180,000 Dead

From the Moscow Times:

“U.S. Estimates Russian Casualties in Ukraine Nearing 200K – NYT”

U.S. and other Western officials estimate that close to 200,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded in Ukraine nearly one year into Moscow’s invasion of its western neighbor, The New York Times reported Thursday.  “The figures for Ukraine and Russia are estimates based on satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and on-the-ground media reports, as well as official reporting from both governments,” the newspaper said.

Hundreds of both Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed or injured each day recently as fighting rages for the eastern city of Bakhmut, the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s invasion, the officials estimate. U.S. officials say Russia's losses in its assault on Bakhmut far outpace the strategic value of the city, which Moscow appears to view as instrumental to capturing the entire Donetsk region of Ukraine. The Russian military has been following the Wagner mercenary group’s playbook by sending poorly trained troops and former convicts “straight into the path of Ukrainian shelling and machine guns” in order to “draw, and deplete Ukrainian fire,” the American officials were cited as saying. Wagner is estimated to have recruited 50,000 troops, a share of whom were personally recruited from Russian prisons by the mercenary outfit’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

But even hundreds of thousands of losses will not alter President Vladimir Putin’s war aims due to an abolished political opposition and the framing of his invasion of Ukraine as an existential struggle, analysts say. “From an operational perspective, this is a very unfair deal for the Ukrainians and a clever tactical move from the Russian side,” Kusti Salm, Estonia’s deputy defense minister, said last week. “In Russia the life of a soldier is worth nothing,” Salm told the NYT in a follow-up email. “All lost soldiers can be replaced, and the number of losses will not shift the public opinion against the war.”

The Russian military placed its death toll at under 6,000 in its most recent acknowledgment of its losses in September. Open source-based media tallies have verified more than double that number of deaths. U.S. officials cited by the NYT warn that Russia and Ukraine’s troop deaths are difficult to assess accurately due to the belligerents’ tendency to downplay their own battlefield losses. But if true, the newspaper notes that Russia’s 11-month campaign would have claimed eight times the number of American soldiers lost in the two decades of Washington's war in Afghanistan.

^ In the past 11 months of War 180,000 Russian Soldiers have been killed and another 20,000 Russian Soldiers have been wounded.

The reason more are killed and not wounded is because the Russians simply leave their wounded behind where they fall rather than evacuate them to Field Hospitals.

More Russian Soldiers have died in the past 11 months in Ukraine than in the past 78 years (if you include the Soviet Union’s Wars) or in the past 32 years (if you just include Russia.)

The Russian Government also leaves the vast majority of their dead in Ukraine rather than repatriate them to Russia so they can be buried by their Families – that way they can hide the number of dead and wounded from their own Citizens (the Soviet Government did the same thing during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War.)

Some Russian Families are spending $1,000-$4,000 US Dollars (when the average Russian only makes 32,422 Rubles or $460.96 US Dollars a year) to hire Russian Volunteer Groups  - made up of Former Soldiers and the Elderly – that go into Russian-Occupied Ukraine and try and find the dead Soldier and bring them back to their Family in Russia.

The Families do not receive Government War Pensions because in Russia Putin made it illegal to even call the Russian War in Ukraine a “War” it can only be called a “Special Military Operation” and anyone who calls it a “War” can go to a Forced Labor Penal Colony for 15 years.

Until the Ordinary Russian Citizen stops accepting Putin’s brainwashing and removes him from power the Russian Soldier will continue to die as War Criminals and Cannon Fodder in Ukraine.

The real Victims in all of this are the Ukrainians themselves. They didn’t go into Russia and attack them, but had Russia go into Ukraine and attack them.

Around 100,000 Ukrainian Soldiers have been killed by the Russians defending their homes from Invasion, Attack and Occupation.

An estimated 30,000 Ukrainian Civilians (Men, Women and Children) have been murdered by the Russians  - through bombings, torture and mass murder. ^

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/us-estimates-russian-casualties-in-ukraine-nearing-200k-nyt-a80136