Its important to make the distinction this includes the wounded and sick. Basically anyone no-longer fit for combat. This number isn't just all dead Russians
Not to be morbid, but for a country like Russia that might be worse. Everyone wounded coming back, becomes a potential strain on their economy. A visual reminder of the war in Ukraine.
And realistically, Russia won’t take good care of them, so Russia might find itself in a spot with a bunch of pissed off miltitary trained citizens. Could see a crime surge after this war.
Happened after the wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan and will happen here too. Russia takes absolutely horrid care of its veterans plus now you have a bunch of rapists and murders who have combat experience. Just like all problems russia faces, there's another problem of their own making that they won't deal with.
This is mostly a myth, the POWs who got sent to the Gulag were part of the "Russian Liberation Army" and other collaborationist groups. Those had over a hundred thousand members in total.
It's true though that normal vets were largely ignored though and often left to rot.
Every russian soldiers who was captured by the Germans was prosecuted as a "traitor" and ended in the Gullag.
After WW2 the KGB (or it's predecessor) searched through whole europe for russian soldiers who wanted to flee russia by not going back after the war and send them to the Gulag.
In an attempt to separate the minority of voluntary collaborators, freed prisoners of war were sent to filtration camps, hospitals, and recuperation centers, where most stayed for one or two months.[222] This process was not effective in separating the minority of voluntary collaborators,[219] and most defectors and collaborators escaped prosecution.[223] Trawniki men were typically sentenced to 10 to 25 years in a labor camp, and military collaborators often received six-year sentences in special settlements.[224] According to official statistics, 57.8 percent returned home, 19.1 percent were remobilized, 14.5 percent were enlisted in the labor battalions of the People's Commissariat for Defense, and 6.5 percent were transferred to the NKVD.[225]
Former prisoners of war were among the 451,000 or more Soviet citizens who avoided repatriation and remained in Germany or emigrated to Western countries after the war.
In fact, German soldiers did everything they could to be sent to the Western fronts rather than the Eastern ones; and would try to find European / American armies to surrender to, so they weren't captured by Soviet ones.
My German friend told me his grandpa deserted towards the end of the war and had to evade being captured by both his fellow nazis and the soviets until he found british troops to surrender to lol
were part of the "Russian Liberation Army" and other collaborationist groups.
That sounds like something official propaganda would say. Stalin was afraid of "ideological contamination" and it is estimated that even as many as 600k people were sent to labor battalions. Not to mention couple hundred thousands of those send straight to gulag.
Their treatment of their own people, even those who went to war for them, is horrible but it’s not that hard to see why they do it. It just works pretty well as long as they fight in northern/central europe. With the completely flat terrain there really is no need for tactics or superior weapons when you can just bleed your opponent dry and still have a few million soldiers left standing. The difference in population is huge after all, at 144 million people Russia has around 60 million inhabitants more than Germany which itself has around 15 million more people than France and the UK and that’s just modern Russia, the Soviet Union had twice the population.
That only makes sense if fighting one european country or the sparsely populated Baltics or north. There are 3-4 times as many Europeans as there russians. If Italy joins Germany they have about the russian population.
I agree the population is large and an advantage in this case, but it's not that large.
European stealth fighters will make that army into an angry mob within days. I have no idea why this notion of a superior Russian army still exists, especially against a numerical and economically superior enemy like Europe
Where did you learn that nonsense? Saddam invaded Kuwait because he owed them like $12 Billion that he borrowed to fund his war with Iran, and he decided to deal with his debt to Kuwait by making Kuwait a puppet of Iraq.
He even came up with a load of nonsense to "prove" Kuwait was always part of Iraq anyways - and the Occupation was absolutely horrific for the Kuwaitis, I worked in Kuwait for a year not long after the war their stories (and the sites of the fighting, and the Ba'athist police torture sites) were chilling.
Putin's "Crimea was always Russian really" propaganda and the war crimes of his Occupation are remarkably similar, for those of us old enough to remember 1990-1991.
I mean, his statement and yours isn't mutually exclusive? If he couldn't (or didn't want to) pay Kuwait his debt, it stands to reason he couldn't (didn't want to idle) pay his military force. 2 birds one stone?
As a Russian resident, I can say that after Afghanistan (and there were only 20-30 thousand people there), I often saw fights and alcoholic veterans from there. I'm afraid to imagine what will happen now, since there will be hundreds of thousands.
not really no. while its a stereotype, it's a stereotype that was earned in the peasant fields of Imperial Russia (where the Tsar owned all vodka plants and subsidized it). Or in the aftermath of WWI and WWII, where the Soviet government also controlled all vodka plants and also subsidized them.
authoritarians made Russia's drunk so they wouldn't rebel and for many decades, it worked.
authoritarians made Russia's drunk so they wouldn't rebel and for many decades, it worked.
So why does it work now? If you can’t blame alcohol then what’s the new excuse for widespread support of the current dictatorship that has invaded a democratic country
Unfortunately the majority of Russians support their territorial expansion goals, the average Russian wishes they could win the Ukraine war quicker, not end it.
I believe alcoholism is more than just a stereotype, and it's true for most Slavic countries. Just look at the top alcohol consumption lists, these countries dominate them.
No. And it would be a big mistake to believe that. That was about 30 years ago, when there was an economic collapse and many marginalized people appeared.
Aren’t you slightly worried the same may be materializing for Russia again?
As in a economic collapse and hundreds of thousand marginalized or even ousted people in the streets?
I often saw fights and alcoholic veterans from there
I imagine that supermarkets nationwide stocked with extremely cheap alcohol is how the government is planning to 'take care off' the returning soldiers, can't organise or do much if you're just always wasted
Russia did recruit from prisons, Wagner group was also doing this. Giving pardons if you signed up for the military and survived 6 months of duty. I read they stopped doing that in 2024 but yeah, absolutely mental.
Not just from prisons, but recruiting all but the very worst of prisoners. For a fucked up definition of "very worst". Rape and murder are typically fine. Indeed, they've even pardoned a cannibal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Gorin
Well when they still have one leg they're not counted yet, but when the second leg gets blown off, they're getting closer to being counted.
Once they roll towards Ukraine on a skateboard pushed by their arms they're pretty close to being counted, but unless both arms are lost this time, they still have one last attempt with one arm.
I remember someone made an animation of all the flight leaving Moscow after they declared the draft...and the videos of the vans collecting kids...fucking terrifying. The world will be such a better place when Putin and Trump expire. Granted, they will be replaced by someone just as fucked up...but we'll all breathe for a moment.
The best thing about dictators is they usually kill all the competent psycho replacements because they are scared of them so when they die it’s a giant power vacuum. That will also cause other problems but it would be so much worse if there was competent replacements ready to go
Hmm, you may be on to something. Stalin->Kruschev, Mao->Deng, Franco->Juan Carlos just off the top of my head. Definitely improvements with these three.
Russia is also desperate to avoid having to pay out said compensation to the soldiers' families should they get killed in cmbat. This is part of the reason why they keep sending out injured people, they're hoping the injured soldiers won't come back and that they can't find a body so they can claim that the soldiers in question were deserters and that any compensation the soldiers signed up for is now null and void since they willingly broke the contract themselves.
Seriously, at that point you might as well surrender to Ukraine. Putin is probably legit terrified of these guys ever coming home to find out that he not only sent them into a meatgrinder for years on end but also stiffed them out of money for it.
At this point, Putin's making the government take on enormous debt offering unbelievably generous compensation to new recruits.
Ah yes, but here’s the secret: It’s easy to deny payments to the wounded and the families of the deceased, especially when they’re poor and/or ethnic minorities.
I will say, though, that apparently the ratio of dead to wounded is unusually high in this war, at least compared to previous ones. ISR drones have made artillery particularly accurate, meaning less mild/moderate wounds from incidental shrapnel from harassing fires and more heavy saturation bombardments, especially on targets like troop transports. There are also so many small FPV drones covering the battle space that many casualties that would have been walking wounded in previous conflicts, able to make it back behind the lines to aid stations, are instead being picked off by drones. There is also very limited casevac available, with reports of limited to no evacuation in many cases of more serious wounds.
I reckon it's something they just don't do. I just finished reading an account of a German/French soldier serving on the Eastern Front of WW2.
One thing that unnerved him was that, whenever possible the Germans would gather their dead and wounded. The Soviets just didn't. He describes a Soviet attack across the Don river in 1942, which the Germans repel. Night falls and the Soviets don't bother to collect their wounded. The author couldn't sleep, listening to the howls and screams of wounded, dying Soviets in the darkness left to die.
It's worth noting though that this is almost always tracked by name, military unit, and city/town of origin though, so the same troops aren't being counted multiple times just because they've been wounded multiple times. Also worth noting that due to poor Russian MedEvac, a very high percentage of their wounded soldiers end up dying. All in all, I think ~1.2M represents a very realistic figure for the number of Russian soldiers who are either dead or so injured that they will no longer be able to support the war.
This figure comes from the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. Not a chance they have that level of fidelity in the identities of casualties. I doubt that re-injured casualties have a very measurable effect on the number though.
To contrast that loss of almost 1.2million troops since 2022, in 2021 the entire Russian Army had approximately 800,000 total active duty troops by most accounts. War is Hell.
It's not "one of", it is THE biggest country on Earth and it's not even close. However being large doesn't mean you have all to all those resources.
Putin's motivations are several:
if they get Ukraine then they'll get the majority of global grain market share.
they'll also have a much closer access to the Atlantic Ocean through a Southern port since their two other major ports have issues: the first is a lot further East (Novorossiysk) and the other is technically leased in disputed territory (Sevastopol). The port in Odesa would be a lot better plus they would be able to ship goods via the Dnieper river.
the biggest reason though is Putin - and his party's - stated goals: reunification of the old USSR. They already have Belarus and the other former Republics are in NATO. This also explains his various previous military campaigns against Georgia.
Seem like good reasons for the collective West to prevent a Russian victory. Putin gaining control over more of the global food supply in a world facing a climate crisis is a recipe for disaster.
another aspect. In ukraine they have found enourmous amounts of natural gas. Rzussia has also natural gas, right, but it's about 3000km far away from the europian customers. So, if ukraine starts selling it's natural gas, there is no business left any more for russia, as it's much more easy to sell the ukraine gas then the russian one from the far east. The far east where the permafrost is melting anway and going to destroy all those nice pipelines.
Number 1 is also extremely important to China. China’s Achilles heel in the event of a global conflict is food, they import around 40% of their food needs, largely from north and South America which the US navy could easily blockade. Russian control of Ukrainian grain would give China an unblockadable source of food if they suddenly found themselves at war with the west.
Exactly. They almost speak the same language and come from the same ethnic forebearers. It's unbelievable still, to me, that people are okay going off to fight and kill people just like themselves.
They can't have normal economic activity, since society is stuck in a vicious cycle of normalized corruption, generational trauma and oppression of personal freedoms.
Most top talent with an understanding how the place works will try to leave, which means the economy is perpetually stuck in less profitable sectors.
The oligarchy would rather rob another country than tackle those issues. Which again, leads to more sanctions and fewer trade opportunities.
And a pipeline to pump gas to the EU. But I'm not sure the EU is much interested in maintaining that relationship. Germany and the UK are moving to a war footing. Poland is ready. They aren't getting caught flat footed again and they aren't going back to Russia. This is why Putin wants trump to kill NATO. he honestly thinks if we back out of NATO he can push around the EU. Not sure Russia could take Poland even without NATO.
they do not need the physical resource, they need the mental/non-tangible resource of "expansion" that is put to be equal as "progress" in the orcish russian mindset
without something to "feed on", they will inevitably collapse
A lot of these people are non-Russian ethnic minorities. But I'm sure the war has done a number on the ethnic Russian population, which is what has the demographic issue.
As much as I want the numbers reported to be accurate, this stat gives me pause. But apparently UK MoD is estimating 1.1M casualties also, which is kind of mind boggling to me for a modern military force.
That is total US casualties for all of WWII levels.
Casualty figures have been tracked rigorously and scrupulously since the start of the war. We consistent saw Russia losing more than 1,000 men per day for most of the war. When you do basic math it’s not difficult to see how the numbers got so high. Only Russia can know the true figures and they likely don’t because they aren’t tracking like they should.
Because even Russia doesn’t give a shit about it’s people
I think the scale of this war is being underestimated by the American public in particular (Europeans seem to know the truth). US voters don't apparently have the stomach(?) or understanding of how huge the war is. Equivalence to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn't really jive with even lower casualty estimates for this conflict. I don't think China, with the demographics they have, could take over 1M casualties and still press on in Taiwan.
I am sure US/UK/France don't have the stomach for that sort of conflict, barring actual territorial threat.
I am finding it hard to fathom that Russia can take casualties like this, or at least much longer.
The CIA estimates about 21,000,000 Russian men of military age fit for service. So we are looking at a 5% casualty rate for the whole demographic in the past 4 years.
The Russians have historically had a much greater tolerance for war casualties. They lost about 10 million in WWI and the Civil War together, and another 25 million in WWII fighting the Germans.
Half the country was killed by the Mongols 800 years ago. The Turks have also fought them a dozen times.
They give a shit about the massive checks they have to pay to families, the whole recruiting incentive for the war in ukraine has been patriotism, and money, a lot of money.
And as we know the war chest has been emptied at a rapid pace.
So we can assume that in classic russian culture of corruption there is a huge amount of soldiers labeled as missing in action while they most certainly died in some field.
They certainly do track the numbers. not necessarily because they care about the people but because it's a resource like any other that needs to be managed.
My question is how many are counted twice. It's been a few years, and I could see someone who was put down for the count for a few months or even years returning to the fight.
The Soviets lost a significant more. Modern Russia is not the same thing as the Soviet Union, and the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine bore the brunt of those casualties.
That's what I meant my point is probably has a lot to do with their military tactics and canon fodder practice etc which would have higher casualties than other strategies
Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
Casualty doesn't mean fatality. From a military definition a casualty is a person in military service who becomes unavailable for service. Reasons include: KIA, MIA, desertion, capture or wounded in action. This includes wounds ranging from minor to permanent disability.
A casualty who who only suffered minor wounds or manages to escape captivity, is rescued or released can reenter service.
From intelligence reports, Ukrainian and Western powers, only around 20-25% of that 1.1 million casualties are fatalities.
Perun has an amazing video on the human cost of war.
In a country like russia where its cheaper to have dudes move and stack ammo crates by hand rsther than using a forklift and some pallets, best believe youre expendable as an ammo sponge/drone target on the front lines.
I wouldn't say it's cheaper, forklifts aren't that expensive, he'll even pallet jacks would be better. They just never made the transition because it costs money and the rampant corruption in the country means nothing ever really gets done anyways.
They've been reliant on rail and hand loading for their military logistics, which is dated and an extreme liability if the rail line fails.
Forklifts are affordable on the west because the supply chains and infrastructure exists. Logistics are palletised, warehouses are built with both in mind, freight vehicles are set up for being loaded that way ect ect
It's just wild that Putin made the call to throw away an entire generation of Russians just for a patch of land. Meanwhile if they just did nothing and continue to be the gas tap for Europe they would be categorically richer and better off. But hey I'm not a sniveling imperialist so I wouldn't know the mentality.
When Russia already had a major demographics problem with low birthrates before the war.
It's looking like over a quarter million Russian soldiers have died so far, and they started out with many of their best troops, the young men. That's really not going to help their demographic problem.
Oh yeah- they might not feel it now but by age demographics Russia's fucked. And that's not even mentioning the fact that their entire economy is currently being propped up by the war
That is the plan, to escape from having to pay the families.
It is the grand escape of the russian gov, while promising extreme *in russian terms* payouts if killed in action, it is much easier to just write missing in action.
These are total casualties, so they include wounded and sick as well. General rule of thumb is 3:1 wounded to killed so in this instance we are looking at about 300k dead and 900k wounded and no longer combat ready. Still an insane amount of lives lost and ruined.
Hard agree, a vast majority of the "Slavic horde" rhetoric was formulated by Nazi generals in order to justify their defeats. Wild that it's repeated so readily as fact.
It doesn't help that modern Russia has turned it into a reality. You spend your entire life trying to debunk the "two men, one gun" myth from Enemy at the Gates and then Putin goes ahead and makes it official.
I think if you at the accomplishments of the USSR and then modern Russia that difference is obvious. One is very much roleplaying the more capable country.
That's been true for every nation tbh. Idk where you are from but I certainly know that if your country goes to war it won't be the rich and influential people that will be sent to the frontline.
They would have to conscript those people, which would trigger substantial opposition, or continue to pay ever growing amounts for the desperate and uninformed. They are not going to fight to the last man either way.
Not in 2025. You can go on Russian social media and see thousands being pulled from Moscow Oblast. I think you're overestimating how willing the average Russian is to resist over a measly million casualties.
It’s been almost 4 years, what a waste of life. Russia isn’t winning this war all they are losing is population, reputation and any chance of redemption that may have happened. Putin is a nutbar and eventually his people will rebel
Total casualties was around 200,000 (wounded and killed). That's 1/5 the Russian casualties in Ukraine. On the other hand, the total land area they've invaded is pretty much all the US East coast states. It's a lot of land for Ukraine to surrender.
I like the idea of taking the Russian monetary assets that Europe and America have frozen and to start giving it to Ukraine to use however they want.
Friendly reminder that Russia has all the right elements to be a true world superpower. Russians are clearly intelligent and hardworking. Russia clearly sits on vast oceans of natural resources the world needs and due to climate change more available Russian land is going to become available in the coming decades. But unfortunately time and time again, these fucking little tyrants like Putin destroy Russia’s future.
The world needs to psychologically illuminate Putin. He’s a psychopath with very low self worth trying to shield his insecurity and complete feelings of insignificance by making himself feel strong only in ways the most sadistic psychopath make themselves feel they matter… by instilling fear and being responsible for many deaths. Time to take away this little rat’s attempts to look powerful and call him out for the incredible vulnerability he feels. (Likely from a childhood in poverty and neglect.)
...Russia has also lost 11,409 tanks, 23,714 armored fighting vehicles, 69,717 vehicles and fuel tanks, 35,032 artillery systems, 1,567 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,258 air defense systems, 432 airplanes, 347 helicopters, 89,684 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
Not to mention numerous oligarchs; and sooner or later a president...
While every Russian loss is a positive, it's important to remain objective, this is a Ukrainian source that understandably has a vested interest in making Russian losses seem as high as humanly possible.
Unfortunately, the numbers likely aren't that high yet, CSIS estimated around 950,000 casualties in June with around 250,000 dead.
Thats over 6 months ago. Tack on 6 months worth of casualties and the number in the title isnt that out of whack.
For some quick maths, losing 800 guys a day for 180 days is 145k guys. And if im not mistaken, 800 is kind of a slow day for Russia at this point is it not?
Whatever the actual number is, one thing is certain. Russia has significantly damaged their own military strength over this ridiculous invasion attempt.
An insane number. I'm assuming most of these are men? After a quick Google Russia's population is roughly 145 mil, half of those are women. 73 mil a decent chunk of these are kids, elderly or those unfit for combat. So taking that into consideration it's a sizable amount of their male military fit population is lost.
Its important to make the distinction this includes the wounded and sick. Basically anyone no-longer fit for combat. This number isn't just all dead Russians
Not to be morbid, but for a country like Russia that might be worse. Everyone wounded coming back, becomes a potential strain on their economy. A visual reminder of the war in Ukraine.
And realistically, Russia won’t take good care of them, so Russia might find itself in a spot with a bunch of pissed off miltitary trained citizens. Could see a crime surge after this war.
Happened after the wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan and will happen here too. Russia takes absolutely horrid care of its veterans plus now you have a bunch of rapists and murders who have combat experience. Just like all problems russia faces, there's another problem of their own making that they won't deal with.
After WW2, a lot of their vets got throw into gulag prison camps.
Russia's always treated manpower as an easily renewable resource spent in massive numbers.
This is mostly a myth, the POWs who got sent to the Gulag were part of the "Russian Liberation Army" and other collaborationist groups. Those had over a hundred thousand members in total.
It's true though that normal vets were largely ignored though and often left to rot.
Every russian soldiers who was captured by the Germans was prosecuted as a "traitor" and ended in the Gullag.
After WW2 the KGB (or it's predecessor) searched through whole europe for russian soldiers who wanted to flee russia by not going back after the war and send them to the Gulag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_against_former_prisoners_of_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_atrocities_committed_against_Soviet_prisoners_of_war#End_of_the_war
Shows how eager were people to come back home.
In fact, German soldiers did everything they could to be sent to the Western fronts rather than the Eastern ones; and would try to find European / American armies to surrender to, so they weren't captured by Soviet ones.
My German friend told me his grandpa deserted towards the end of the war and had to evade being captured by both his fellow nazis and the soviets until he found british troops to surrender to lol
That sounds like something official propaganda would say. Stalin was afraid of "ideological contamination" and it is estimated that even as many as 600k people were sent to labor battalions. Not to mention couple hundred thousands of those send straight to gulag.
its a 1 month old account, prob a bot here to fan the flames then you said something anti Russia and it couldn't not defend the motherland.
A 6-week old account with 8.3k post karma (10 posts) and 22k comment karma across probably hundreds of comments? Yea that's 100% a bot.
heh yeah it was weird that he throws some Ukrainian friendly news only to jump to defend russia.
Their treatment of their own people, even those who went to war for them, is horrible but it’s not that hard to see why they do it. It just works pretty well as long as they fight in northern/central europe. With the completely flat terrain there really is no need for tactics or superior weapons when you can just bleed your opponent dry and still have a few million soldiers left standing. The difference in population is huge after all, at 144 million people Russia has around 60 million inhabitants more than Germany which itself has around 15 million more people than France and the UK and that’s just modern Russia, the Soviet Union had twice the population.
That only makes sense if fighting one european country or the sparsely populated Baltics or north. There are 3-4 times as many Europeans as there russians. If Italy joins Germany they have about the russian population. I agree the population is large and an advantage in this case, but it's not that large.
European stealth fighters will make that army into an angry mob within days. I have no idea why this notion of a superior Russian army still exists, especially against a numerical and economically superior enemy like Europe
It's already happening.
Trouble at home: Russia’s looming demobilization challenge | Global Initiative https://share.google/R87cjaynaL1fN00MW
With no jobs to come back to, Saddam was worried about demobilisation after the Iran Iraq war, so he invaded Kuwait.
Where did you learn that nonsense? Saddam invaded Kuwait because he owed them like $12 Billion that he borrowed to fund his war with Iran, and he decided to deal with his debt to Kuwait by making Kuwait a puppet of Iraq.
He even came up with a load of nonsense to "prove" Kuwait was always part of Iraq anyways - and the Occupation was absolutely horrific for the Kuwaitis, I worked in Kuwait for a year not long after the war their stories (and the sites of the fighting, and the Ba'athist police torture sites) were chilling.
Putin's "Crimea was always Russian really" propaganda and the war crimes of his Occupation are remarkably similar, for those of us old enough to remember 1990-1991.
I mean, his statement and yours isn't mutually exclusive? If he couldn't (or didn't want to) pay Kuwait his debt, it stands to reason he couldn't (didn't want to idle) pay his military force. 2 birds one stone?
Time to de-nazify Kuwait
As a Russian resident, I can say that after Afghanistan (and there were only 20-30 thousand people there), I often saw fights and alcoholic veterans from there. I'm afraid to imagine what will happen now, since there will be hundreds of thousands.
Arent fighting and alcoholism national pastimes in Russia anyway?
not really no. while its a stereotype, it's a stereotype that was earned in the peasant fields of Imperial Russia (where the Tsar owned all vodka plants and subsidized it). Or in the aftermath of WWI and WWII, where the Soviet government also controlled all vodka plants and also subsidized them.
authoritarians made Russia's drunk so they wouldn't rebel and for many decades, it worked.
So why does it work now? If you can’t blame alcohol then what’s the new excuse for widespread support of the current dictatorship that has invaded a democratic country
Unfortunately the majority of Russians support their territorial expansion goals, the average Russian wishes they could win the Ukraine war quicker, not end it.
I believe alcoholism is more than just a stereotype, and it's true for most Slavic countries. Just look at the top alcohol consumption lists, these countries dominate them.
No. And it would be a big mistake to believe that. That was about 30 years ago, when there was an economic collapse and many marginalized people appeared.
Aren’t you slightly worried the same may be materializing for Russia again? As in a economic collapse and hundreds of thousand marginalized or even ousted people in the streets?
I imagine that supermarkets nationwide stocked with extremely cheap alcohol is how the government is planning to 'take care off' the returning soldiers, can't organise or do much if you're just always wasted
That’s why they’re sending wounded even on crutches back to the meat grinder
Yep they don’t want wounded coming back. They don’t want anyone coming back.
Russia did recruit from prisons, Wagner group was also doing this. Giving pardons if you signed up for the military and survived 6 months of duty. I read they stopped doing that in 2024 but yeah, absolutely mental.
Not just from prisons, but recruiting all but the very worst of prisoners. For a fucked up definition of "very worst". Rape and murder are typically fine. Indeed, they've even pardoned a cannibal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Gorin
Good. They deserve it.
I wonder how this works when Russia is sending people into battle on crutches.
Well when they still have one leg they're not counted yet, but when the second leg gets blown off, they're getting closer to being counted.
Once they roll towards Ukraine on a skateboard pushed by their arms they're pretty close to being counted, but unless both arms are lost this time, they still have one last attempt with one arm.
Until finally they make the list.
This reminds me of the black knight from Monty Python's The Holy Grail.
Merely a flesh wound
Your bloody arm's off!
Russia is desperate for bodies to keep throwing into the meatgrinder.
At this point, Putin's making the government take on enormous debt offering unbelievably generous compensation to new recruits.
They're probably trying to avoid a 2nd draft. The first one cause like, 10% of their fighting age men to flee the country.
I remember someone made an animation of all the flight leaving Moscow after they declared the draft...and the videos of the vans collecting kids...fucking terrifying. The world will be such a better place when Putin and Trump expire. Granted, they will be replaced by someone just as fucked up...but we'll all breathe for a moment.
The best thing about dictators is they usually kill all the competent psycho replacements because they are scared of them so when they die it’s a giant power vacuum. That will also cause other problems but it would be so much worse if there was competent replacements ready to go
Hmm, you may be on to something. Stalin->Kruschev, Mao->Deng, Franco->Juan Carlos just off the top of my head. Definitely improvements with these three.
I wonder how often the Kremlin is using this line to avoid payouts to widows.
Random Safety Tip: Does your family know where to meet outside in case of fire? If not, have that conversation today.
Russia is also desperate to avoid having to pay out said compensation to the soldiers' families should they get killed in cmbat. This is part of the reason why they keep sending out injured people, they're hoping the injured soldiers won't come back and that they can't find a body so they can claim that the soldiers in question were deserters and that any compensation the soldiers signed up for is now null and void since they willingly broke the contract themselves.
Seriously, at that point you might as well surrender to Ukraine. Putin is probably legit terrified of these guys ever coming home to find out that he not only sent them into a meatgrinder for years on end but also stiffed them out of money for it.
Ah yes, but here’s the secret: It’s easy to deny payments to the wounded and the families of the deceased, especially when they’re poor and/or ethnic minorities.
No, after that they're listed as "missing" so they don't have to pay out the death bonuses.
I think there was this one video of Russians trying to make an offensive on scooters lol
"Come back here. I'll bite your legs off !"
Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today.
Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in heeellllll!!!
I remember seeing a photo of a Soviet veteran of either WWII or Afghanistan on a skateboard. He had lost everything below. Pretty stark. Sad.
Tis only a scratch. Sending the wounded back to fight(die) means less rehabilitation costs.
I will say, though, that apparently the ratio of dead to wounded is unusually high in this war, at least compared to previous ones. ISR drones have made artillery particularly accurate, meaning less mild/moderate wounds from incidental shrapnel from harassing fires and more heavy saturation bombardments, especially on targets like troop transports. There are also so many small FPV drones covering the battle space that many casualties that would have been walking wounded in previous conflicts, able to make it back behind the lines to aid stations, are instead being picked off by drones. There is also very limited casevac available, with reports of limited to no evacuation in many cases of more serious wounds.
And also Russia tends to not medevac people or really give them much in the way of medical supplies
I reckon it's something they just don't do. I just finished reading an account of a German/French soldier serving on the Eastern Front of WW2.
One thing that unnerved him was that, whenever possible the Germans would gather their dead and wounded. The Soviets just didn't. He describes a Soviet attack across the Don river in 1942, which the Germans repel. Night falls and the Soviets don't bother to collect their wounded. The author couldn't sleep, listening to the howls and screams of wounded, dying Soviets in the darkness left to die.
Russians have never valued life at all, blame whatever you will. They have done some monsters stuff through the years.
And considering how Russia sends wounded back into combat lots of guys managed to get on this list twice, some even 3+ times
It's worth noting though that this is almost always tracked by name, military unit, and city/town of origin though, so the same troops aren't being counted multiple times just because they've been wounded multiple times. Also worth noting that due to poor Russian MedEvac, a very high percentage of their wounded soldiers end up dying. All in all, I think ~1.2M represents a very realistic figure for the number of Russian soldiers who are either dead or so injured that they will no longer be able to support the war.
This figure comes from the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. Not a chance they have that level of fidelity in the identities of casualties. I doubt that re-injured casualties have a very measurable effect on the number though.
To contrast that loss of almost 1.2million troops since 2022, in 2021 the entire Russian Army had approximately 800,000 total active duty troops by most accounts. War is Hell.
I mean, it's a choice. Nothing of this would have happened if the Russians would have stayed in Russia.
Russia is one of the biggest countries on earth. Why tf do they need another countries resources. They have their own to finish first.
It's not "one of", it is THE biggest country on Earth and it's not even close. However being large doesn't mean you have all to all those resources.
Putin's motivations are several:
Seem like good reasons for the collective West to prevent a Russian victory. Putin gaining control over more of the global food supply in a world facing a climate crisis is a recipe for disaster.
Things get tricky when one of Putin's marionettes is actively helping a hostile country.
another aspect. In ukraine they have found enourmous amounts of natural gas. Rzussia has also natural gas, right, but it's about 3000km far away from the europian customers. So, if ukraine starts selling it's natural gas, there is no business left any more for russia, as it's much more easy to sell the ukraine gas then the russian one from the far east. The far east where the permafrost is melting anway and going to destroy all those nice pipelines.
Number 1 is also extremely important to China. China’s Achilles heel in the event of a global conflict is food, they import around 40% of their food needs, largely from north and South America which the US navy could easily blockade. Russian control of Ukrainian grain would give China an unblockadable source of food if they suddenly found themselves at war with the west.
They need ukraine. Its a bread basket and a strategic point. Russia is actually pretty flat on its west.
Because Ukraine has the highest percentage of arable land in the world. They need cheap food all year long and a “warm water port”.
Russia could have had all of that. Through normal economic activity.
Exactly. They almost speak the same language and come from the same ethnic forebearers. It's unbelievable still, to me, that people are okay going off to fight and kill people just like themselves.
They can't have normal economic activity, since society is stuck in a vicious cycle of normalized corruption, generational trauma and oppression of personal freedoms.
Most top talent with an understanding how the place works will try to leave, which means the economy is perpetually stuck in less profitable sectors.
The oligarchy would rather rob another country than tackle those issues. Which again, leads to more sanctions and fewer trade opportunities.
And a pipeline to pump gas to the EU. But I'm not sure the EU is much interested in maintaining that relationship. Germany and the UK are moving to a war footing. Poland is ready. They aren't getting caught flat footed again and they aren't going back to Russia. This is why Putin wants trump to kill NATO. he honestly thinks if we back out of NATO he can push around the EU. Not sure Russia could take Poland even without NATO.
After all this + Poland has F35s, not a chance
they do not need the physical resource, they need the mental/non-tangible resource of "expansion" that is put to be equal as "progress" in the orcish russian mindset
without something to "feed on", they will inevitably collapse
Unfortunately, putins new Soviet empire isn't going to build itself.
Demographically ruining your country's future all to try and revive a state that failed and collapsed. What an utterly bizarre waste.
A lot of these people are non-Russian ethnic minorities. But I'm sure the war has done a number on the ethnic Russian population, which is what has the demographic issue.
Putin’s ego needs its empire
Pretty soon there won’t be enough Russians left to actually build it anyways.
That's a future-Putin problem.
Supposedly there is a noticeable increase of Chinese in to Siberia. Wonder how long before China reclaims their territory.
He thinks he's Peter the Great.
And it seems Russia isn't capable of building it either
by build you mean destroy
I don’t think there’s anything Soviet about him.
As much as I want the numbers reported to be accurate, this stat gives me pause. But apparently UK MoD is estimating 1.1M casualties also, which is kind of mind boggling to me for a modern military force.
That is total US casualties for all of WWII levels.
That number exceed total UK casualties in WWII.
Casualty figures have been tracked rigorously and scrupulously since the start of the war. We consistent saw Russia losing more than 1,000 men per day for most of the war. When you do basic math it’s not difficult to see how the numbers got so high. Only Russia can know the true figures and they likely don’t because they aren’t tracking like they should.
Because even Russia doesn’t give a shit about it’s people
I think the scale of this war is being underestimated by the American public in particular (Europeans seem to know the truth). US voters don't apparently have the stomach(?) or understanding of how huge the war is. Equivalence to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn't really jive with even lower casualty estimates for this conflict. I don't think China, with the demographics they have, could take over 1M casualties and still press on in Taiwan.
I am sure US/UK/France don't have the stomach for that sort of conflict, barring actual territorial threat.
I am finding it hard to fathom that Russia can take casualties like this, or at least much longer.
The CIA estimates about 21,000,000 Russian men of military age fit for service. So we are looking at a 5% casualty rate for the whole demographic in the past 4 years.
The Russians have historically had a much greater tolerance for war casualties. They lost about 10 million in WWI and the Civil War together, and another 25 million in WWII fighting the Germans.
Half the country was killed by the Mongols 800 years ago. The Turks have also fought them a dozen times.
They give a shit about the massive checks they have to pay to families, the whole recruiting incentive for the war in ukraine has been patriotism, and money, a lot of money.
And as we know the war chest has been emptied at a rapid pace.
So we can assume that in classic russian culture of corruption there is a huge amount of soldiers labeled as missing in action while they most certainly died in some field.
“Your son/brother/husband tried to defect so was killed. No payment for you”
They certainly do track the numbers. not necessarily because they care about the people but because it's a resource like any other that needs to be managed.
My question is how many are counted twice. It's been a few years, and I could see someone who was put down for the count for a few months or even years returning to the fight.
I mean the Russians lost a significantly more than that and world war II
The Soviets lost a significant more. Modern Russia is not the same thing as the Soviet Union, and the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine bore the brunt of those casualties.
Russian SSR lost 14 million people in WWll, but that count includes civilians.
That's what I meant my point is probably has a lot to do with their military tactics and canon fodder practice etc which would have higher casualties than other strategies
War is not hell. No innocent people in hell
Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
War is their choice.
Fuck Russia.
By this account, you had a 100% chance of fatality if you were a member in 2021.
I presume these are casualties. So no, not really
150% chance :)
Casualty doesn't mean fatality. From a military definition a casualty is a person in military service who becomes unavailable for service. Reasons include: KIA, MIA, desertion, capture or wounded in action. This includes wounds ranging from minor to permanent disability.
A casualty who who only suffered minor wounds or manages to escape captivity, is rescued or released can reenter service.
From intelligence reports, Ukrainian and Western powers, only around 20-25% of that 1.1 million casualties are fatalities.
1.2 million is likely killed and seriously wounded, not just killed.
Gee, if only Russia didn't illegally invade a sovereign country and start a war.
Take note Americans
They never will
America invented invading other nations. /s
Perun has an amazing video on the human cost of war.
In a country like russia where its cheaper to have dudes move and stack ammo crates by hand rsther than using a forklift and some pallets, best believe youre expendable as an ammo sponge/drone target on the front lines.
<3 Perun
I wouldn't say it's cheaper, forklifts aren't that expensive, he'll even pallet jacks would be better. They just never made the transition because it costs money and the rampant corruption in the country means nothing ever really gets done anyways.
They've been reliant on rail and hand loading for their military logistics, which is dated and an extreme liability if the rail line fails.
Also yes love Perun
Forklifts are affordable on the west because the supply chains and infrastructure exists. Logistics are palletised, warehouses are built with both in mind, freight vehicles are set up for being loaded that way ect ect
Even simple things like smooth enough floors.
It's just wild that Putin made the call to throw away an entire generation of Russians just for a patch of land. Meanwhile if they just did nothing and continue to be the gas tap for Europe they would be categorically richer and better off. But hey I'm not a sniveling imperialist so I wouldn't know the mentality.
When Russia already had a major demographics problem with low birthrates before the war.
It's looking like over a quarter million Russian soldiers have died so far, and they started out with many of their best troops, the young men. That's really not going to help their demographic problem.
Oh yeah- they might not feel it now but by age demographics Russia's fucked. And that's not even mentioning the fact that their entire economy is currently being propped up by the war
I hope they dont find them
That is the plan, to escape from having to pay the families.
It is the grand escape of the russian gov, while promising extreme *in russian terms* payouts if killed in action, it is much easier to just write missing in action.
Can always say they defected or deserted too. No payout then either.
Wasnt there a report where the troops died but the officer said they were alive so he could collect their pay
Only 1 report? Pretty sure that's just another day in russia
Theyre always the last place you look
All for a leader that doesn't give a shit whether they existed
It's sad to see so many wasted lives.
Right?. When the numbers get that big it’s hard to put into perspective but that’s a couple of large cities of people just gone.
They were sons, brothers, husbands, fathers... lives wasted so one sickly old dipshit can stroke his ego.
These are total casualties, so they include wounded and sick as well. General rule of thumb is 3:1 wounded to killed so in this instance we are looking at about 300k dead and 900k wounded and no longer combat ready. Still an insane amount of lives lost and ruined.
Putin: "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make,"
Their styles of government may change, but Russian peasants always get used for cannon fodder.
"Russian history is the phrase, 'And then, somehow, it got worse,' repeated ad nauseam for a thousand years."
-Robert Evans
It's the strategy the russian army always uses.
Zerg rush. Cram as many soldiers, doesn't matter how unskilled they are, into one location.
It's really sad.
A few years from now people are going to say “Zerg rush” and not have the context of where that term came from.
StarCraft is old news at this point.
Weird how language evolves.
Modern technology means we can see it happen in real time. Fascinating and kind of disturbing.
This is very reductive considering during the Napoleonic wars the Russians had one of the best generals of its time, Alexander sudorov.
And during WW2 the Russians after 1942 consistently managed outmaneuver the Germans and route entire armies during operation narration
Hard agree, a vast majority of the "Slavic horde" rhetoric was formulated by Nazi generals in order to justify their defeats. Wild that it's repeated so readily as fact.
It doesn't help that modern Russia has turned it into a reality. You spend your entire life trying to debunk the "two men, one gun" myth from Enemy at the Gates and then Putin goes ahead and makes it official.
I think if you at the accomplishments of the USSR and then modern Russia that difference is obvious. One is very much roleplaying the more capable country.
That's been true for every nation tbh. Idk where you are from but I certainly know that if your country goes to war it won't be the rich and influential people that will be sent to the frontline.
All for some dictator who orders their deaths.For what? So he can have another part of somebody else's country. Warmonger.
War is old men sending young men to die
What a tragic, sad, waste of human life. War for absolutely nothing except ego.
All these to satisfy the ambition of one man.
They have about 30million military age men. Now if we bump it to about age 50… This war can last a long time.
They would have to conscript those people, which would trigger substantial opposition, or continue to pay ever growing amounts for the desperate and uninformed. They are not going to fight to the last man either way.
Would it, though? 🤨
Yes, because most of the conscripts have been from the very rural hick areas out east, and not in the more developed western areas.
Not in 2025. You can go on Russian social media and see thousands being pulled from Moscow Oblast. I think you're overestimating how willing the average Russian is to resist over a measly million casualties.
It’s been almost 4 years, what a waste of life. Russia isn’t winning this war all they are losing is population, reputation and any chance of redemption that may have happened. Putin is a nutbar and eventually his people will rebel
Up to a point, there is a reason they have avoided the main cities for recruiting troops
Yeah but you need people to, you know, run the economy.
If they feel like attacking the Baltics and antagonizing Poland thereby igniting a war with NATO, it may not last as long as you think.
That's a lot of death for literally NO reason
The entire Vietnam war claimed 40,934 American lives.
58,220?
Total casualties was around 200,000 (wounded and killed). That's 1/5 the Russian casualties in Ukraine. On the other hand, the total land area they've invaded is pretty much all the US East coast states. It's a lot of land for Ukraine to surrender.
I like the idea of taking the Russian monetary assets that Europe and America have frozen and to start giving it to Ukraine to use however they want.
Is that a lot? That seems like a lot.
It’s about double the number of casualties of USA lost in WW2.
It’s about 20 times what Soviets lost in Afghanistan in a 10 year war.
It’s about 30 times what USA lost in Vietnam (also 10 year war).
Yeah it’s a lot.
Friendly reminder that Russia has all the right elements to be a true world superpower. Russians are clearly intelligent and hardworking. Russia clearly sits on vast oceans of natural resources the world needs and due to climate change more available Russian land is going to become available in the coming decades. But unfortunately time and time again, these fucking little tyrants like Putin destroy Russia’s future.
I really think most of the intelligent and hardworking Russians already left
Well since it keeps happening time and time again, it seems their rulers are merely a symptom, and russians are the actual problem here.
How dare you bring a rational thought to an internet discussion?!?
Lol because I just know someone will take my post seriously.
Russia could have been a tech powerhouse if the leaders wanted.
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I do wonder how much if that is from generations of poverty and general desperation of most citizens
Russian People destroy Russias Future. In the past , today and in the Future. Like Trump and the US Citizens 👍🏻
Hopefully they lose the rest soon.
The world needs to psychologically illuminate Putin. He’s a psychopath with very low self worth trying to shield his insecurity and complete feelings of insignificance by making himself feel strong only in ways the most sadistic psychopath make themselves feel they matter… by instilling fear and being responsible for many deaths. Time to take away this little rat’s attempts to look powerful and call him out for the incredible vulnerability he feels. (Likely from a childhood in poverty and neglect.)
Atleast something they are good at...
Not to mention numerous oligarchs; and sooner or later a president...
1.2 million souls sacrificed for nothing
Probably why they have been demanding troops from North Korea and scamming people to trap them in the war.
In American measurements, that's almost one COVID.
Yeah but COVID killed a lot of the old and elderly, whereas this war is killing younger men who are at the beginning of their lives
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And you would be wrong
All senseless. How horrible.
In 3 days!?
Keep it going russia! LOL
Fun fact: troop sounds like "corpse" in russian.
While every Russian loss is a positive, it's important to remain objective, this is a Ukrainian source that understandably has a vested interest in making Russian losses seem as high as humanly possible.
Unfortunately, the numbers likely aren't that high yet, CSIS estimated around 950,000 casualties in June with around 250,000 dead.
Thats over 6 months ago. Tack on 6 months worth of casualties and the number in the title isnt that out of whack.
For some quick maths, losing 800 guys a day for 180 days is 145k guys. And if im not mistaken, 800 is kind of a slow day for Russia at this point is it not?
6 months since the 950 with 1000 plus a day they seem to be loosing the numbers might add up.
Well one can hope at least. Too bad the one getting them all killed is still around.
Then, let's continue fighting with Russia.
Ukraine will win!
Glory belongs to Ukraine!
Ukraine stood up to bullies!
Would be interesting to do the math on the cost per acre for the land they have taken.
How can anyone think Putin loves his country?
Its crazy life does not have any meaning in Russia. How can they call themselves a civilization?
Whatever the actual number is, one thing is certain. Russia has significantly damaged their own military strength over this ridiculous invasion attempt.
Not enough, apparently.
What a horrible waste of goddamn life. Such an avoidable circumstance. Stalin would be proud.
Not WW2 numbers. Yet.....
An insane number. I'm assuming most of these are men? After a quick Google Russia's population is roughly 145 mil, half of those are women. 73 mil a decent chunk of these are kids, elderly or those unfit for combat. So taking that into consideration it's a sizable amount of their male military fit population is lost.
All so some rich Russian men can become richer.
Honestly my biggest takeaway from this post is that 99% of people on Reddit don’t know what a war casualty is.
Are we really going to take the ukrainian MoD numbers at face value? Just take a look at the other categories and see how absurd those numbers are.
https://index.minfin.com.ua/en/russian-invading/casualties/
35041 artillery systems that the russians supposedly lost, and I don't think they even had that many to begin with.
We can check Oryx's losses just to see the massive difference between what we have visually confirmed and what the ukrainian MoD is claiming.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1
Trump always laments the number of soldiers being killed...but never says a word about all of the civilians being killed in Ukraine.
I wish he would give Ukraine the weapons needed to kick Putin's ass back to Russia.
Kyiv independent? I am a bit sceptical