WHY ARE SO MANY IN THE WEST LYING ABOUT UKRAINE’S CASUALTIES?

A Son of tge America Revolution ^ | 15 Feb 23 | Larry Johnson

[delta7]

I am fascinated by guys like Wes O’Donnell, who publish delusional nonsense without offering one piece of credible evidence. O’Donnell, who claims to have served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force, put up a piece at Medium last week with the catchy title, Putin’s Death Cult Prepares for Huge Casualties in the Coming Days.

Here are some salient points from his article:

The Russian army just suffered the deadliest 24 hours since the start of the war. According to Ukraine, 1,030 Russians were killed yesterday as Moscow continues to throw thousands of freshly mobilized soldiers into the meat grinder.

This brings the Russian death toll to 133,190. . . .

In an intelligence update given on Tuesday, the UK Ministry of Defense said Russian forces have “only managed to gain several hundred meters of territory per week,” because the Kremlin “now lacks the munitions and maneuver units required for successful offensives.” I guess research is not Mr. O’Donnell’s strong suit. Instead of looking for independent sources he repeats the lies from the British Ministry of Defense, which gets its “intel” from the Ukrainians. If you accept the Ukrainian truth you are convinced that the Russians are being slaughtered at a horrendous rate. Only one little problem — I have been unable to find any Russian social media that shows mass graveyards and thousands of grieving Russian relatives.

O’Donnell also relies on the propaganda generated by the Institute for the Study of War (a new competitor for Oxymoron of the Year Award). He makes this outlandish claim:

Perhaps most interesting is how Putin is using conscripts in this war counter to traditional Russian military doctrine. Historically, Russia’s “trigger-pullers” have been its professional corps of contract troops — while conscripts were reserved for menial tasks like manual labor and maintenance.

But in Ukraine, it’s the conscripts who are sent to the front while the contract troops stay safely “in the rear.” Well, as Chris Berman used to say on ESPN, “Let’s go to the videotape.” Here is a video of Wagner Group “contract” soldiers in the midst of the battle in Bakhmut packing up the corpses of fallen Ukrainians. You can hear the noise of battle in the background. Odd isn’t it. Instead of desecrating the bodies of their adversaries, the Russian contract soldiers treat the dead with respect as they secure the bodies to send them back to their loved ones. (You can see a Ukrainian flag on some of the caskets.)

Here is the rest of that story. Those caskets are headed to western Ukraine and will be buried in graveyards like the following:

I want to reiterate the inability of Ukrainian and Russian authorities to control social media. The ubiquitous cell phone camera provides a powerful tool to record events as they happen. If Russians were dying in the numbers claimed by Ukrainian sources we would be seeing that on social media. We are not. At least not in the number that appear on Ukrainian channels.

I am not suggesting that Russia is casualty free. Russian soldiers are being killed and wounded. But not in the volume that Ukrainian soldiers are. Ukrainian claims about Russian losses is just another manifestation of psychological projection.

[buwaya]

A NATO Army?

So the Ukrainian brigades are filled with US, UK, French, etc? In the hundreds of thousands?

And somehow this is secret knowledge?

[BroJoeK]

"They were eliminated - Russia is now fighting a NATO army."

There are foreign troops on both sides and there's no way to tell which side uses more foreigners.
There are also foreign countries supplying both sides, with Russia receiving military aid from China, Iran and North Korea, to name a few.

Calling Ukraine's military a "NATO army" is pure wishful thinking, since for all their courage, Ukraine's army is nowhere near to approaching the standards NATO sets for its own forces.

[BobL]

“Calling Ukraine’s military a “NATO army” is pure wishful thinking, since for all their courage, Ukraine’s army is nowhere near to approaching the standards NATO sets for its own forces.”

All I know is that NATO stores of arms are being DEPLETED, BIG TIME. Perhaps they’re not going to the Ukrainians - so maybe we’re arming the Russians?

[davidb56]

NATO has trainer and armed Ukraine for 8 years and thats a fact. But I doubt if there is 1% of actual Nato advisors/troops there in battle. Now Poland is known to have frontline advisors...how many...who knows.

[BroJoeK]

"Our tax dollars are being used to bring suffering and ruin to both countries, while Zelensky and his cronies get rich. None of which is in our interest."

I've seen it claimed that the world's richest man is not Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, but rather Vladimir Putin, with secret assets & accounts everywhere.
It's also claimed that Russia benefits more by high energy prices than it loses by Western sanctions, and so their war is justified on economic grounds alone.

As for Ukraine, I've seen no reports suggesting Zelinski is as corrupt as Joe "the big guy" OBiden, much less corrupt on the scale of Vlad the Invader.

So you really can't use corruption as an argument against Ukraine.

As for American interests, what's in our vital national interest is that Russia's invasion of Ukraine fail, and thus discourage China from invading Taiwan and any other two-bit tin-horn dictator from invading their weaker neighbors.

If Russian aggression is stopped in Ukraine, the world will be a better place.
If aggression wins in Ukraine, we will see much more of it in many other places.

That would not be in our national interest.

[Salvavida]

Who can you believe?

---

There are schools and manuals dedicated to that question. It is apparent few FReepers have grasped that, or are even curious how to obtain that skill.

Instead......confirmation bias. They pick the data that supports their preference.

This would actually be an amazing topic: How do you evaluate a source? How do you pick a data stream? Of all the people talking, who do you go to, and why?

[CFW]

I don’t believe any of them. For all I know, the Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are sitting over there drinking vodka and partying together while enjoying our money.

[McGruff]

Because Ukraine is almost lost and they need something to lie about to keep the Billions of dollars flowing.

[Right Brigade]

What a Waste of so many Young Lives!
So much Promise Destroyed by Evil Greedy Men!

[Navy Patriot]

Europe, including Ukraine, is just history repeating it's self.

Humans can't help repeating mistakes because LAST TIME, the wrong people were in charge.

[Navy Patriot]

Says Uke.

[House Atreides]

“ The best number I can come up with Ukraine has lost between 65,000 to 85,000 men and about the same number wounded. Russians killed as of this afternoon are listed at about 125,000 to 140,000 men with well over 250,000 killed and wounded.”
*******************************************************************************

LOL - Did you get those numbers from your OUIJA BOARD? 🤣🤣

[familyop]

Russian occupiers lose 690 soldiers, helicopter and 6 tanks in one day
THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2023

[Rdct29]

There's a good documentary on YouTube that follows a bunch of different Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines. These guys were in small units with no more than 10 guys. They would put out anti personnel mines and the Russians would cut the wires. That would force the Ukrainians to go back to rewire them only 300 yards from the Russian lines. I knew the Ukrainian soldier was going to get killed before he finished. I don't know why he thought he could go out there while the Russian soldiers were waiting for him to return. It was a bad idea. The guy was brave but it was suicide to go out there with no covering fire from machine guns, mortars and artillery. I don't understand why they they sent him out like that.

[Widget Jr]

Neither side is talking openly about its casualties.

If Ukraine's casualties were as high as Johnson and others have said every few days since the beginning of the war, Russian flags would have flown at the Polish border by the end of last March.

If Russia's casualties were low, then there would not have been a mobilization, hundreds of thousand's of draft eligible males leaving Russia, or Wagner's sustained small scale human wave tactics.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Because Ukraine is almost lost and they need something to lie about to keep the Billions of dollars flowing.

BINGO! Next see more “False Flag” events. Hitler-Putin using poison gas, Targeting Children, Rape squads to attack brave Ukrainian women soldiers, Dirty Nuke bombs, Vacuum Bombs on Schools and hospitals, Poison wells and water supply, etc... In Truth Zelensky NEEDs a “Lusitania Moment” to secure western support and armies. Without them, they will be bled dry by Russia—over time. Without Western aid how long would Ukraine last? A week? a Month? Can the west keep this up for years? Do they want too?

[BroJoeK]

"All I know is that NATO stores of arms are being DEPLETED, BIG TIME.
Perhaps they’re not going to the Ukrainians - so maybe we’re arming the Russians?"

Chinese, Iranian and North Korean military aid is going to Russia, and democratic countries worldwide support Ukraine.
Both Russians and Ukrainians have foreign units in their armies and we don't know which army uses more foreigners.

As for depleting NATO military stocks, it's decades long past time that NATO countries increase their defense spending -- as Pres. Trump insisted.

1. Today 10 NATO countries, including Germany, spend barely 1% of GDP on defense.
2. Another 10 NATO countries, including France, spend less than 2% of GDP on defense.
3. Another 7 NATO countries, including the UK, spend less than 2.5% on defense.
4. Only the US and Greece spend more than 3% on defense.
   
5. US defense spending, now circa 3.5%, is down from nearly 9% during Vietnam, 6% during President Reagan's Cold War buildup and nearly 5% during the War on Terror.

None of these numbers make sense in light of highly aggressive dictatorships -- Russia, China, Iran and others -- moving to achieve their dreams of empire through military conquest.

[BroJoeK]

"NATO has trainer and armed Ukraine for 8 years and thats a fact."

Sure, and Russia receives military aid from China, Iran, North Korea and others.
But to claim Ukraine is a "NATO army" is equivalent to calling Russia a "Chinese army".
It's political hyperbole, not a real fact.

[BroJoeK]

"Says Uke."

"Uke Nazi" is a Russian propaganda fantasy.
Anyone who uses the term seriously, has self-identified as an insane babbling idiot.

And they let you in the navy? Whose navy?

[BobL]

“None of these numbers make sense in light of highly aggressive dictatorships — Russia, China, Iran and others — moving to achieve their dreams of empire through military conquest. “

Good numbers in your posting - people in the West are ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS as to how degraded their militaries have become, and that INCLUDES political leaders - as they’re now learning that Walmart doesn’t stock 155mm shells and so it will be YEARS before their emptied stockpiles (much of which was left for them by men) can be replenished.

So that leads to the simple question: Why pick fights with Russia and China when our militaries have degraded to such decrepit levels - even Hitler and FDR first built up their militaries before starting wars.

Answer - sheer stupidity, and I, for one, would not mind seeing these leaders get SPANKED, probably for the first time in their sordid lives.