Warring nations almost always "fudge" some of the data, but in the Ukrainian war, the gap between official and Ukrainian numbers seems to be huge. That noted, I'm starting to believe the Ukrainian numbers without much reservation. For starters, they're not that far off from those produced by NATO, and going further, look at this article about a doctor who worked on Russian casualties before escaping to freedom. More or less, soldiers were coming to his hospital in Belarus (there does not appear to have been a good set of field hospitals in the north of Ukraine) with wounds that had turned gangrenous.
In other words, wound care in the Russian army is errily reminiscent of the conditions found before Florence Nightingale cleaned things up....in the Crimean War nearly 170 years ago. So I suspect that the Ukrainian numbers, while probably still a bit optimistic, might have more truth in them than any Russian mother would want to know.
Side note; Dutch open source investigators Oryx have apparently verified that about 7500 Russian heavy armored vehicles (tanks, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery) have been destroyed or captured. The Ukrainian numbers are similar, about 10,000.
Long and short of it is that Russian losses in their war against Ukraine, when scaled for population, are approaching the impact of the Korean and Vietnam Wars on the U.S.....combined. In terms of deaths and losses per month. they're approaching U.S. losses in World War Two. And it's only going to get worse as more and more of their irreplaceable systems get used and destroyed. Estimated Russian losses per day have risen from ~100-200/day to about 400-500/day.
I can only pray that the angry grieving mothers and widows find the information that enables them to take out the FSB (the new KGB) for good when this is all done.
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