this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
339 points (98.3% liked)

World News

38691 readers
2813 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Zelenskyy said that the number was far lower than estimates given by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

“31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about. But nevertheless, each of these losses is a great sacrifice for us”, Zelenskyy said at the “Ukraine. Year 2024” forum in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian leader said that he wouldn’t disclose the number of troops that were wounded or missing. He also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” had been killed in occupied areas of Ukraine, but said that no exact figures would be available until the war was over.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 73 points 7 months ago (1 children)

31.000+ lifes just gone. That's my hometown and more and that's only killed soldiers of one side and all because one man and his delusions of grandeur

[–] resetbypeer@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Both sides will never say the exact numbers. That's how this goes. It's in both interest that actual numbers stay as secret as possible. But I do think that Russian losses are in the 1 to 3 or 1 to 5 range, in Ukraine's favor, just because the meat grind attacks in Adiivka and Bachmut alone.

EDIT: clarifying the numbers

[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

400k Russians are not in the fight anymore. That number has been confirmed. Even doubling the Ukrainian numbers makes this whole thing utterly staggering...that would be 1 to 6. But the 31k? 1 to 12....12!! For every dead Ukrainian, Russia pays with 12 of their own...

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I have a hard time doubting Ukraines estimated Russian casualties.

They have posted video after video of Russia assaults with 5-8 APC's with a tank or two being absolutely demolished.

I wonder what the life expectancy of fresh troops are now. I doubt they can get experienced troops to leave their trenches and rear positions. So you know it's some conscript from a remote impoverished town being sent in meat waves to the front.

[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Same, I have a very hard time as well doubting those. Let alone for the fact, that being on the defensive will always help, home turf and all as well, all those tanks not killing their crew instead of the russian wannabe space-turrets.

Another point of how badly the Russians are doing is how fiercely their propaganda is trying to spin them being the best and Ukraine having already lost. Noticed the uptick of that shit in the last days pretty significantly...

[–] _xDEADBEEF@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

yeah, at the first attempts of encircling avdiivka, with literal meatgrinding tactics (mtlbs dropping troops into the middle of if russian bodies and then running over them, repeatedly), it made it pretty obvious the russian army really don't give a fuck about their troops. Maybe not as bad as wagner but on a larger scale.

[–] cybersandwich@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

As Churchill said, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies"

Neither side is giving accurate information.

[–] theodewere@kbin.social 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

there's no reason to doubt him.. Ukraine hasn't tried any mindless, meat grinder offensives, and the front line hasn't moved against Ukraine significantly since about the 6 month mark.. there's no reason to believe they've lost many more than that, while it's easy to believe the Russians have lost 10 times that number or more.. most of the Ukrainian casualties have been innocent civilians.. babies, women, children, etc.. the Russians have not shown themselves capable of defeating Ukrainian military units..

[–] Hubi@feddit.de 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

there’s no reason to believe they’ve lost many more than that

While I do believe the official numbers that the Ukrainian government has released, it's also important to note that these do not include military personnel that are missing in action. The actual number of dead is still unknown and likely will remain so until the war is over.

[–] theodewere@kbin.social 13 points 7 months ago

the point is, the Ukrainians are actually working to get and report an accurate number

[–] maness300@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

while it’s easy to believe the Russians have lost 10 times that number or more

🥱

This war is a fascinating case study with how easily people believe whatever they want with no information to back it up.

[–] jenny_ball@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It's nearly 500 000 now. Insane.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ukraine claims north of 400k, which is undoubtedly optimistic, but allied intelligence agencies have previously floated numbers around 1/2 to 2/3rds of Ukraine's public claims, which is still an utterly appalling number of dead Russian men. Russia's tactical approach from the start has been more or less to treat their mobilized conscripts as expendable. For politically-important objectives their commanders have been perfectly happy to dump fresh meat into the metaphorical meat grinder until the gears jam, and then claim victory.

[–] Gigan@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Is that casualties or killed? They're not the same.

[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Casualties, but apparently the deaths are more than 50% confirmed - in the end, it doesn't matter though, because russian field medicine is such a shit show, I highly doubt a single one of those 450k+ will ever fight again. So they are the same.

[–] brianorca@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Russia standard procedures seems to be to put a bandaid on the wounded and send them back, or else leave them where they lay. They are not using the modern battlefield medicine practices that resulted in higher ratios of wounded to dead in most modern Western warfare.

[–] mean_bean279@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

I think that was just casualties. This is Ukraine talking about strictly dead people.

[–] PoliticallyIncorrect@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

"Official" numbers, what's the real amount we will see at the end of the war..