Russia and Ukraine

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Leaves one wondering which spins are true and which ideals are realistic, doesn't it?
I gave up following the news on this because, on the one hand, the terrain seems to be mostly static; on the other hand, all I get from the media is "the UK says this", "The CIA says that", "according to Ukrainian sources", etc. oh, and "russian state media made this outrageous comment". Who is being truthful here?

Well, we can winnow it down a bit. Since Putin has repeatedly expressed his support of the dictum, ‘Never tell the truth when a lie will do’, I think we can safe rule him out as one of the truth tellers.

A reasonably useful method for determining the truth of a statement is to see how well it matches with known facts. For example, Ukrainian numbers of Russian soldiers killed is much closer to the actual number than what the Russian media reports (we have a fairly good estimate of the correct number based on troop/equipment replacements, etc).

Boru

Here’s a recent example of this metric:

A leaked letter from the Russian Ministry of Finance (confirmed) says that as of 28 August, 361.4 billion rubles have been paid to the families of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine - not MIA, not wounded, just killed. The standard payment per family is 7.4 million rubles. This works out to 48 759 dead Russians.

Ukraine claims to have killed 50 000 Russians. Putin says Russia has lost ‘nothing’.

Who seems closer to the truth?

Boru