Another million lives, thrown into the meat grinder of war for no good reason. Just as another war starts.

So, in all, 1.5m casualties. I guess they're just numbers in a spreadsheet as far as Russia's leaders are concerned.

Looking at Syria and Iran and Russia's passivity in these conflicts, I now wonder whether Russia is still a regional power at all in the wake of the massive losses it suffered in the Ukraine disaster. It lost its status as a military world power in the first weeks of the invasion.

“Some people die in road accidents, others from alcohol – when they die, it’s unclear how. But your son lived, do you understand? He fulfilled his purpose.” - Putin, to the mother of a dead soldier.

The Economist reports that the war is causing a boom in some small towns in Russia. There's a big death benefit paid to the families.

>The estimate aligns with a recent study by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which puts Russian military deaths at up to 250,000 and total casualties, including the wounded, at over 950,000. Ukraine has suffered very high losses as well, with between 60,000 and 100,000 personnel killed and total casualties reaching approximately 400,000.

I searched for the CSIS study to see what their methodology was and found a video

https://www.csis.org/analysis/evening-one-million-russian-ca...

...which explained:

* Nothing. Nada. Literally zero evidence of any kind combined with literally zero analysis.

* An assertion that this number "proves" that it's not true that "Russia holds all the cards". They appear to want to rebut Trump's opinion.

* The final comment was about the military assistance bill and how important it was that it be passed.

There was also some random facts that look like they might support the original claim but which emphatically do not (e.g. amount of land taken).

The average Russian would of course also be equally inclined to believe their military industrial complex's PR lobby group when it makes unsourced claims like this. That's coz the average Russian is not too smart.

This is dubiously sourced and defies comparisons with other conflicts. These casualty figures are at the same level as total US casualties in World War 2. It beggars belief that a regional war can produce such casualties. By contrast total US casualties in Vietnam were about 211,000, and Korea, about 140,000. Given the sources for these Russian casualty figures there is a very high likelihood that these numbers are grossly misstated.