The Defence Forces continue to inflict losses on the Russian army; over the past day alone, the defenders killed 1,210 Russian occupiers and destroyed 39 armoured combat vehicles and 23 Russian tanks. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 16 February 2024 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses - ed.
  • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    8 months ago

    400,000 people that could have taken up arms against their dictator but they chose not to.
    If being sent to the western front is a death sentence anyway, why not choose to die trying to live?
    I’d gladly take a bullet in the back of the head rather than starving and suffering frostbite for months THEN taking a bullet in the gut or bleeding out after having my legs blown off by a mine.

    Don’t get me wrong, there’s honor in defending your country and your freedom, but these men aren’t dieing for either of those things.

    • Wappen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      Never put the blame on the people. Imagine you are a being forcefully recruited to fight in war. You have family at home. You have hope. And therefore you stay passive. There are 8 billion people on earth, including you, who could try and take action. After all, why try if you can at least try to survive?

      My words are a bit scattered, sorry for that, but I cannot stay calm when I see someone blame the people instead of the system. A revolution does not rise just because it seems fit. A revolution rises because oppression wasn’t fully successful somewhere. That’s my opinion at least. And if you look at history you will probably see the same patterns.

      Also being sent to the western front isn’t automatically a death sentence. You could be wounded and be taken to hospital, you could be captured and be put in prison, you could also simply try and survive.

  • avater@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    that may sound gruesome but the only way to peace for the people of ukraine is to kill as much russians as possible there. Only when we cross the threshold of human losses that Putin or the Russian people are prepared to accept, we will see true negotiations.

    • AliasAKA@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      This is somewhat misleading. According to that Wikipedia page, just using the US estimates, Ukraine has had 70k deaths and Russia has had 120k+. While these are similar in that they both round to 100k perhaps, Russia has almost double the Ukrainian military personnel losses.

      War is miserable, but I don’t think Ukraine is losing military personnel by nearly the same clip that Russia is.

      • Joncash2@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        While that’s true, I would argue the total human cost is similar. Your estimates do not count stolen and killed Ukrainian civilians. Adding those would make the numbers far closer, especially since no Russian civilians are caught in this conflict so far.

        Not saying any of this is OK. Just unfortunately the numbers are very similar. War is miserable.

        *And yes, the fact that Ukraine is suffering more losses due to the fact that it’s Russia invading absolutely makes Russia the bad guy here. I’m just pointing out that the losses are unfortunately very close.

      • nevemsenki@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        The population ratio ia roughly 3:1 though, so even 120:70 is far from sustainable or winnable sadly. I’d imagine those numbers would be way better if the military aid was not drip fed…

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      Hollywood presents fighting war in this heroic way. After seeing enough videos of soldiers getting blown to bits by randomly passing drones, I think it’s more bleak than that. You likely are going to get killed in the least heroic way… lying in the dirt.

      Based on these casualty numbers there is just about a 99% chance you will be killed or severely maimed. Unless you have a legitimate higher purpose for fighting, which I believe the Ukrainians do, it would be best to avoid it all together.

  • Psythik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    02·
    8 months ago

    That’s it? And here I thought Russia was running out of men six months into this. I honestly thought the death toll was in the dozens of millions…

    • Skua@kbin.social
      0·
      8 months ago

      The pressure on Russia’s manpower is not the plain old number of humans in the country, it’s the amount that they can commit to this war without having so much of a domestic impact that public opinion turns against the government too much. Ukraine has a quarter of the population but has the domestic support to be able to call up everyone that can fight. Russia doesn’t want to do this, so it uses the likes of Wagner and prison conscripts that won’t be missed by much of the general populace.