observers suggest 1.4 million Russian soldiers have been killed since the war began
What a terrible article. It's 1.4 million casualties. Also russian deaths in June is very high (26k), but not 40k. Again, those are casualties.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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The only sources for all the data in this article are two washington dc based think tanks.
For context, about 55,000 American troops died in Vietnam over about 12-15 years. Russia lost 40,000 in a single month, and they've lost well over a million in just a couple years.
That's the definition of a Meat Grinder War.
The title of this article is bad. Further down they reference that ISW estimates 40,000 casualties for June. So killed and wounded. Still horrific, but even with Russia's atrocious killed to wounded ratio more like 10-20k killed.
Recent statement of Rubio was that Russia now has more killed than wounded. That would mean they are down to not even pre-WW1 but medieval casualty levels. And its not unlikely as their casualties would be on the offensive infiltration operations where there's no chance of evacuation. - As per Perun.
I've had this sense building for a while that the world is returning to medieval times. Or that, that's what the powerful people in control everywhere want to happen to normal people while they control all the tech and everything. I hope I'm wrong. But all it would really take is one big grid failure the world over. One big solar flare from the sun. It's probably an outlandish feeling but eh.
It really is an incomprehensible loss, there are voids now in russian society that will never be filled in, missing lifetimes piled up in ghostly stacks, and there are the innumerable international connections russia has destroyed from crudely extracting human bodies to use as grunts on the frontline that don't know they are being sent there until the last moment....
Which isn't to dwell on the tragedy of russians, they can stop this war at any time and yet they fight on like cowards devoted to licking the boot until the very end... it is rather to point out the scale of human loss here is solemn.
No, Russia cannot stop the war at any time.
See professor Jeffrey Sachs. The US did a color revolution in Ukraine and installed a puppet regime who integrated nazi battalions into the Ukrainian army and enacted official holidays to honor Nazism. The Ukrainian people elected Zelensky on a platform of peace, but Zelensky obeyed his US masters. Kiev genocided Russian-speaking people on its own territory and threatened to become part of NATO, which would mean NATO troops, military bases and nuclear weapons on a huge and strategic border with Russia. The US had promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move an inch eastward.
The US did worse for far less when the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba -- which by the way was a reciprocal act for the US putting nuclear missiles in Turkey. In fact, the US recently threatened to invade Panama just because it had commercial relationships to China. Now it threatens the same for Cuba.
US and Europe framing Russia as a threat is an affront to human decency.
It is so irrational that Europe:
- on one minute says Russia is weak, on the verge of collapse. Just one more month of weapons for Ukraine and Russia is done!
- on the other minute says that Russia is a threat even to Central Europe. The mighty Russia juggernaut could march on Berlin!
Besides, Russia has an enormous territory with an extremely small demographic density, low fertility, and an ageing population. The war to annex the separatist republics in Eastern Ukraine has a huge cost, and is only (barely) justified for the reasons above. It is flat-Earthism to think that Russia would embark on an adventure to take over much of Europe. Such an adventure would be sure defeat, and even an (impossible) "victory" would mean gaining more territory, which Russia has in abundance, while losing the precious little young population it still has. That Europeans believe this lunacy is evidence of late-stage capitalism induced irrationality.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-nazi-collaborator-birthday-holiday-anti-semitic-1272911
That is a bad comparison because the US (as usual) used part of the people (the people under the South Vietnam dictatorship) as cannon fodder to kill the other part.
US think tanks and Ukrainian estimates not really that reliable are they?
You mean the people who put the "Ghost of Kiev" (later admitted to be an invention) on every headline are not reliable?
40k you say?!?!? (Im sorry i know the way to hell already, i'll see myself out)
since the beginning of this "3 day operation" they've lost 1.4 million soldiers. They have an estimated population of like 140million. They can throw a few more million at this thing and likely will. I just don't feel the typical ruskie tactic of "throwing enough bodies at something until it goes away" is going to work this time. I mean it clearly isn't working.
They can absolutely not afford to throw a few million more into this, which is why they're already farming out to foreign armies and mercenaries.
Population is not evenly distributed in military participation, it's weighted very heavily towards the age and class demographics that you most need to effect economic growth (that is to say, young and working-class). Losing 1.4 million young citizens is already a huge hit to their economic and social prospects.
They're going to turn the aging populace crisis they're already in into a full-blown population collapse in some areas, and their social structures around population movement can amplify this impact (basically, most Russian people do not tend to move around geographically, so population declines in neighboring regions aren't counteracted by diffusion as easily).
Mechanized warfare requires a core of veteran troops and russia cannot figure out a formula where frontline soldiers, artillery and armor crews aren't disposable one or two time use assets. Ukraine is chewing through russian frontline forces faster and more thoroughly than ever.
You can bullshit most of your frontlines with relatively unexperienced troops, but you need an actual proficient core that knows how to win reliably when they are given proper support and russia just doesn't have it.
Meanwhile compared to russia, Ukrainians tend to survive and learn more often. Ukrainians come back from the frontlines more often. Ukrainians injured in combat are evacuated and recover more often. Disabled Ukrainian veterans have better accomodations in civilian life. These are the things that matter.
There is a quality to quantity but there is also a potential quality to a single person's genius that can make raw quantities irrelevant... If you toss that potential away and use it as a vessel to carry an assault rifle with no training in a meatwave... can you afford to throw human lives away when your opponent is not so wasteful?
The answer is no, no you cannot.
The literal definition of “war of attrition”
I would take those numbers with a grain of salt but russia the agressor is definitely struggling
Russia is not the aggressor. Look for professor Jeffrey Sachs. The US did a color revolution in Ukraine and installed a puppet anti-Russia regime who integrated nazi battalions into the Ukrainian army and enacted official holidays to honor Nazism. The Ukrainian people elected Zelensky on a platform of peace, but Zelensky obeyed his US masters. Kiev genocided Russian-speaking people on its own territory and threatened to become part of NATO, which would mean NATO troops, military bases and nuclear weapons on a huge and strategic border with Russia. The US had promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move an inch eastward.
The US did worse for far less when the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba -- which by the way was a reciprocal act for the US putting nuclear missiles in Turkey. In fact, the US recently threatened to invade Panama just because it had commercial relationships to China. Now it threatens the same for Cuba.
US and Europe framing Russia as a threat is an affront to human decency.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-nazi-collaborator-birthday-holiday-anti-semitic-1272911
typical ruskie tactic of “throwing enough bodies at something until it goes away”
Yes, the Asian hordes racist trope. Europeans are sophisticated knights, Asians are hordes of orcs.