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Vadym Ivchenko, Member of Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence of Ukrainian parliament has said, in public and over the internet, that Ukrainian armed forces have likely sustained at least half a million dead.. He is from Tymoshenko's party, with a pro-Western record.
So, at least around 2.5x more than is the Mediazona estimate of Russian casualties, and assuming identical age distributions, the per capita losses are 10x higher.
Seems like Russians are employing a simple if sound strategy to win a war of attrition as manoeuvre is sort of dead because nobody has enough counter-surveillance technology. The only remotely safe way of moving forces up to the front is sending infantrymen in small groups into prepared positions.
According to this report on Ukrainians training in Poland, nobody told NATO, at least the lower ranks, that the nature of war has changed.. Even though it's been 3 years of heavy recon drone use in Ukraine, NATO units still mostly trains and operate as if the drones weren't there, which is surprising to observe in a force that prides itself on being reliant on technology and good training.
Has anybody covered the whole proposed ceasefire situation at present on the Motte? Can't remember seeing it in last week's thread
Well, here's a quick summary:
That's about where we are. Right now, all we know is that it's a 19-point proposal now and the question of frozen Russian assets has been dropped from it. Presumably, the most sensitive points (Donetsk oblast withdrawal and NATO (non-)membership) will be discussed between Zelensky and Trump.
The most likely outcome is that Trump is once again not able to get off Mr. Bones' Wild Ride: he can't force a ceasefire through but can't wash his hands of the war either. A few more Ukrainian towns are turned into rubble, let's meet again in three months.
Yes, either Zelensky will be successful in convincing Trump that completely unrealistic demands on Ukraine's behalf should be added, in which case Putin will reject it and the neocons will push Trump for more sanctions. Or Z fails and Trump has an excuse to finally bail and pull intel and support, dumping it on Europe. Either way the war continues and the outcome is the same, just the timeline changes.
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Probably not going to happen. The European proposal is delusional. The Russians probably don’t have an actual interest in ending the war at this point and their own proposal is only being made because they know that Ukraine will refuse.
Why is it delusional? What I mean is, what has the state of the war to do with Europe's willingness to concede anything? Say countless Ukrainians are dead, and the Ukrainians are nearing collapse. Not Europe's problem. I wouldn't even give russia a guarantee that Ukraine not join nato. All the pressure is on ukraine, and russia. Europe will just go along with ukraine’s decision. All the leverage europe has over russia (sanctions, confiscated assets) has been gifted to ukraine, to do with as they please. I have no idea why everyone acts like europe is the one who gets to decide to keep fighting.
It is Europe’s problem, or at least they feel it is. That’s why they got involved in the first place. There’s a big strategic difference between Russia controlling Donbas, and Russia controlling Ukraine all the way to the Polish border.
But why?
Anyway, the I don’t think Europe was thinking about this as logically as you are, I suspect they just don’t know how bad things really are.
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There was some discussion. I think the consensus was that it was a joke, and people were arguing over which side ought to take it seriously.
More discussion from last month. Personally, I think that analysis still holds.
There’s also the Transnational Thursday threads to consider.
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