Man. Those poor souls. Sent by some wanker who neither knows nor cares about them, just to die for some bullshit game. Their one chance to experience anything wiped out for eternity.
Yeah to think about how many teenagers never got to actually live because of one psychopath treating life like a video game, and that is ignoring all the civilians who pointlessly died in this too.
Like if I think about how much has happened to me since I’m 18 it horrifies me that they never got to experience any of that.
Russia: President, our population is aging! We’re suffering from a brain drain and an isolated, undiversified economy that can’t exploit our vast natural resources in the long term! How should we address this!?
Putin: Rubs chin contemplatively. Why don’t we kill all our young men by invading our culturally similar neighbor, even if it goes bad? Oh, and kidnap and bomb a few children to make it look good on the international stage. Perhaps we should become a Chinese vassal like North Korea… Yes, do that.
Russia: flashbacks intensify
US: Looks on enviously. Looks at vast resources, aging population kept young by immigration, and friendly neighbors. Nods. Can we do that?
The US invaded Iraq under flimsy pretexts, slaughtering half a million to a million civilians. Israel is committing genocide with the support of its Allies. The climate catastrophe is largely ignored by policymakers despite a century of science warning against it and increasingly stronger heat waves, droughts, forest fires, floods and other deadly events. China is threatening to expand militarily into neighboring countries. Iran will probably have to develop a nuclear deterrent soon to avoid a large scale invasion. Companies all over the world make shady dealings with warlord mass slaughtering slaves in their mines in Africa, be it for cobalt, nickle or gold. The same warlords are supplied with weapons from countries like France, Russia or the UAE. Almost all European countries are working towards totalitarian surveillance of their citizens every moves on a level that the GDR and other regimes of the past could only dream of.
The only thing that got modernized are the tools of barbarity.
The only thing that got modernized are the tools of barbarity.
Also Propaganda - Modern Propaganda is far more subtle and effective at covering the true depths of the depravity up and manufacturing popular consent for it using Entertainment crafted to show the aggressors in a positive light.
I'm talking about a nation who sacrifice 1mln of its citizens in 2020 in order to conquer something (almost nothing in this particular case), with its population not even reacting.
“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
No wonder Russia is suspected of planning an attack on NATO. “Quick, look over there! Something else is happening other than our catastrophic fuckup you shouldn’t be seeing!”
Wouldn't this result in a significant increase in Russian casualties each day along with pushing Europe into a war economy as well. Unless China are going to directly join them in Europe as well. Taiwan will get invaded but are China going to bother about Europe?
Maybe that is the calculation China are going for. Russia lose heavily but distract Europe while they take Taiwan. After Russia will be comparably powerless and irrelevant to China as they have already served their purpose.
The estimates are Casualties, which include injuries.
In an offensive war, generally speaking, casualties are usually estimated to be two to three injuries (moderate to severe) per death. Basically, a casualty is anyone who has sustained injuries that put them out of the fight either temporarily (a couple of hours+) or permanently.
If these numbers are correct*, we're talking about roughly 250k to 333k killed, the rest being injured.
Source: It was a rule of thumb I learned eons ago in the army. I'm curious how accurate it is nowadays with irate drones violently shoving unlubed howitzer shells down your throat.
*: The official stance from Ukrainian intelligence is that these numbers have been visually confirmed. They are reasonably close to the estimates published by british intelligence, so while inaccuracies are to be expected due to the fog of war, it is probably the closest official number we'll have until the war is over.