russia, and the leaked documents were the information which our government actually believed to be true at the time: https://www.newsweek.com/2023/05/05/read-leaked-secret-intelligence-documents-ukraine-vladimir-putin-1794656.html
In 2023 Russia was likely in the ballpark of 2:1 to Ukraine’s favor, which is far from the 3.5 needed just to break even. However, since then, Russia has backed off with the big offensive campaigns since they have largely achieved their goals 1.) Seize the more ethnic Russian areas of East Ukraine. 2.) Block NATO accession by Ukraine.
It was NEVER a war of complete destruction or to take over all of Ukraine, nor invade NATO countries, and that was clearly stated by Putin, Lavrov, etc. That’s something our side made up to stir up fear, show we succeeded in some way, etc. We may as well claim we won because Russia hasn’t taken Paris.
It has been Ukraine that went on a casualty heavy offensive which failed 23-24, while Russia adapted its tactics and fielded new equipment which counters the effectiveness of some of our high tech toys, example Excalibur.
If anything, it is most likely that the casualty ratio has narrowed!
You can make up your own goal posts, move them, or throw around make belief figures to feel good...
Meanwhile, Ukraine is running down kids in the streets because they are scraping the bottom, changing their conscription laws twice, and Russia is relying overwhelmingly on contract soldiers and implemented a troop rotation schedule a good year before Ukraine did (hint: these are fairly solid indicators on who is actually more hard up).
A good imagination is healthy, but it can also make you believe things which aren’t so.
red6 “It was NEVER a war of complete destruction or to take over all of Ukraine”
That is incorrect. Putin prior to 2021 has always been repeating that he doesn’t see the other East slavic states as “valid entities” separate from Muscowy.
He wants them absorbed - the same “gathering of the Rus” project that Ivan III started. The Muscowites then expanded that to “gathering of the Eastern Orthodox” and “gathering of the Slavs”
The aim in Feb 2022 was to behead Ukraine and swallow it whole.
Muscowy has partially got what it wanted in Bialorus with the “Union state” - look it up - and wanted the same in Red Rus (Ukraine).
As an ever expanding state, it has to constantly look for expansion otherwise it collapses.
Defensive forces suffer less casualties, and they have better access to emergency medical care that assault troops.
Ukrainian FPV and night bomber crews are very effective against Russian assault troops since they have to break cover to assault, and that is deadly in a drone patrolled battle field.
Russian KIA numbers far exceed Ukrainian KIA numbers along the front lines.