Putin's Invasion of Ukraine

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Zelenskyy gives count of total casualties on both sides:

According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine's losses in the war: around 50,000 killed and 400,000 wounded (as well as a "huge number of missing')
Russia has suffered 1,600,000 total losses, including around 700,000 deaths (presumably 900,000 wounded)

This is a bit of an odd statement because his figure for Ukrainian KIA back in February of this year was 55,000. Now it's 50,000. So one or both of these figures is definitely wrong.

Estimates I've seen give Ukraine with anywhere between 100k and 200k KIA. And yes, there are lots of missing - almost 98k. So there's the reason for the significant range for KIA figures. And it means that Zelenskyy's figure is almost certainly an undercount.

The wounded figure is somewhat plausible, but again, it's also likely an undercount. Probably closer to 500k-600k following the standard 3:1 wounded/killed ratio. That ratio might be even higher than that (more wounded but less deaths) because Ukraine has had remarkable success evacuating the wounded and keeping them alive, at least prior to the "drone kill zone" tactics used by both sides, which makes evacuating anyone from the front lines extremely risky. Even then, Ukraine is using ground drones to evacuate the wounded while the Russians are on camera hauling theirs away on a wheelbarrow or just keeping them at their post. There are definitely different tactics being deployed with a very guessable difference in outcomes.

The Russian casualties are much more in keeping with what's already been reported. 1.6 million total casualties - that's a big ol' check. Back in March of this year, Zelenskyy said that 62% of all Russian casualties were KIA. This seems unbelievably high, especially compared to Ukraine's ratio and even the historical ratio of 3:1.

But the attacker typically has more difficulty evacuating the wounded and Russia's extremely wasteful tactics of massed armored assaults, meat wave assaults, tunnel tactics, and infiltration tactics have not worked out so well. Earlier in the war, they put a lot more effort into evacuating the wounded. Now, not so much. It's generally assumed that it's a one-way ticket and Russian units generally don't put a lot of effort into preserving their troops. There are also plenty of non-combat deaths from disease, weather, food/water deprivation, and murder. Commanders killing their own troops, troops killing their commanders, troops killing other troops.

So the KIA probably isn't quite 62% - because that'd be almost a million, not the 700k Zelenskyy is now claiming. But the general ballpark of 700k is very plausible as is the derived 900k wounded figure. Russia has and continues to have a much, much larger casualty count than Ukraine, and Ukraine's middle-range strike offensive and overall reliance on drones is just adding to it. The more Russians encounter Ukrainian drones, the less they encounter actual Ukrainians.

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Never a slow day in Ukraine...

Assassination attempt on Ukrainian Commander foiled

Commander of Ukraine’s 2nd Khartiia Corps, Col. Ihor Oboliensky, survived an assassination attempt Friday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

We don't know much details at this time, but I saw a photo of either the would-be assassin or his accomplice and he could've been a mall santa. Though this one's not so much writing the naughty list as being written on it.

An unrelated assassination attempt - this one not foiled so much as insufficiently accurate - against the head of a Russian drone manufacturer

Cherezov was attacked in the entrance of his apartment building, where an assailant fired three shots before fleeing the scene. The attacker remains at large. Cherezov was hospitalized in serious condition, according to Mash.

These drones are frequently used in "human safari" attacks on civilians, so it's little wonder that he was targeted. Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

Russia attacked Kyiv with ballistic missiles, killing at least 3 civilians. This is just happened, so it's very fresh news.

Ukraine also launched one of its nightly long-range drone attacks into Russia, but that's in-progress. We'll see how that turns out. I bet Russian civilians hope the Ukrainians aren't as cruel to civilians as they are.

[Cassia]

Zelenskyy gives count of total casualties on both sides:

According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine's losses in the war: around 50,000 killed and 400,000 wounded (as well as a "huge number of missing')
Russia has suffered 1,600,000 total losses, including around 700,000 deaths (presumably 900,000 wounded)

This is a bit of an odd statement because his figure for Ukrainian KIA back in February of this year was 55,000. Now it's 50,000. So one or both of these figures is definitely wrong.

Estimates I've seen give Ukraine with anywhere between 100k and 200k KIA. And yes, there are lots of missing - almost 98k. So there's the reason for the significant range for KIA figures. And it means that Zelenskyy's figure is almost certainly an undercount.

The wounded figure is somewhat plausible, but again, it's also likely an undercount. Probably closer to 500k-600k following the standard 3:1 wounded/killed ratio. That ratio might be even higher than that (more wounded but less deaths) because Ukraine has had remarkable success evacuating the wounded and keeping them alive, at least prior to the "drone kill zone" tactics used by both sides, which makes evacuating anyone from the front lines extremely risky. Even then, Ukraine is using ground drones to evacuate the wounded while the Russians are on camera hauling theirs away on a wheelbarrow or just keeping them at their post. There are definitely different tactics being deployed with a very guessable difference in outcomes.

The Russian casualties are much more in keeping with what's already been reported. 1.6 million total casualties - that's a big ol' check. Back in March of this year, Zelenskyy said that 62% of all Russian casualties were KIA. This seems unbelievably high, especially compared to Ukraine's ratio and even the historical ratio of 3:1.

But the attacker typically has more difficulty evacuating the wounded and Russia's extremely wasteful tactics of massed armored assaults, meat wave assaults, tunnel tactics, and infiltration tactics have not worked out so well. Earlier in the war, they put a lot more effort into evacuating the wounded. Now, not so much. It's generally assumed that it's a one-way ticket and Russian units generally don't put a lot of effort into preserving their troops. There are also plenty of non-combat deaths from disease, weather, food/water deprivation, and murder. Commanders killing their own troops, troops killing their commanders, troops killing other troops.

So the KIA probably isn't quite 62% - because that'd be almost a million, not the 700k Zelenskyy is now claiming. But the general ballpark of 700k is very plausible as is the derived 900k wounded figure. Russia has and continues to have a much, much larger casualty count than Ukraine, and Ukraine's middle-range strike offensive and overall reliance on drones is just adding to it. The more Russians encounter Ukrainian drones, the less they encounter actual Ukrainians.

All that death for little 5.5' Putin. An average 14-year kid could knock his ass out in 10 seconds.

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Ukraine strikes 71 targets in July:



Oops, make that 71 targets an hour. So, about 1700 a day and 31 days gives about 53k/month. That's a lotta damage!

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Russian beachgoers flee in panic as Russian air defense shoots down Ukrainian drone over crowded beach, at least 7 Russian civilians killed

I saw the footage on telegram and it's 100% the result of Russian air defense choosing to engage at the wrong time and place. The Russians have very frequently had very poor trigger-discipline and wild-spray-n-pray tactics. Add to that that they're often deployed right next to civilians and it's no surprise that undisciplined and reckless behavior leads to poor results.

Previously, they've fired AA missiles and hit Russian apartments. They even had a weird incident where the AA boomeranged back at the launcher, which was really bizarre. They've had lots of small arms firing in the vague direction of Ukrainian drones and hitting god knows what (what goes up, must come down). They've had a pantsir bizarrely shoot parallel to the ground, hurling 30mm shells through buildings, narrowly missing a guy. In the big Moscow attack, they had a guy firing a machine gun while standing in the road in weird loose-cannon arcs dangerously close to nearby vehicles (a couple of degrees difference, and one of those vehicles would have a sunroof). And famously, they also had air defense miss a Ukrainian drone and hit a fuel storage tank, blowing its top

So I'm not surprised that Russian air defense killed someone, albeit indirectly.

Naturally, the Russians simultaneously said that it was an attack by the Ukrainians on beachgoers and that it was just drone debris. Well, who created the drone debris, hmm?

What I am surprised by is western media taking Russian claims at face value and reporting them as if they were facts. "Ukrainian drone strikes Russian beach resort". Yes, but why? Omitting the "because it got shot down" part is very misleading, possibly deliberately so. It makes it appear like the Ukrainians were targeting civilians on purpose, which is definitely not their mo. Morality aside, that wouldn't be a practical strategy. The Ukrainians don't have enough drones to waste them so frivolously. Russia is a big place with lots of much, much higher-value targets - refineries, radar, air defense, command posts, logistics, warehouses, war factories, etc. You can't pass up all those juicy targets just to waste it on a beach. Ukraine is trying to win a war and you don't win wars by bombing beaches deliberately.

[Cassia]

Russian beachgoers flee in panic as Russian air defense shoots down Ukrainian drone over crowded beach, at least 7 Russian civilians killed

I saw the footage on telegram and it's 100% the result of Russian air defense choosing to engage at the wrong time and place. The Russians have very frequently had very poor trigger-discipline and wild-spray-n-pray tactics. Add to that that they're often deployed right next to civilians and it's no surprise that undisciplined and reckless behavior leads to poor results.

Previously, they've fired AA missiles and hit Russian apartments. They even had a weird incident where the AA boomeranged back at the launcher, which was really bizarre. They've had lots of small arms firing in the vague direction of Ukrainian drones and hitting god knows what (what goes up, must come down). They've had a pantsir bizarrely shoot parallel to the ground, hurling 30mm shells through buildings, narrowly missing a guy. In the big Moscow attack, they had a guy firing a machine gun while standing in the road in weird loose-cannon arcs dangerously close to nearby vehicles (a couple of degrees difference, and one of those vehicles would have a sunroof). And famously, they also had air defense miss a Ukrainian drone and hit a fuel storage tank, blowing its top

So I'm not surprised that Russian air defense killed someone, albeit indirectly.

Naturally, the Russians simultaneously said that it was an attack by the Ukrainians on beachgoers and that it was just drone debris. Well, who created the drone debris, hmm?

What I am surprised by is western media taking Russian claims at face value and reporting them as if they were facts. "Ukrainian drone strikes Russian beach resort". Yes, but why? Omitting the "because it got shot down" part is very misleading, possibly deliberately so. It makes it appear like the Ukrainians were targeting civilians on purpose, which is definitely not their mo. Morality aside, that wouldn't be a practical strategy. The Ukrainians don't have enough drones to waste them so frivolously. Russia is a big place with lots of much, much higher-value targets - refineries, radar, air defense, command posts, logistics, warehouses, war factories, etc. You can't pass up all those juicy targets just to waste it on a beach. Ukraine is trying to win a war and you don't win wars by bombing beaches deliberately.

Western media is a frustrating hodgepodge that mainly regurgitates social media posts and government propaganda. There were 115,000 professional journalists in 1990, now we are at less than 50,000 and college enrollment has been dropping 8-11% a year.

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A couple of the outlets are camped out at the Kremlin's press release feed - "Russia says" this, "Russia says" that. It's not only willingly aiding a dictatorial regime by broadcasting its message, it's just plain lazy. Nothing gets questioned or investigated, just copy-pasted. The Kremlin's words, repeated.

It bothers me because I have to go to Telegram or social media like Bluesky or Threads to get the actual situation on the ground - X exploded because Y. Short and matter-of-fact.

When I check out the New York Times or CNN, they get that plus AP's wire, where the facts are processed (and sometimes omitted) and sandwiched between Kremlin quotes and woven into a narrative that seems reasonable on the surface if you don't know any better, but can be misleading or downright false. Hundreds of millions of people read this stuff and take it at face value without a second thought. That's disturbing.

And that's in addition to the Kremlin's own fake news apparatus, with doctored images and AI-generated videos and deepfakes, many of which likely work on the unwary. Trying to find the truth is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

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Russian corvette catches fire right as it was about to be completed. What are the odds? If it was the Ukrainians (nonzero chance of Russian workmanship spontaneously self-destructing), then they timed it perfectly.

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A mysterious fire broke out at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building in Russia's Moscow region

This is a key research institution in Russia's space industry, develops rocket and space technologies. As you might imagine, its top priority these days isn't sending people to the moon, but getting explosives to Kyiv. Hopefully, the fire claimed something important. Fingers crossed.

Car bomb critically injures head of Russian drone company

His company created Russian Ghoul drones, low-cost FPV drones resistant to jamming, which the Russians have used to attack Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians.

Oh, forgot to tell you guys about the explosion at a restaurant in Moscow. The gist of it is that Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces Aleksandr Chayko was celebrating his birthday and the Ukrainians wanted it blow out the candles. Especially because this guy is implicated in the Bucha massacre. Unfortunately, the security guy did his job and stopped a woman at the entrance carrying a suspicious package (I'm not sure if she was knew it was a bomb or not). The bomb went off remotely, killing her, the competent guard, and a few other people and wounding 21 people (4 people total died).

So the plot - if there was one - was foiled, but as the saying goes, the assassin only has to be successful once.

Edit -



I stand corrected about the restaurant attack being a failure.