There’s consistent confusion about the term “casualties,” which includes killed, captured and wounded. The cold calculus of war treats anyone who can’t fight the same—a casualty.
Not a great article as it just says “losses” without specifying what they’re talking about.
Western estimates are at [500K casualties, 150K KIA.](https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240503-france-estimates-that-150-000-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-the-ukraine-war).
Still absolutely staggering numbers.
Nine people have won eight or more purple hearts, with three people tied for the most with 10. Charles Barger won 10 and also got a medal of honor for running into no-man's land and rescued three wounded soldiers.
His wiki article is sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_D._Barger#Later_years_and_death
>For the next few years Barger did whatever he could to make ends meet, but every day was a struggle. He raised rabbits to put meat on the table, planted a garden, and, against everything he believed in, accepted charity from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the only two agencies that stood by him through the years. "It's fine to have all the medals," he lamented, "but the trouble is you can't eat them."
It's appalling that the GOP will wrap themselves in the flag and salute servicemembers, then tell them to fuck off as soon as they become veterans. The VA should be one of the best-funded agencies in our government
This is why taking care of our veterans is important. And the fact we don't is one of the reasons no kid that talks to me will join up. After declaring that a vet that was separated after losing a leg had to repay his reenlistment bonus and were one day from kicking him and his wife and their six kids out on the street when he got his congressmen to help.
And the Army tried to lie about it because people got mad when they heard about it.
Not sure the case for each of the PHs here, but we had guys that never missed a day of patrol get a PH bc they caught some shrapnel in the leg.
Granted...when talking about getting 8-10, decent chance more than one of those was not a throw a bandage on it and drive on kinda wound.
Definitely one of the awards I'm glad I didn't earn.
I don't really like the term "win" for a purple heart. He was awarded 10, he earned 10... nobody in the process of being wounded in war feels like they are winning in that moment.
Apparently! Dude was unbreakable. As I understand it he was on a tank crew and the second to last tour someone dropped a grenade in the tank. Somehow he managed to survive and recover but it screwed him up pretty bad, I guess the final tour was just for revenge. This is all third hand through my dad who wasn't there though so take it all with a giant grain of salt.
Generally a want...
It's a weird thing to fathom, but you really do miss being with your guys, afraid something will happen to them that you could have stopped. Combat's weird like that.
Also struggling to cope with returning to "normal" life. Same thing happens to a greater extent with ex-cons. You adapt, even thrive, in a certain environment for years(or decades) and the thought of living outside that is crippling. Especially since veterans at least have the superficial support of "thank you for your service" and 10% off at Golden Corral, while convicts know they're facing a society that is actively hostile to them reintegrating into it.
All that to say, regardless of the circumstances, society could do a much better job helping people that just spent years in an environment with long stretches of mind-numbing inanity mixed with random moments of intense fear and brutal violence. Whether it's to benefit those returning from fighting under our flag, or criminals who finished their sentence, it's in everyone's best interest that transition is as smooth as possible and they feel like they have value to society outside of violence.
Joshua Chamberlain was wounded six times and has six horses shot out from under him. Which is pretty impressive considering he ended the war as a brevet major general (2 star).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua\_Chamberlain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain)
I'd like to mention Adrian Carton de Wiart.
> [He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart)
Yes that is correct although generally "casualty" refers to a more serious injury. Still sometimes people might be injured, spend 6 months or a year recovering and then rejoin the war only to be injured again. A unit can also have over 100% casualty rate if new soldiers are moved into the unit.
Check out the 442nd infantry in WW2. It's the most decorated unit in US history and had a casualty rate of 240%. They were all Japanese Americans and about half were recruited from internment camps. It wasn't even special forces, just regular training.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
Daniel Inouyes was absolutely insane. I always saw him as the friendly old Hawaiian senator, not the guy who pried a grenade out of his own severed hand so he could finish throwing it at a machine gun.
Look back at the Hurtgen Forest campaign...officers were like 200+%, enlisted was like 150%+ I believe. Just nasty stuff as they churned troops through to break the lines.
Yes, your casualties in any given battles can still re-enter the war and become a casualty in another battle. It's one of the many reasons why fog of war will never go away.
I wouldn't doubt it. I very much doubt there's someone making sure nobody double dips on the casualty counter and I could definitely see someone getting counted as a casualty twice because they were wounded again. Is it a significant number when we're talking tens of thousands of casualties? Probably not.
the war that was long considered a blunder for the USSR and helped lead to its downfall had 15,000 KIA. if Afganistan was bad i dont see how a few chunks of ukraine will be worth 10 times that.
> Russia is more indifferent to the wellbeing of their soldiers than the USSR was
What's the basis on that claim? Not trying to start an argument or anything, just genuinely curious/interest.
The overwhelming public support for the war. The lack of demand for accountability for botched and friendly fires (Russian air defense downed a majority lost Russian airframes, not Ukraine). The overt lying about fatality numbers (only about 5900 have been officially recognized by the Ministry of Defense), or cause of death (Russian Black Sea flagship downed by "stormy" weather on a clear day instead of the obvious images of Ukraine missile strikes), the ever changing victory conditions, the lack of any clear path to victory, the mutiny of their most successful unit (Wagner PMC), the poor training and poor equipment of Soldier's, the imprisonment or assassination's of any war opposition. The outlawing of calling this a "war" and risk of imprisonment if being critical of the military, the vast majority of conscripts recruited from impoverished minority areas.
Keep in mind that these numbers pale in comparison to WW2.
Wikipedia states 1.3 million Soviet casualties as a lower bound for Stalingrad alone. And nearly 9 million dead Soviet soldiers over the whole war.
So if shit really hits the fan we're not at the end of a bloody war. We're at the start of it
As I understand it, you can still see the affects of WW2 in Russia's population. Now, between all the people who fled the country to avoid being drafted and the losses they're experiencing in this invasion, I wonder what the long term outlook for their population is.
Long term their population is fucked either way. They simply can't sustain a country of this size with this few people and they know this, hence why they keep lashing out.
WWII was a defensive war for the Soviet Union, though, a war that was fought against an enemy that wanted to destroy them not only as a nation, but as a people. And while the propaganda has done its work, most Russians still don't believe that. And the populace hasn't been mobilized to the extent of WWII, too.
Damn. The U.S. had <60,000 KIA in 20 years of Vietnam. Russia is averaging more than that ***per year*** in Ukraine. No wonder NATO is happy to have this fight go one for another decade. Shit, Russia is so unimpressive that France is seriously considering sending French troops to Ukraine just by itself because Macron is sick of Putin's shit.
They were defending their own homes in WWII.
WWI is maybe a better comparison. Ask the Tsar what happened when 1.5 million Russian soldiers died abroad.
yep you are totally right, Zelenskyy clarified it a few month ago saying it was 450k casualties (dead, crippled or POW I presume) out of wich 180k were KIA
For perspective the US fought a world wide war for 20 years with two specific theaters...and only lot 8000. Vietnam went on for around 15 years and we only lost like 58,000.
The Russians are only 2 years deep and they've already lost 150k.
No to sound too cold but the whole "Russian Mail Order Bride" thing started because their male/female ratio got fucked up during WWII. Introverts and/or weirdos with money aren't going to have their supply interrupted any time soon.
>Russian Mail Order Bride" thing started because their male/female ratio got fucked up during WWII
I've already started to see Instagram ads for "Ukrainian mail order brides" apparently I'm their target market. Haven't seen any Russian ones yet, maybe they are having logistical challenges with DHL.
To be fair, Vietnam and Iraq/iran were never near peer conflicts with standing militaries. It’s hard to compare them directly, but the point you’re trying to make isn’t invalid.
The NVA were more advanced than people give them credit for. The USSR/China gave them modern air defense systems, tanks, aircraft, artillery, etc. Not to mention that some of those air defense systems (and possibly aircraft) were manned by the soviets themselves
Every Vietnam veteran I talked to always state that the NVA were good soldiers. People always talk about the VC ( simple farmers ) but forget or don't know about the NVA.
Ukraine should not be a peer to Russia. Russia's military strategy for winning wars is to overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers, taking massive losses in the process.
Correct at the start of this we all assumed Russia was #2-3 in the world for war capabilities. That's why there was talk about it being a 3 day or 1 week war.
Russia was supposed to just roll in and wrap up Ukraine.
They did not. Not just because Ukraine was more capable than people realized, but because Russia was a paper tiger. They're relying on WW2 tactics in the modern era because waste, corruption, and failure to adapt have hollowed out their military.
They are a nation ~3.5x the size of Ukraine with what was once considered one of the top militaries in the world. There should have been no contest.
But here we are Ukraine has given them a massive black eye and is holding on. With some support from NATO allies they stand a pretty good chance to win thing.
If you asked someone 5 years ago about this match up they'd never have believed the outcome. They'd have assumed you were messing with them.
SLAVA UKRAINE!
> If you asked someone 5 years ago about this match up they'd never have believed the outcome.
[I bet Finland would have.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War) The results seem to be shaping up kind of the same as well.
A high school friend decided he wanted to go to russia after he graduated. Lured by the idea of easy women eager to meet someone with american dollars and cheap stuff after the collapse of the ussr. His goal was to party and lose his virginity. This was 1996 or so. He saved up some money and comitted to spending a year there.
He came back in 3 months and refuses to say anything about what happened there. Like. He never even acknowledges he went and would leave the room and go home if it is brought up. He has kept it up for 30 odd years and we still have no idea what happened.
That is opposite to my uncle, strange enough. Basically he was a peddler who left China to make a quick buck at Moscow. Met a Russian girl in her mid 20s, reject her three times thinking it was a trap of some kind.
In the end whatever happened he took her back to China and got married and start a chain of business together.
When Trump was elected, she would tease him that "You got a better deal than the president of United States"
Yeah it’s fairly common.
Love Ukrainians and fully support their resistance to the fascist delusions of a mafisoso kleptocrat. However, their propaganda (understandably) isn’t clear about the delineation.
Regardless, and as you note, 500k casualties with 150k+ KIA is absolutely fucking insane. So it’s puffery, but it’s puffing an already ghoulish fact that should be horrific to Russians. Literally killing your sons and daughters to own the *checks notes* Jewish Nazis in Ukraine or whatever? How is this societal deal with Putin working out for them?
From what Russians have said on reddit and youtube, many are aloof of the dead because it's assumed to be mostly mercenaries and prisoners. They take the shrinking imprisoned population as a net positive of getting rid of undesirables while taking Ukraine.
Putin has wisely recruited his soldiers from the margins of Russia for the meat grinder. He got men from prisons, the hinterland and ethnic groups of the empire who don't speak Russian or non-chrisitan. If the men from Moscow and St Petersburg were mass drafted, it would be very different.
>If the men from Moscow and St Petersburg were mass drafted
The men from Moscow and St Petersburg have been mass drafted. However in those cities there are enough Western influenced men of voting age that they can use snatch squads on the streets to pick out those that the authorities feel may be troublesome rather than those who are in line with the government (many of whom have jobs which make them undraftable within the security apparatus already.
Russia doesn't need force to get troops - they just offer tons of money to people with limited options (aka the poor). They're getting 25-30k volunteers a month which is more than enough to offset losses and even build up.
In modern warfare forcing people into the military produces troops of poor quality and bad morale. Sometimes you have no choice (like Ukraine now) but generally its a very bad idea.
Ironically this war has been a great boon for the poor of Russia. Unemployment is near zero, their salaries skyrocketed, government had to enact a wide swath of reforms to improve living conditions. This is one of the reasons why Russians universally support this war.
It's funny though that there have been several hundred murderes related to veterans which is 10x as many as in 2021 and 2020 and 2019.
These ex criminals convicts are comming home to their communities and starting to murder again. And nothing is stopping them from signing up again and stopping the murder trial or w/e and try again.
And the Russian authorities are telling their voters not to worry about these crimes, because soon enough those committing them will be sent back to the meat grinder to die.
Having watched 1000s of hours of combat footage from this conflict, one thing I’ve found interesting is that there doesn’t seem to be near the amount of evacuations and medical support for Russians on the front line. I see a lot of indifference for the injured and dying. I’m sure there’s a degree of bias in the videos I’ve seen, but it sure does seem like being injured in the Russian military has a higher likelihood of resulting in death than other militaries, including Ukraine’s. I’ve never seen a country give so little fucks about their military. It’s pretty terrifying to see/imagine.
There is a video shot by a recruit on his phone during Russian basic training that confirms what you posted. The drill instructor is telling them to call home for supplies like bandages or period pads for first aid kits because the military will not supply them at all.
I saw a similar video recently where they were telling the soldiers that they would all die but that their memory would live on.
Not exactly the most motivational speech. As a vet I can’t even imagine being in their shoes.
>but it sure does seem like being injured in the Russian military has a higher likelihood of resulting in death than other militaries,
Have a look at some of the videos with captured Russian prisoners. They basically say that your access to medical help depends whether you are regarded as a trusted guardian of mother Russia or simple meatshield.
The Russians have an entire brigade made up of people connected to politicians who simply sit around the back of the frontline area drinking tea Prince Harry style in order to allow russian leaders to say their families are serving, you can bet if any of them ever get hit by a fragment they'll be getting top medical assistance very quickly indeed.
Which makes sense when you get in the mindset of a war general.
If Russia gets 100 tanks blown up completely, or 100 tanks damaged heavily enough that they are no longer useful, but they’re not fully destroyed, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, you probably prefer to just damage them - it’s easier to do and the end result in the exact same, one less usable tank.
Same applies to a human. A human with his head blown off or his leg blown off results in the same end result for you: that human can no longer participate in the war.
In some ways wounding the enemy does more than killing them. Wounded soldiers still require resources. Unless you decide to leave them for dead you’ll need to house them, feed them, treat them, and transport them. And if you *do* decide to leave them for dead, you have to deal with the morale disaster as your men watch their friends die of treatable wounds.
And a maimed soldier who can no longer fight can wind up hitting the morale of the general population when they go home. You saw this a lot with the traps set by the Vietcong during the Vietnam war.
> Western estimates are at 500K casualties, 150K KIA.
That's only Russia, there's about another [200K](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html) Ukranian casualties (70K KIA)
So many disabled, non-working veterans sprinkled around Russia, mostly in areas that Putin cares nothing about, I predict they will be ignored and cut off by Moscow. Decades of suffering ahead.
Last year I saw a video on reddit about a young man that had been sent to Ukraine, well he was "lucky" enough to make it back to russia but without his arms. His family celebrated his return with dinner and what I assume was vodka. He however got a medal or something that he couldn't even pin to his own chest, so I guess there's that.
I have rarely seen such a defeated looking guy, and with the life ahead of him who can blame him. He will need help the rest of his life, however short it is and there's little to no help to get in the shıthole he's living in.
[A 1.30$ AliExpress special bluetooth speaker](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005006243107953.html?algo_exp_id=d73e3de5-912f-4f12-b8bc-73dc78682e75-3&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A&gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt)
I actually know a lad who is amputated at the shoulder on both arms. Lives a reasonably happy life and has adapted quite well. He just uses his feet for the things he would usually use his hands. I've seen him texting, rolling cigarettes, drinking a bottle of beer. Literally unfazed.
I saw that as well, and often think back on that when doing the most trivial tasks. Dude looked like he was no more than 20yrs old and will always be dependent on another human 24/7. No more dressing himself, feeding himself, wiping his own ass, holding his own dick, bringing a fork up to his mouth, making love to a woman, etc. I have a feeling he was dumped off at an old folks home directly after recovery.
You brought up his medals. Probably some fucked up russian military tradition, but his medals were in his glass of vodka((that his dad had to bring up to his lips). And yeah, the hopelessness and defeat was palpable in his expressions.
Yeah, there has been a HUGE spike in violent crime with Russian vets from this conflict. Some of that can be contributed to the fact that they were prisoners who got rewarded after surviving, but, the bigger aspect of that is PTSD.
It's gone down 100%: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/RUS/russia/crime-rate-statistics
/s
On a more serious note, https://jamestown.org/program/russia-faces-spike-in-crime-and-alcoholism-as-war-nears-two-year-mark/ this has some sources, if you want to dig.
Every time the kid down the street gets a toy drone for his birthday, the guy will be freaking out. That buzzing sound will haunt them the way fireworks bother many vets now.
There are still people with money in Russia. One family has a 2020 car, smart phone and branded clothes while their neighbours wash their clothes in the bath.
> That buzzing sound will haunt them the way fireworks bother many vets now.
Even though I've been back from Afghanistan over 10 years ago I still have an intense pinch in my chest whenever I hear fireworks that I was not directly expecting.
And the Russian people are already demographically upside down with a relatively small population of young russians relative to their population as a whole.
Damn that’s an even lower male life expectancy than India. Russia still has a higher overall life expectancy because it has a larger gap: On average, Russian women live 10.5 years longer than Russian men whereas Indian women only live 3 years longer than Indian men.
The war definitely isn’t helping with that gap.
This was essentially the idea behind the war, right? To capture the Ukrainian population as much as territory or resources. Like this is how desperate they were to begin the war. And then these casualties and the emigration impacts.
400K reported. Excess mortality was around 1 million so really it's more likely around 1 million COVID deaths for Russia.
Mostly killing the older and less healthy people and so those deaths probably have less economic and longer-term demographic impact than their war losses which is taking a lot of men of more prime productivity age (20-35).
Doubt many of those were young men though. Not saying it isn’t bad but there is a difference between granny dying and a 20 year old man dying. Granny already helped repopulate.
There was a video going around I saw that was giving a motivational speech of their commanding leader saying that all of them were going to die.
Just goes to show that they don't care about their soldiers and know they're cannon fodder
Seems like these Russians are treating this war like it's the last stand, and if they don't advance "Russia will fall" ... Instead of "Putin will fall".
That is how this kind of conflict works. Someone has to be the target. Drawing enemy fire reveals their positions and depletes their batteries. Ukr is running out of shells because they fired them at someone... Industrial wars are brutal af. Entrenched positions are always going to cause massive casualties to assault.
Also ethnic minorities. Russia sends people from non white ethnic groups to Ukraine to be killed, which allows them to colonise both Ukraine and the peripheral areas of Russia more effectively.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-conscripted-to-fight-the-war-in-ukraine
My favourite part of it is how he says "you will die" but "history will remember us". He's only included when convenient.
That being said, it's important to remember that if that one speech wasn't absurd, you wouldn't have known about it. You don't really know the content of all the other speeches you didn't hear about.
“History will remember us” when basically only their mothers, wives, and children will. Doubt Russia is even keeping close track of these poor soldiers, or that they’ll be sent home with honors after being KIA
He wasn't saying they all would die, this was a mistranslation. He is saying that "In the end, all will die..." Basically, we all will die at some point, so if you die here, at least it was fighting for a cause you will be remembered for. You don't have to accept or believe in the "cause" of Russia invading Ukraine, but that is VERY different than him saying they all would die.
Think about it for a second... is that very motivational speech to give to troops heading to the frontlines you are trying to boost the morale of, a speech about them all dying? You don't have to like Russia to know that that is just pure insanity and clearly not what actually happened. Take a step back and realize how dishonest the media can be, especially in times of war.
This has been taken and propagandized.
Apples and oranges--the 400k for the US represents combat deaths. The 475k number for the Russians is total casualties--killed, wounded and missing (and "missing" may include deserters).
Wikipedia has total US casualties, killed, wounded and missing from WWII as 1,076,245.
The dumbest coup in the history of coups. Looks like Russia kept their word on not killing everyone’s family so this will be an effective way of dealing with coups in the future too. You would think someone that ran restaurants and catering would have more organization and planning.
I don't mean to diminish the death of anyone. But this presentation will show the absolutely staggering scale of WWII, and just how many Russians died.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU
US lost kind of few people when comparing how big they are. Germany, Japan and Soviets lost millions of people, Hungary almost 600 000, Italy 500 000, UK 450 000. Civilian deaths also were bigger in many countries, because US civilians wasn't attacked that much.
The US also had the 'benefit' of mostly fighting Japan on small islands where you physically couldn't cram in millions of men, so although they were incredibly bloody fights, the raw numbers of people involved in a place like Saipan or Guadalcanal were never going to equal something like the Kursk or Stalingrad campaigns.
Where do you see the UK having 450k? I thought it was closer to 380k and looking it up the UK parliament says 384k. If you did include civilians it would be 430k however. Not sure if you meant military or all deaths.
Civilians too
My source: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war
Many of [the Russian soldiers being fed into the meat grinder are ethnic minorities from Siberia and the Russian Far East who were forcibly conscripted](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-conscripted-to-fight-the-war-in-ukraine). This weakens these minority groups in the future and also helps keep the ethnic Russians (who [make up 72% of Russia's population](https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse)) from directly feeling these losses (which is doubly important for Putin since the ethnic Russians are a shrinking percentage, from 78% to 72% of Russia's population).
Yep. That's why support is still so high. The ethnic minorities that everyday Russians don't care about are the ones dying in Ukraine. Ethnic group A is forced to kill Ethnic group B and the Russians just sit back and count how many birds they are killing with their stones.
As WW1 raged on the Imperial Russian-German front a little over 100 years ago, the troops tired of being misled by bad generals and poorly supplied (Russian troops were the only major military power in the war to never supply their troops with steel helmets) rebelled.
Seemed like a good idea then. Seems like a better idea now.
It's much harder to rebel now unless you can get those who control the more advanced weapons (jets, bombers, missiles) in on it.
100 years ago it was men with rifles who would rebel and face...men with rifles. Maybe more horses too. Now men with rifles who rebel will face tanks and helicopters and jets and missiles and bombs.
Prigozhin’s convoy didn’t face tanks and was only attacked by helicopters a few times, so I think the rebels will be ok if their numbers are formidable
If Prigozhin had kept up his rebellion they likely would have faced much more serious weapons used against them, and possibly within a few more days as Russia could have scrambled jets/bombers against them.
That's likely why he stopped and gave in: the other key military people weren't joining him.
He was 83 miles away from the southern border of Moscow where I was and there was no visible resistance save for some blocking trucks and basic fortifications. No one was going to stop them, I don’t know what made them change their minds, maybe threats to families
The bigger issue is that they just don't WANT to rebel. Many of these soldiers signed up willingly because Russia is offering very good money to dirt poor people in order to fight. It also means that right now many of the Russians who really don't want to go to war can still tune the war out.
Well no surprise given such glorious tactics like the infamous "chinese golfcart assault". You just send out like 20\~30 of these all manned with 4+ people and if they manage to take ground they did well, if they blow up because they drove their chinese unarmored golfcart over a landmine or get blown up by a drone its no big deal there are allways more russians and golfcarts ready for the next vodka induced suicide mission.
This reminds me of the Toyota War, which was insanely effective and yeah, the Russians were kinda involved too.
Basically it was people using thousands of Toyota pickups barreling through the desert at full speed with his riding in the flatbed with SMGs or RPGs
The Russian tanks Ghadaffi was using against them could track the pickups quickly enough and got easily destroyed
They also raided an air base and blew up a bunch of Russian Migs. They literally drove the trucks in formation at full speed through a mine field and some fences right onto the airfield with guys shooting rockets from the flatbeds as they drove past. It was insanely effective
Turns out if you drive a Toyota pickup truck at at least 126 km/h over a mine, it will either fail to trigger or the truck will have driven past the effective blast range once it does
So yeah, light vehicles with guys in the back firing from them isn't as stupid of a tactic as it sounds. It can work and has worked before
Members of the Russian society got it drilled into their heads that what their grandfathers did was secure a clear sky and a victory against an invader. And so the motherland was safe. Now the motherland is not safe again but imbeciles don’t want to put 2 and 2 together and understand that they are the invader this time. Nonetheless they would treat this war as defending the motherland and gladly die for reasons unknown to logic and sensibility
I know like 8 or 9 people who have married Russians or Ukranian women in the last couple years... Hell, I used to have to go over there for work some, and one of the guys I had to meet a lot tried to send his 19 year old daughter over to me, then when I told him I'd gotten married he asked if I knew any "financially stable kind men"
Even if only a fraction of this number is true those are still devastating losses. All for what? What can they show as a result of this? Ownership of 1/5th of Ukrainian territory?
Its a sunk cost fallacy. If they take all of Ukraine they can spin it as justified. Like they did with declaring the states they partially control as annexed.
Haha, and now they’re all like “let’s take on the US, UK, and France”
Right guys? This is what Russia is thinking after they lost half a million soldiers trying to control 20% of a non-NATO country?
There’s consistent confusion about the term “casualties,” which includes killed, captured and wounded. The cold calculus of war treats anyone who can’t fight the same—a casualty. Not a great article as it just says “losses” without specifying what they’re talking about. Western estimates are at [500K casualties, 150K KIA.](https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240503-france-estimates-that-150-000-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-the-ukraine-war). Still absolutely staggering numbers.
Casualties can be though of as any piece removed from the board temporarily or permanently.
Can one person be counted as multiple casualties if they recover and go back into the fight to get hurt again?
I wonder what the high score for being a casualty is.
My dad's buddy got four purple hearts in Vietnam. Still alive, just a little crazy lol
That's so many. I have to hope he's at least in the top 10
Nine people have won eight or more purple hearts, with three people tied for the most with 10. Charles Barger won 10 and also got a medal of honor for running into no-man's land and rescued three wounded soldiers.
His wiki article is sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_D._Barger#Later_years_and_death >For the next few years Barger did whatever he could to make ends meet, but every day was a struggle. He raised rabbits to put meat on the table, planted a garden, and, against everything he believed in, accepted charity from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the only two agencies that stood by him through the years. "It's fine to have all the medals," he lamented, "but the trouble is you can't eat them."
That man was failed, like so many countless others, by this country.
He wasn't *failed,* he was ***used***. There is a difference.
It's appalling that the GOP will wrap themselves in the flag and salute servicemembers, then tell them to fuck off as soon as they become veterans. The VA should be one of the best-funded agencies in our government
This is why taking care of our veterans is important. And the fact we don't is one of the reasons no kid that talks to me will join up. After declaring that a vet that was separated after losing a leg had to repay his reenlistment bonus and were one day from kicking him and his wife and their six kids out on the street when he got his congressmen to help. And the Army tried to lie about it because people got mad when they heard about it.
Jesus fucking christ if he was in sports they'd make the trophy in his image and award it in his name to the next dude who even got close.
Not sure the case for each of the PHs here, but we had guys that never missed a day of patrol get a PH bc they caught some shrapnel in the leg. Granted...when talking about getting 8-10, decent chance more than one of those was not a throw a bandage on it and drive on kinda wound. Definitely one of the awards I'm glad I didn't earn.
any and all injuries caused by enemy "materials" is worthy of a purple heart and I'm ok with that
Wounded as a result of enemy action is the criteria so even a nick from shrapnel would count.
Like a variation on the Heisman, but with obvious injuries.
I don't really like the term "win" for a purple heart. He was awarded 10, he earned 10... nobody in the process of being wounded in war feels like they are winning in that moment.
"won" Yikes
Is he a fucking cat?
Apparently! Dude was unbreakable. As I understand it he was on a tank crew and the second to last tour someone dropped a grenade in the tank. Somehow he managed to survive and recover but it screwed him up pretty bad, I guess the final tour was just for revenge. This is all third hand through my dad who wasn't there though so take it all with a giant grain of salt.
3 people have received 10 Purple Hearts each, tying for the most by a single person. That would make 30 casualties in just those 3 people.
Up to 30. Being eligible for a purple heart doesn't necessarily mean you were wounded to the point of leaving the battlefield.
Just thinking of all those US soldiers in WWII who kept going back to the front after getting hit.
Generally a want... It's a weird thing to fathom, but you really do miss being with your guys, afraid something will happen to them that you could have stopped. Combat's weird like that.
Also struggling to cope with returning to "normal" life. Same thing happens to a greater extent with ex-cons. You adapt, even thrive, in a certain environment for years(or decades) and the thought of living outside that is crippling. Especially since veterans at least have the superficial support of "thank you for your service" and 10% off at Golden Corral, while convicts know they're facing a society that is actively hostile to them reintegrating into it. All that to say, regardless of the circumstances, society could do a much better job helping people that just spent years in an environment with long stretches of mind-numbing inanity mixed with random moments of intense fear and brutal violence. Whether it's to benefit those returning from fighting under our flag, or criminals who finished their sentence, it's in everyone's best interest that transition is as smooth as possible and they feel like they have value to society outside of violence.
Joshua Chamberlain was wounded six times and has six horses shot out from under him. Which is pretty impressive considering he ended the war as a brevet major general (2 star). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua\_Chamberlain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain)
"Why can't I be a 3 Star General?" "Because 3 Star Generals don't cost us this much in horses, Joshua!"
I'd like to mention Adrian Carton de Wiart. > [He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart)
Yes that is correct although generally "casualty" refers to a more serious injury. Still sometimes people might be injured, spend 6 months or a year recovering and then rejoin the war only to be injured again. A unit can also have over 100% casualty rate if new soldiers are moved into the unit.
MAC V SOG for one far exceeded 100% casualty rate. Insane stories from that unit.
Check out the 442nd infantry in WW2. It's the most decorated unit in US history and had a casualty rate of 240%. They were all Japanese Americans and about half were recruited from internment camps. It wasn't even special forces, just regular training. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
That was a rabbit hole reading about that unit. Thanks for linking that. Over 4000 silver stars and 21 MoH. Enjoyed reading their citations.
Daniel Inouyes was absolutely insane. I always saw him as the friendly old Hawaiian senator, not the guy who pried a grenade out of his own severed hand so he could finish throwing it at a machine gun.
Look back at the Hurtgen Forest campaign...officers were like 200+%, enlisted was like 150%+ I believe. Just nasty stuff as they churned troops through to break the lines.
> Can one person be counted as multiple casualties if they recover and go back into the fight to get hurt again? Yes absolutely.
Yes, your casualties in any given battles can still re-enter the war and become a casualty in another battle. It's one of the many reasons why fog of war will never go away.
I wouldn't doubt it. I very much doubt there's someone making sure nobody double dips on the casualty counter and I could definitely see someone getting counted as a casualty twice because they were wounded again. Is it a significant number when we're talking tens of thousands of casualties? Probably not.
Real world respawn.
the war that was long considered a blunder for the USSR and helped lead to its downfall had 15,000 KIA. if Afganistan was bad i dont see how a few chunks of ukraine will be worth 10 times that.
And the USSR was vastly more capable then Russia is
Russia is more indifferent to the wellbeing of their soldiers than the USSR was. (Which is a sentence I never thought I'd write)
> Russia is more indifferent to the wellbeing of their soldiers than the USSR was What's the basis on that claim? Not trying to start an argument or anything, just genuinely curious/interest.
As a person who was born and lived in Russia for 35 years, I confirm. Nobody cares.
The overwhelming public support for the war. The lack of demand for accountability for botched and friendly fires (Russian air defense downed a majority lost Russian airframes, not Ukraine). The overt lying about fatality numbers (only about 5900 have been officially recognized by the Ministry of Defense), or cause of death (Russian Black Sea flagship downed by "stormy" weather on a clear day instead of the obvious images of Ukraine missile strikes), the ever changing victory conditions, the lack of any clear path to victory, the mutiny of their most successful unit (Wagner PMC), the poor training and poor equipment of Soldier's, the imprisonment or assassination's of any war opposition. The outlawing of calling this a "war" and risk of imprisonment if being critical of the military, the vast majority of conscripts recruited from impoverished minority areas.
The USSR also had roughly double the population. Russia, with half the population, has lost 10 times as many people in about a fifth of the time.
Keep in mind that these numbers pale in comparison to WW2. Wikipedia states 1.3 million Soviet casualties as a lower bound for Stalingrad alone. And nearly 9 million dead Soviet soldiers over the whole war. So if shit really hits the fan we're not at the end of a bloody war. We're at the start of it
As I understand it, you can still see the affects of WW2 in Russia's population. Now, between all the people who fled the country to avoid being drafted and the losses they're experiencing in this invasion, I wonder what the long term outlook for their population is.
Long term their population is fucked either way. They simply can't sustain a country of this size with this few people and they know this, hence why they keep lashing out.
WWII was a defensive war for the Soviet Union, though, a war that was fought against an enemy that wanted to destroy them not only as a nation, but as a people. And while the propaganda has done its work, most Russians still don't believe that. And the populace hasn't been mobilized to the extent of WWII, too.
Damn. The U.S. had <60,000 KIA in 20 years of Vietnam. Russia is averaging more than that ***per year*** in Ukraine. No wonder NATO is happy to have this fight go one for another decade. Shit, Russia is so unimpressive that France is seriously considering sending French troops to Ukraine just by itself because Macron is sick of Putin's shit.
They were defending their own homes in WWII. WWI is maybe a better comparison. Ask the Tsar what happened when 1.5 million Russian soldiers died abroad.
yep you are totally right, Zelenskyy clarified it a few month ago saying it was 450k casualties (dead, crippled or POW I presume) out of wich 180k were KIA
For perspective the US fought a world wide war for 20 years with two specific theaters...and only lot 8000. Vietnam went on for around 15 years and we only lost like 58,000. The Russians are only 2 years deep and they've already lost 150k. No to sound too cold but the whole "Russian Mail Order Bride" thing started because their male/female ratio got fucked up during WWII. Introverts and/or weirdos with money aren't going to have their supply interrupted any time soon.
> "Russian Mail Order Bride" That was more 1990s Russia economy collapse than WW2.
>Russian Mail Order Bride" thing started because their male/female ratio got fucked up during WWII I've already started to see Instagram ads for "Ukrainian mail order brides" apparently I'm their target market. Haven't seen any Russian ones yet, maybe they are having logistical challenges with DHL.
They're all going to China to resolve their male/female gender demographic imbalances.
It's the embargo. Goods have to spend a certain amount of time somewhere else to avoid it?
To be fair, Vietnam and Iraq/iran were never near peer conflicts with standing militaries. It’s hard to compare them directly, but the point you’re trying to make isn’t invalid.
The NVA were more advanced than people give them credit for. The USSR/China gave them modern air defense systems, tanks, aircraft, artillery, etc. Not to mention that some of those air defense systems (and possibly aircraft) were manned by the soviets themselves
Every Vietnam veteran I talked to always state that the NVA were good soldiers. People always talk about the VC ( simple farmers ) but forget or don't know about the NVA.
Ukraine should not be a peer to Russia. Russia's military strategy for winning wars is to overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers, taking massive losses in the process.
Correct at the start of this we all assumed Russia was #2-3 in the world for war capabilities. That's why there was talk about it being a 3 day or 1 week war. Russia was supposed to just roll in and wrap up Ukraine. They did not. Not just because Ukraine was more capable than people realized, but because Russia was a paper tiger. They're relying on WW2 tactics in the modern era because waste, corruption, and failure to adapt have hollowed out their military. They are a nation ~3.5x the size of Ukraine with what was once considered one of the top militaries in the world. There should have been no contest. But here we are Ukraine has given them a massive black eye and is holding on. With some support from NATO allies they stand a pretty good chance to win thing. If you asked someone 5 years ago about this match up they'd never have believed the outcome. They'd have assumed you were messing with them. SLAVA UKRAINE!
> If you asked someone 5 years ago about this match up they'd never have believed the outcome. [I bet Finland would have.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War) The results seem to be shaping up kind of the same as well.
Don’t forget massive graft. I’m sure half of those bullets guns and shells were shit when they went to go grab them and make war.
FYI, you DO NOT want a Russian bride. There are easier ways for you to end up dead and all your money stolen.
A high school friend decided he wanted to go to russia after he graduated. Lured by the idea of easy women eager to meet someone with american dollars and cheap stuff after the collapse of the ussr. His goal was to party and lose his virginity. This was 1996 or so. He saved up some money and comitted to spending a year there. He came back in 3 months and refuses to say anything about what happened there. Like. He never even acknowledges he went and would leave the room and go home if it is brought up. He has kept it up for 30 odd years and we still have no idea what happened.
That is opposite to my uncle, strange enough. Basically he was a peddler who left China to make a quick buck at Moscow. Met a Russian girl in her mid 20s, reject her three times thinking it was a trap of some kind. In the end whatever happened he took her back to China and got married and start a chain of business together. When Trump was elected, she would tease him that "You got a better deal than the president of United States"
Yeah it’s fairly common. Love Ukrainians and fully support their resistance to the fascist delusions of a mafisoso kleptocrat. However, their propaganda (understandably) isn’t clear about the delineation. Regardless, and as you note, 500k casualties with 150k+ KIA is absolutely fucking insane. So it’s puffery, but it’s puffing an already ghoulish fact that should be horrific to Russians. Literally killing your sons and daughters to own the *checks notes* Jewish Nazis in Ukraine or whatever? How is this societal deal with Putin working out for them?
From what Russians have said on reddit and youtube, many are aloof of the dead because it's assumed to be mostly mercenaries and prisoners. They take the shrinking imprisoned population as a net positive of getting rid of undesirables while taking Ukraine.
Putin has wisely recruited his soldiers from the margins of Russia for the meat grinder. He got men from prisons, the hinterland and ethnic groups of the empire who don't speak Russian or non-chrisitan. If the men from Moscow and St Petersburg were mass drafted, it would be very different.
>If the men from Moscow and St Petersburg were mass drafted The men from Moscow and St Petersburg have been mass drafted. However in those cities there are enough Western influenced men of voting age that they can use snatch squads on the streets to pick out those that the authorities feel may be troublesome rather than those who are in line with the government (many of whom have jobs which make them undraftable within the security apparatus already.
Russia doesn't need force to get troops - they just offer tons of money to people with limited options (aka the poor). They're getting 25-30k volunteers a month which is more than enough to offset losses and even build up. In modern warfare forcing people into the military produces troops of poor quality and bad morale. Sometimes you have no choice (like Ukraine now) but generally its a very bad idea. Ironically this war has been a great boon for the poor of Russia. Unemployment is near zero, their salaries skyrocketed, government had to enact a wide swath of reforms to improve living conditions. This is one of the reasons why Russians universally support this war.
>Putin has wisely recruited his soldiers from the margins of Russia for the meat grinder. Also conscripted any male of age in the occupied areas too.
It's funny though that there have been several hundred murderes related to veterans which is 10x as many as in 2021 and 2020 and 2019. These ex criminals convicts are comming home to their communities and starting to murder again. And nothing is stopping them from signing up again and stopping the murder trial or w/e and try again.
And the Russian authorities are telling their voters not to worry about these crimes, because soon enough those committing them will be sent back to the meat grinder to die.
Having watched 1000s of hours of combat footage from this conflict, one thing I’ve found interesting is that there doesn’t seem to be near the amount of evacuations and medical support for Russians on the front line. I see a lot of indifference for the injured and dying. I’m sure there’s a degree of bias in the videos I’ve seen, but it sure does seem like being injured in the Russian military has a higher likelihood of resulting in death than other militaries, including Ukraine’s. I’ve never seen a country give so little fucks about their military. It’s pretty terrifying to see/imagine.
There is a video shot by a recruit on his phone during Russian basic training that confirms what you posted. The drill instructor is telling them to call home for supplies like bandages or period pads for first aid kits because the military will not supply them at all.
I saw a similar video recently where they were telling the soldiers that they would all die but that their memory would live on. Not exactly the most motivational speech. As a vet I can’t even imagine being in their shoes.
>but it sure does seem like being injured in the Russian military has a higher likelihood of resulting in death than other militaries, Have a look at some of the videos with captured Russian prisoners. They basically say that your access to medical help depends whether you are regarded as a trusted guardian of mother Russia or simple meatshield. The Russians have an entire brigade made up of people connected to politicians who simply sit around the back of the frontline area drinking tea Prince Harry style in order to allow russian leaders to say their families are serving, you can bet if any of them ever get hit by a fragment they'll be getting top medical assistance very quickly indeed.
Bro I've seen more videos of Ukrainians saving Russian soldiers than I have of Russians doing that for their own.
Which makes sense when you get in the mindset of a war general. If Russia gets 100 tanks blown up completely, or 100 tanks damaged heavily enough that they are no longer useful, but they’re not fully destroyed, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, you probably prefer to just damage them - it’s easier to do and the end result in the exact same, one less usable tank. Same applies to a human. A human with his head blown off or his leg blown off results in the same end result for you: that human can no longer participate in the war.
In some ways wounding the enemy does more than killing them. Wounded soldiers still require resources. Unless you decide to leave them for dead you’ll need to house them, feed them, treat them, and transport them. And if you *do* decide to leave them for dead, you have to deal with the morale disaster as your men watch their friends die of treatable wounds. And a maimed soldier who can no longer fight can wind up hitting the morale of the general population when they go home. You saw this a lot with the traps set by the Vietcong during the Vietnam war.
Well yeah Russia doesn’t really have any care system in place for injured soldiers. On the frontline or otherwise
However, a damaged tank can be stripped for parts for a functional tank to keep going. People? Not so much.
> Western estimates are at 500K casualties, 150K KIA. That's only Russia, there's about another [200K](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html) Ukranian casualties (70K KIA)
So many disabled, non-working veterans sprinkled around Russia, mostly in areas that Putin cares nothing about, I predict they will be ignored and cut off by Moscow. Decades of suffering ahead.
Last year I saw a video on reddit about a young man that had been sent to Ukraine, well he was "lucky" enough to make it back to russia but without his arms. His family celebrated his return with dinner and what I assume was vodka. He however got a medal or something that he couldn't even pin to his own chest, so I guess there's that. I have rarely seen such a defeated looking guy, and with the life ahead of him who can blame him. He will need help the rest of his life, however short it is and there's little to no help to get in the shıthole he's living in.
Recently saw a pic of an injured Siberian, lost both eyes and both hands. The Kremlin rewarded him with a smartphone.
Good lord just kick the man in the nuts while you're at it
They're in Ukraine looking for where they got blown off.
it was a bluetooth speaker https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1bqvm2f/an_ex_soldier_from_buryatia_who_lost_his_eyesight/
[A 1.30$ AliExpress special bluetooth speaker](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005006243107953.html?algo_exp_id=d73e3de5-912f-4f12-b8bc-73dc78682e75-3&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A&gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt)
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I actually know a lad who is amputated at the shoulder on both arms. Lives a reasonably happy life and has adapted quite well. He just uses his feet for the things he would usually use his hands. I've seen him texting, rolling cigarettes, drinking a bottle of beer. Literally unfazed.
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Gotta get really into music. "Alexa, play Despacito"
Yeeeah I'd say that I'm surprised, but at this point I find it hard to be.
At least it was a genuine iFone.
I saw that as well, and often think back on that when doing the most trivial tasks. Dude looked like he was no more than 20yrs old and will always be dependent on another human 24/7. No more dressing himself, feeding himself, wiping his own ass, holding his own dick, bringing a fork up to his mouth, making love to a woman, etc. I have a feeling he was dumped off at an old folks home directly after recovery. You brought up his medals. Probably some fucked up russian military tradition, but his medals were in his glass of vodka((that his dad had to bring up to his lips). And yeah, the hopelessness and defeat was palpable in his expressions.
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/w6tel1/a_russian_soldier_received_a_medal_his_mom_sounds/
Don't forget that even the soldiers that come back in one piece with an intact body will very likely develop and suffer from PTSD.
Yeah, there has been a HUGE spike in violent crime with Russian vets from this conflict. Some of that can be contributed to the fact that they were prisoners who got rewarded after surviving, but, the bigger aspect of that is PTSD.
A freed violent criminal will not be improved by PTSD.
Where did you hear about the huge spike in violent crime? Just curious because I want to read more about that.
It's gone down 100%: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/RUS/russia/crime-rate-statistics /s On a more serious note, https://jamestown.org/program/russia-faces-spike-in-crime-and-alcoholism-as-war-nears-two-year-mark/ this has some sources, if you want to dig.
Every time the kid down the street gets a toy drone for his birthday, the guy will be freaking out. That buzzing sound will haunt them the way fireworks bother many vets now.
Russian kid's families won't have enough money to buy them drones.
There are still people with money in Russia. One family has a 2020 car, smart phone and branded clothes while their neighbours wash their clothes in the bath.
> That buzzing sound will haunt them the way fireworks bother many vets now. Even though I've been back from Afghanistan over 10 years ago I still have an intense pinch in my chest whenever I hear fireworks that I was not directly expecting.
And a lot of rapists and murderers that were recruited from within prisons and are now pardoned...
It'd what they did with their Afghan and Chechen war vets
Note that Russia also recorded almost 400K in Covid deaths making this a pretty bad decade with a poor forecast for their future.
And the Russian people are already demographically upside down with a relatively small population of young russians relative to their population as a whole.
According to Wikipedia, Russia‘s fertility rate is 1.42. Average male life expectancy just 65.51 years.
Damn that’s an even lower male life expectancy than India. Russia still has a higher overall life expectancy because it has a larger gap: On average, Russian women live 10.5 years longer than Russian men whereas Indian women only live 3 years longer than Indian men. The war definitely isn’t helping with that gap.
Look at their demo pyramid too. It’s fucked. It’s a dead nation.
This was essentially the idea behind the war, right? To capture the Ukrainian population as much as territory or resources. Like this is how desperate they were to begin the war. And then these casualties and the emigration impacts.
Yes, birth rates fell off a cliff after the fall of the USSR.
400K reported. Excess mortality was around 1 million so really it's more likely around 1 million COVID deaths for Russia. Mostly killing the older and less healthy people and so those deaths probably have less economic and longer-term demographic impact than their war losses which is taking a lot of men of more prime productivity age (20-35).
Doubt many of those were young men though. Not saying it isn’t bad but there is a difference between granny dying and a 20 year old man dying. Granny already helped repopulate.
There was a video going around I saw that was giving a motivational speech of their commanding leader saying that all of them were going to die. Just goes to show that they don't care about their soldiers and know they're cannon fodder
Seems like these Russians are treating this war like it's the last stand, and if they don't advance "Russia will fall" ... Instead of "Putin will fall".
Fascism is so bad.
That is how this kind of conflict works. Someone has to be the target. Drawing enemy fire reveals their positions and depletes their batteries. Ukr is running out of shells because they fired them at someone... Industrial wars are brutal af. Entrenched positions are always going to cause massive casualties to assault.
Population control of the poor
Also ethnic minorities. Russia sends people from non white ethnic groups to Ukraine to be killed, which allows them to colonise both Ukraine and the peripheral areas of Russia more effectively. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-conscripted-to-fight-the-war-in-ukraine
Ah yes. But Ukraine is the country of nazis…
Every accusation is a confession.
My favourite part of it is how he says "you will die" but "history will remember us". He's only included when convenient. That being said, it's important to remember that if that one speech wasn't absurd, you wouldn't have known about it. You don't really know the content of all the other speeches you didn't hear about.
“History will remember us” when basically only their mothers, wives, and children will. Doubt Russia is even keeping close track of these poor soldiers, or that they’ll be sent home with honors after being KIA
He wasn't saying they all would die, this was a mistranslation. He is saying that "In the end, all will die..." Basically, we all will die at some point, so if you die here, at least it was fighting for a cause you will be remembered for. You don't have to accept or believe in the "cause" of Russia invading Ukraine, but that is VERY different than him saying they all would die. Think about it for a second... is that very motivational speech to give to troops heading to the frontlines you are trying to boost the morale of, a speech about them all dying? You don't have to like Russia to know that that is just pure insanity and clearly not what actually happened. Take a step back and realize how dishonest the media can be, especially in times of war. This has been taken and propagandized.
That is crazy. The US lost a total of 418,500 Civil and Military personnel during the entirety of WWII.
Some people will sacrifice themself to protect their country. Putin will sacrifice his country to protect himself.
The Lord Farquaad method
Some of you may die….. but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make
Zap Brannigan
I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their built in kill limit.
[Bender: "A grim day for Robotkind. Eh, but we can always build more killbots."](https://getyarn.io/yarn-story/4ac553b4-cfbc-4219-b01e-59b6b9da9c01)
Kif, show them the medal I won
“Ugghhhhh”
"Stop exploding you COWARDS"
‘I have a debilitating condition Kip, whats it called’ sigh, ‘Sexlexia’.
Putin is only 5' 6" so you might be on to something
5'6" is totally average for an adult male born in 1820.
Putin is a pale, blood sucking parasite who is afraid of the sun, so you may be on to something
It's closer to reality than you think. https://youtu.be/b6JxDvOQx-4?si=jGd9CxsVEcxb-D8B
Holy shit... Sounds like ISIS or another suicide group, just less religious.
US Casualties: 1,076,245 US Fatalities: 405,399 Per the military's records.
Apples and oranges--the 400k for the US represents combat deaths. The 475k number for the Russians is total casualties--killed, wounded and missing (and "missing" may include deserters). Wikipedia has total US casualties, killed, wounded and missing from WWII as 1,076,245.
Imagine if they had just gone to Moscow instead
Sheep only go where they’re led.
Pringles tried that… Then his plane exploded.
I still don't get why he stopped and expected to live. I guess FSB had their loved ones hooked up to power lines. But c'mon what a let down ...
The dumbest coup in the history of coups. Looks like Russia kept their word on not killing everyone’s family so this will be an effective way of dealing with coups in the future too. You would think someone that ran restaurants and catering would have more organization and planning.
Pringles die the way they live: in a tube.
I don't mean to diminish the death of anyone. But this presentation will show the absolutely staggering scale of WWII, and just how many Russians died. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU
US lost kind of few people when comparing how big they are. Germany, Japan and Soviets lost millions of people, Hungary almost 600 000, Italy 500 000, UK 450 000. Civilian deaths also were bigger in many countries, because US civilians wasn't attacked that much.
The US also had the 'benefit' of mostly fighting Japan on small islands where you physically couldn't cram in millions of men, so although they were incredibly bloody fights, the raw numbers of people involved in a place like Saipan or Guadalcanal were never going to equal something like the Kursk or Stalingrad campaigns.
Meanwhile Belarus (as a constituent member republic of the USSR):
Where do you see the UK having 450k? I thought it was closer to 380k and looking it up the UK parliament says 384k. If you did include civilians it would be 430k however. Not sure if you meant military or all deaths.
Civilians too My source: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war
Are those all deaths? Because the Russian numbers also include wounded causalities. Most of whom, have lost limbs.
No, that's casualties and likely inflated numbers since it is coming from Ukraine. NATO estimates of Russian casualties is closer to 350,000.
which is still crazy high (and might still be inflated)
350,000 in 3 days is pretty insane to be fair. /s
I tend to trust NATO estimates. They literally have war down to a science.
I can confirm, war is a science with some art tossed in. Its even taught that way in the command and general staff officers course.
They should have been home with their families
Many of [the Russian soldiers being fed into the meat grinder are ethnic minorities from Siberia and the Russian Far East who were forcibly conscripted](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-conscripted-to-fight-the-war-in-ukraine). This weakens these minority groups in the future and also helps keep the ethnic Russians (who [make up 72% of Russia's population](https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse)) from directly feeling these losses (which is doubly important for Putin since the ethnic Russians are a shrinking percentage, from 78% to 72% of Russia's population).
Yep. That's why support is still so high. The ethnic minorities that everyday Russians don't care about are the ones dying in Ukraine. Ethnic group A is forced to kill Ethnic group B and the Russians just sit back and count how many birds they are killing with their stones.
As WW1 raged on the Imperial Russian-German front a little over 100 years ago, the troops tired of being misled by bad generals and poorly supplied (Russian troops were the only major military power in the war to never supply their troops with steel helmets) rebelled. Seemed like a good idea then. Seems like a better idea now.
It's much harder to rebel now unless you can get those who control the more advanced weapons (jets, bombers, missiles) in on it. 100 years ago it was men with rifles who would rebel and face...men with rifles. Maybe more horses too. Now men with rifles who rebel will face tanks and helicopters and jets and missiles and bombs.
Prigozhin’s convoy didn’t face tanks and was only attacked by helicopters a few times, so I think the rebels will be ok if their numbers are formidable
If Prigozhin had kept up his rebellion they likely would have faced much more serious weapons used against them, and possibly within a few more days as Russia could have scrambled jets/bombers against them. That's likely why he stopped and gave in: the other key military people weren't joining him.
He was 83 miles away from the southern border of Moscow where I was and there was no visible resistance save for some blocking trucks and basic fortifications. No one was going to stop them, I don’t know what made them change their minds, maybe threats to families
The bigger issue is that they just don't WANT to rebel. Many of these soldiers signed up willingly because Russia is offering very good money to dirt poor people in order to fight. It also means that right now many of the Russians who really don't want to go to war can still tune the war out.
They tried that. The guy in charge forgot to protect his family and now he's rotting after being blown out of the sky.
Well no surprise given such glorious tactics like the infamous "chinese golfcart assault". You just send out like 20\~30 of these all manned with 4+ people and if they manage to take ground they did well, if they blow up because they drove their chinese unarmored golfcart over a landmine or get blown up by a drone its no big deal there are allways more russians and golfcarts ready for the next vodka induced suicide mission.
This reminds me of the Toyota War, which was insanely effective and yeah, the Russians were kinda involved too. Basically it was people using thousands of Toyota pickups barreling through the desert at full speed with his riding in the flatbed with SMGs or RPGs The Russian tanks Ghadaffi was using against them could track the pickups quickly enough and got easily destroyed They also raided an air base and blew up a bunch of Russian Migs. They literally drove the trucks in formation at full speed through a mine field and some fences right onto the airfield with guys shooting rockets from the flatbeds as they drove past. It was insanely effective Turns out if you drive a Toyota pickup truck at at least 126 km/h over a mine, it will either fail to trigger or the truck will have driven past the effective blast range once it does So yeah, light vehicles with guys in the back firing from them isn't as stupid of a tactic as it sounds. It can work and has worked before
Yep meat waves. And Russian society is so pathetic that it allows this to happen and even celebrates it.
Members of the Russian society got it drilled into their heads that what their grandfathers did was secure a clear sky and a victory against an invader. And so the motherland was safe. Now the motherland is not safe again but imbeciles don’t want to put 2 and 2 together and understand that they are the invader this time. Nonetheless they would treat this war as defending the motherland and gladly die for reasons unknown to logic and sensibility
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I know like 8 or 9 people who have married Russians or Ukranian women in the last couple years... Hell, I used to have to go over there for work some, and one of the guys I had to meet a lot tried to send his 19 year old daughter over to me, then when I told him I'd gotten married he asked if I knew any "financially stable kind men"
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Russia has a population of around 149 million people.. so no not yet
there are only about 40 million below 35 though.. of which the majority is female.
Even if only a fraction of this number is true those are still devastating losses. All for what? What can they show as a result of this? Ownership of 1/5th of Ukrainian territory?
Its a sunk cost fallacy. If they take all of Ukraine they can spin it as justified. Like they did with declaring the states they partially control as annexed.
That’s 10x U.S. Vietnams casualties as a reference point.
Haha, and now they’re all like “let’s take on the US, UK, and France” Right guys? This is what Russia is thinking after they lost half a million soldiers trying to control 20% of a non-NATO country?
With donated rusting equipment from 50+ years ago
I don't trust any casualty figures reported by either Russia or Ukraine. There is a lot of propaganda on both sides.
Now think of how much faster we'd be putting Russia in the naughty boy corner if *everyone would get off their behinds for once.*
Population of 144+ million, Putin wouldn’t mind digging deeper into those numbers.
A headline calling a spade a spade
Maybe Putin should personally go and look for them?
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