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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 listened to the interview, and it seems like he was misquoted: https://www.1lurer.am/en/2025/04/14/Zelensky-denied-reports-that-he-spoke-about-100-000-dead-Ukrainian-soldiers/1296200
Zelensky has been fairly clear that Ukrainian combat KIA was 46k ish early this year and rising at a steady rate, and if we believe that or not the official Ukrainian government estimate has not changed on that score.
Other estimates put Ukraine's KIA higher, certainly, but I haven't seen a method that compares Russia vs Ukraine like for like without the ratio being in Ukraine's favor. Sure, Russia has a larger population, but I think it's really hard to find credible estimates that can plausibly estimate that A) Ukraine is taking far heavier losses than Russia, while accepting B) Russia has been on the offensive for most of the war (which is always casualty heavy) while barely advancing since 2022.
There's also C) noting the sheer volume of Russian equipment loss footage, the steadily shifting ratio of fires along the line in Ukraine's favor (Rheinmetall clearly took the attempted assassination of the CEO personally), the fact Russian casualty clearing must be abysmal from their own telegrams and the fact that wounded soldiers in their own lines (where evacuation should be routine in most armies) regularly commit suicide, and the fact that they're launching attacks with civilian vehicles (which I've never seen footage of Ukraine doing?). However, the points of C can be denied as Ukrainian propaganda by some I would assume (though I find the above credible points), so we can set them aside if you want.
Potentially Ukraine will still lose a war of attrition, but if it continues to get support it doesn't seem to be soon. Certainly I would be less confident than Russians with Attitude, the Russian economy is showing a lot of strain while Ukraine is being underwritten, and for both sides things can break slowly then fast. We will see.
However, that's all just fog of war, and maybe boring to argue, we can't really know until the dust settles, and I've had discussions on this forum before where we've ended up assuming 1:2 or 1:6 ratios in totally opposite directions without any resolution. I would just drop the following two points for thought:
Has Russia ever come up with peace terms that are close to credible? I haven't seen any, and in the absence of that the war will continue until someone breaks for sure. That seems to suggest confidence from Russia, or desperation, but it seems hard to argue that Ukraine shouldn't fight them to a stalemate if it feels that is possible, which they seem to genuinely do. Maybe they are wrong, but they certainly outperformed marvelously vs predictions in 2022.
Second, Zelensky's political position is a different to the warmonger I've seen put here a few times, at least by my understanding. He was the compromise with Russia candidate, and has that hanging around as a reputation within Ukraine ever since. He's tried to break it by leaning hard into the wartime president role and being tough, but his plausible opponents are all more hardliners (Zaluzhny for one) - it's not the case that Zelensky is forcing the Ukrainians to keep an unpopular war going, he's the one not daring to show weakness in front of them and has no mandate to end the war under the present conditions.
It seems like it is going to last for a while longer, and Ukrainians I know (one who is fighting) have adopted Kipling's The Beginnings, against those whom many of them called brother just recently. I cannot blame them, there's plenty of ruin left in this war, and I would not bet on Russia just yet.
One again, hard pounding this, gentleman, we shall see who pounds the longest.
*Edit: I also wanted to include this as my candidate for Russians with attitude's best tweet https://imgur.com/fK2KhQB . Before bragging about your victory, it is often useful to actually win it
Ukrainians admitted Russia has a parity in drone quality and quantitative superiority. Ditto for artillery. It follows that if they are basically comparable in terms of intelligence and doctrine, but have less weapons they're going to suffer more.
drones (Economist)
other weapons (Guardian, Syrsky interview)
Yes, they very credibly claim they're going to kill every single person who is going to prevent Russia from ensuring there are no foreign troops based on Ukrainian soil. Their peace terms right now were: Ukraine neutral, Russia keeps the 4 oblasts and Crimea, borders recognized.
I do note that Syrsky interview isn't dated in your screenshot, but is shortly after his appointment so presumably over a year ago now? Plus, not sure on your economist article, but they have changed their tune more recently: https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/12/02/how-ukraine-uses-cheap-ai-guided-drones-to-deadly-effect-against-russia and I think most estimates don't put Ukraine behind on drone integration.
The balance since then has shifted sharply, and not in Russia's favor https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/04/07/rheinmetall-secures-nitrocellulose-supply-amid-european-ammo-scramble/ (edited to a better link), plus systems like Excalibur and the GMLRS/ATACMS really don't have any qualitative peer in the Russian artillery arsenal (hence why they had to pause and restructure their logistics around them) - I just don't think either of those sources come close to suggesting Russia has and had always a qualitative and quantitative edge that comes close to evening its casualty disadvantage as an attacker. It's also possible that Syrsky was being a slight doomer then to highlight the need for ongoing aid in early 2024...
On the credibility of Russia's claims, they also demand many other things do they not? Some of which include the end to sanctions, rolling back NATO's deployments, the right to veto legislation in Ukraine and more, all of which are still in effect as of their last announcements unless something has really changed behind the scenes (Dmitri suggests not: https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/67fb81259a794798c0cc6be5 *(edited to avoid screwing up the link))? That seems highly non credible, and well well beyond what you say, which would themselves require Russia to achieve a breakthrough it has not managed since Spring 2022. For example, taking two oblast capitals, one of which was never theirs and the other behind a now fortified huge river, that they themselves flooded. That is what I mean by non credible.
"2027 (geplant) Produktionskapazitäten" is pulling a lot of weight in that chart.
Also that image is going to die when the /k/ shilling thread does, you may want to archive
*2027 I assume? But you're right, how about this one: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/04/07/rheinmetall-secures-nitrocellulose-supply-amid-european-ammo-scramble/
I'm a bit annoyed at the Germans and their pace, but Russia's low GDP and sanctions are not great for a war of attrition, and they really have burnt through most of their stored equipment in many categories.
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