Putin’s Casualties in the War with Ukraine
Daniel is based in western Europe where he teaches. Many of his students write essays which he posts from time to time. WE are allowed to answer his students as to the accuracy or thoughts of the essays.
I am sure the news he obtains about eastern Europe is far mor accurate than what we are getting in the US about Russia and its causalities.
Putin’s choice: 500,000 casualties
by Daniel Zetland
The one-handed economist
This figure shows Russian losses in Ukraine. The 500,000 figure is for casualties, i.e., dead and wounded. According to Perplexity, 100,000 -180,000 of these are deaths.
How do these losses compare to other Russian fighting?
The scale of Russian losses in just over a year of fighting in Ukraine already exceeds the Soviet death toll across the entire 9-year Afghan campaign. It likely surpasses all of Russia’s military deaths since World War II combined.
While difficult to verify exact figures, the various estimates from Ukrainian, Western, and even some Russian sources highlight that Russian troop losses in the Ukraine invasion have been catastrophically high compared to other post-WW2 wars, potentially unprecedented in modern Russian military history.
Around 58,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam (1964-1975).
Bottom line: Putin doesn’t care about his people.
All governments are potentially dangerous — made up of people who are not angels but live off of other people’s money and labor. Keep governments small and under control or the people will pay the consequences. Russia and China are examples of the consequences to be paid.
But not all governments are dangerous. Many or even most work for the benefit of the people.
A society allowing everybody access to resources for pursuing their economical undertaking and also allows everybody to influence politics on an equal basis are the most prosperous of all. To provide the equality of resources, governments should follow the will of a majority and not be influenced by the will of a few or one. The danger comes when a few have or one has more unchecked power than the majority and can influence greater than an individual.
We see such with trump and have experienced such with Hitler as well as others. trump is willing to sacrifice the people to gain his will, the same as putin is, and others before either.
There is no “all” in this.