Russia sustained more than 10,000 casualties in a week, according to statistics from Ukraine’s military, with the fast-approaching winter season unlikely to bring a lull in high numbers of fighters killed and injured in the grinding conflict.
Moscow has suffered a total of 690,720 casualties since February 2022, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Monday. This includes 1,680 fighters being killed or injured in the past 24 hours, according to Kyiv.
This figure also brings Moscow’s total casualties, per Kyiv’s count, to 10,490 in the previous seven days.
People here get really uppity when you point out that Ukraine’s enemy lossss and casualty reports are likely inflated, because that’s what all militaries do in all conflicts. It doesn’t even always have to do with wartime propaganda, but because it’s hard to accurately tally enemy losses during active conflict.
Anyways, when you point that out the usual responses to point out the patently ridiculous reports on Ukrainian losses that the Russian MoD puts out, as if somehow that means Ukraine’s are accurate.
The best I can say is that Ukrainian reports are almost certainly exponentially closer to reality than Russia’s comically absurd and fantastical figures.
I will finish it up by saying that there are good independent sources who open source intelligence to track verified losses, and air on the conservative side.
That of course means their loss reports aren’t accurate either, but they provide a good figures to be used as a floor for any estimate ranges.
err
I’ve heard it both ways.
Well, only one of the ways is the accurate idiom. ;)
“Err” generally sounds the same as “air” as most people speak it, at least in the accents I’m familiar with. Think of how error sounds.
But the spelling is very clear and in written usage “air” and “err” are definitely two different words.
I think that the data Ukraine has on Russian losses is better than in any previous conflict. The drones are constantly flying over the battlefield recording.
I also think that Ukraine has significant political reasons for attempting to be reasonably accurate. They rely on NATO for money, weapons, and supplies. They need to provide an reasonably accurate representation of what they are doing with the resources to keep their suppliers happy.
It doesn’t need to be exact, just a reasonable estimate made in good faith.