Since April, when it launched an offensive to seize the town of Chasiv Yar, Russia has lost about 99,000 troops (dead and wounded)
On April 4, Russian forces attacked Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Ukraine just west of the ruins of Bakhmut. Three months later this week, they finally captured the town’s most vulnerable neighborhood—its canal district.
But seizing this tiny part of Chasiv Yar, an industrial town that was once home to 12,000 people, cost the Russians thousands of casualties. The Russian military has reportedly lost 99,000 troops since the start of the Chasiv Yar campaign. And while not all of them died in and around Chasiv Yar, a significant portion of them certainly did.
“Russia has made some progress on the ground and yet even this has come at massive costs,”
commented Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army general. In expending so many lives for so little gain, Russia “appears to have blown what might have been its last chance to strike a decisive blow against Ukraine in this war,” Ryan added.
Most likely, what happens next is what has been happening—for months. Russian forces inch forward at enormous cost in people and equipment, while inflicting much lighter losses on Ukrainian forces. For every town—or even neighborhood—the Russians capture, they bury tens of thousands of their own troops.
Hopefully they blew up a bridge instead of just a stretch of track.
Resistance is futile.
Another Russian 240mm mortar bites the big bavovna.
Russians now come pre-buried.
Might as well put coins under their tongues for Charon.
I love the smell of desperation in the morning.
Putin says all this bullshit even while his propagandists on state TV talk about nuking Berlin and London and wiping all Ukrainian culture and language from the face of the Earth.
This is a great idea. Russia should cede all of occupied Ukraine as well as Belgorod, Rostov, Dagestan, Buryatia, the Kuril Islands, Karelia, Kaliningrad and Tuva.
This is an excellent article from The Financial Times on Russia’s independent journalist diaspora operating in Amsterdam and reaching Russians back home via Telegram and other means.
The TV Rain journalist Eduard Burmistrov reflects: “A lot of our viewers feel very lonely. I want to cuddle them.” The station tries to tell Russians with doubts about the war: “We are not a small group. We are millions.” The aim is to sustain people who never hear their own thoughts in Russia’s public sphere, and who might prevent themselves from even thinking freely, because it feels too risky.
Some viewers are confused, says Burmistrov: they want Russia’s army to take Kharkiv, yet they would flee Russia to avoid mobilisation. In the past, one or two of TV Rain’s journalists themselves may have been confused. During an earlier exile in Latvia, the station fired a presenter who said on air that he hoped to help Russian troops at the front “with equipment and basic amenities”. Latvia then revoked TV Rain’s licence, prompting the move to Amsterdam, where locals are less suspicious of Russians. “It’s good the Netherlands wasn’t in the Soviet Union,” chuckles Burmistrov.
The exiles understand they might stay here for ever, dying forgotten abroad like their post-1917 forebears. Liutova, who now works for Meduza, wards off anguish. “I felt some despair the day Alexei Navalny was killed. Then I thought about what he conveyed to us. If you are healthy and free, you cannot despair.”
The dream is to return. Samantha Berkhead, Russophile American editor of The Moscow Times, longs to live in a post-Putin Russia: “It’s kind of like having a toxic ex. You think, ‘Oh, if I go back, maybe it won’t be the same this time.’”
Death by karma.
This should be the last straw for the EU and NATO.
Should have stayed home.
Looking for my son! Veselov Rudolf Eduardovich 10/12/98 Call sign Kappa Token AB- 818831. On the right side of his neck is a tattoo of Chinese characters, in the photo he is at the bottom left. On 06/11 he signed a contract, arrived at the training camp near Belgorod, on 06/13 he called for the last time and said that they were being sent to the combat zone in Volchansk. Since 06/14 he has not been in touch. Recognized by the Ministry of Defense as a BP. Help me find my son, maybe someone has seen him and
knows what
This is in Crimea.
Everything Russia touches turns to shit.
You don’t need to understand Ukrainian to understand what this little girl is feeling with the air raid sirens going off in the background.
Heartbreaking in any language.
A Ukrainian drone hound