Russia and Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

Russia has lost more combat troops in 32 days in Ukraine than the US has lost in 46 years of sending troops overseas to 'protect American interests'. And not just a little more - 20% more.

How is this war anything but an unmitigated disaster for Russia?

Boru

Depends on who you listen to, the people who presented, or Rebroadcasted, in-game footage from Xbox to show how one Ukrainian jet shot down several dozen Russian ones?

Russians themselves say they suffered roughly 2% casualty,   If we use the casualty rate on dead/wounded per 1000 troops engaged per day of intense combat as a measure, and use historic campaigns involving sustained high intensity combat against entrenched defenders, such as the Normandy campaign as benchmark,  we might expect the Russians have suffered 2-3 times casualties then they admitted, but 1/5 the casualties Ukrainians or the west claimed the Russians suffered. 

The territory they have taken and the Ukrainians have acknowledged they’ve nearly as large as  Great Britain, and larger than the territory the Wehrmacht took from France before the French surrender, and they did it with 1/15 the troops the Germans used to take that territory, and 1/4 the troops the Germans used to just occupy that territory.    If we use either Russian figures or estimates based on expected casualty rates in modern land combat between comparable forces, then the Russians suffered fewer casualties per square miles taken than the US did in either Iraq war.