site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In a sign of the Ukraine war coming to a middle, Zelensky has admitted that Ukraine has as many as 100,000 KIA.

More serious estimates based on firepower disparity, individual unit losses and amputees put the estimate far higher, at 300-500K, with about a minimum at around 200K.

As was expected earlier, Trump's admin is not serious about ending this war and Russians confident they can see it out and settle for a Ukraine without foreign forces on it.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more about those serious estimates. The one you linked is methodological and doesn’t provide a total.

Other than that, I generally agree. Trump’s personal aesthetics don’t really care about foreign casualties. He’s going to manage Ukraine in whatever way serves his domestic politics, so previous support is probably a high-water mark. It’s not going to get any harder for Russia.

There's all kinds floating around - Wikipedia has at least a partial list of official ish ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Total_casualties which put Ukraine at 80k military KIA as of Feb 2024 and Russia at 160k ish, for low bounds, but the propaganda numbers for each side go up 800k Russian KIA according to the Ukrainians and just under 1,000,000 KIA and wounded for Ukraine as per the Russians.

I think around a 2:1 Russian to Ukrainian deaths seems plausible, though others have disagreed. I don't particularly rate the method linked in the OP, purely because if Ukraine actually had taken that many KIA it would be already collapsing and the evidence would be everywhere. Similarly for Russia - 800k KIA is too high. So, we're reduced to estimates of obituaries, excess deaths etc which are more solid but likely an underestimate, or arguing about likely ratios from casualty clearing, fires ratios, fires accuracy, anecdotes, the fact Russia is on the offensive, equipment deficits and so on - which could give us a plausible estimate if you trust the logic and person doing it, but is super open to accusations of being propaganda or being rigged by both camps.

Not sure if that helps?

I think around a 2:1 Russian to Ukrainian deaths seems plausible, though others have disagreed

Why would a the same size army with fewer weapons have fewer deaths ? By all accounts the front is about sitting in a trench and getting killed by arty and drones, or sitting out in the field and getting killed by same. Has been that way for the last 1.5 years.

The complaint that Russians won't even fight you but will just try to kill you with drones every hour of every day. Since they have more drones, it follows they can kill more. (the drone segment is 2/3rs thru the article) https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/03/27/please-don-t-use-my-name

the fact Russia is on the offensive

There was the vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive into heavy minefields and defensive lines - encountered some problems. That's where the famous collection of destroyed armor photo was shot.

I think it's reasonable to say that Ukraine has been defending more than on the offensive? And there are plenty of photos of hundreds of Russian vehicles lost in single pushes from early war if you're worried about the losses shown for Ukraine - the high IQ pontooning meme was a direct offshoot of literally 100+ vehicles being lost as an entire BTG funneled into a kill zone like lemmings. Ukraine's offensive was wildly optimistic and took several company size losses of metal, but it was an outlier, one that they stopped and Zaluzhny should be credited for containing once it was clear there was no hole in the lines like at Kharkiv or Kherson.

All I'm saying is that there are several credible reasons why the Ukrainian military would be perfectly plausibly taking fewer casualties than Russia, while still being under a lot of pressure.

Your post seemed to put credibility on the estimate that Ukraine has taken over 300,000k combat KIA/out of the fight? Where would you put it? I'm guessing at that level or higher? Where do you think Russia's are at?