Putin's Dead End
There seems to be no number of losses that Vladimir Putin is not willing to accept to achieve his 'insane dream of Ukraine's complete capitulation' reports Paul Niland, from Kyiv
“Russian forces in Ukraine near first major conquest in more than two years” So reads the headline of a Wall Street Journal article on 6 November. It is true, Russia is advancing, Pokrovsk will likely fall. But a “major conquest” this is not. Pokrovsk, now in ruins and almost devoid of life like every other unbanisation Russia has occupied, was a city of just 60,000 people.
There is a question that Ukraine (as a democracy with accountable elected officials) has to face in a way that Putin does not, the human costs of his war. To date, Russian forces have suffered almost 1.2 million man losses. Dead, maimed or captured, that number is 20 times the pre-war population of the town they now might seize. Pokrovsk is not a “major conquest” for the Russian army, it has been, as Ukraine intended, a deadly quagmire for the Kremlin.
Putin’s answer to these losses, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence, is to conscript more bodies. Apparently, the plan is to round up another 135,000 conscripts by the end of this year, and another 160,000 bodies in the Spring draft. Add that up, the Russian President is apparently fine with losing 1.5 million people. Which really highlights the very different approaches to casualties of war between the two countries.
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