I'm a little late to this, but I saw a December 19, 2023, post at the Raconteur Report taking note of recent interview of Russian President Putin admitting to 363,000 Russian casualties and in which "Putin has maintained that peace with Ukraine will only be achieved 'when we achieve our objectives'." Aesop points out:
If you're keeping score at home, this latest series of admissions (overt and accidental)
1) Confirms that last week's declassified U.S. military estimate of Russian losses in this debacle was spot on, to three decimal places. Oops.
2) Undoes all the fanboys claiming "Russia has already won", and shoots that stupid lie right in the ass, as Putin admits they still haven't achieved any of their objectives.
3) Points out that Putin's only plan is more of what has failed for the last 22 months, just with 90% less ground military to do it.
Of course, going back to WWII, Russian losses far exceeded German losses on the Eastern Front, but the Russians nevertheless won because they could outlast the Germans. It doesn't matter how poorly the Russians are doing if Ukraine's military collapses first.
I believe that a lasting peace could be negotiated but it would require Ukraine giving up territory that would allow Russia to take the Russian speaking populations in eastern Ukraine and secure both a land route to the Crimean Peninsula and fresh water for the Crimea. Meaning that at least part of the new border would have to be along the lower reaches of the Dnieper River.
Soviet losses in the month-ish long battle of Voronezh:
ReplyDelete568,347, thereof 370,522 killed or missing and 197 825 wounded.
That's a lot of men.
Delete