This number includes 1,096 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on April 28.
Out of the half a million troops killed I wonder how many were actually Russians? Doesn't look like things are working out for them.
That number doesn't mean KIA. That encompasses all casualties. So if you got arms and legs blown off and can no longer fight, you are lumped into that number. The KIA number is around 130-140k. Which is still a lot of people.
In context of the war, this number is more relevant. Dead or too injured to fight, fewer troops are fewer troops. It doesn't really matter what percentage in that 466,150 number are still alive when it comes to Russia's chances against the Ukrainian military.
Russia has more to spend. Ukraine doesn't which is becoming more and more apparent. Luckily that US bill was approved. But still there will need to be some immense luck and enginuity for Ukraine not to fall. Not to mention for Europe to stop this common delusion, come together and form a modern and strong army to step behind Ukraine with long term support. Probably with soldiers as well.
As long as they can't be sent back to fight. Honestly I don't ever feel good seeing or hearing about Russian troops being killed for the simple fact that I know many of them are conscripts or people scraped out of the bottom of the economic barrel (prisoners, mentally ill etc.).
I remember seeing a video of a guy who was so drunk he literally walked over into the Ukrainian trenches thinking they were his own. Luckily he was taken prisoner rather than shot, but they literally had to explain to him where he was.
I wonder sometimes if some of them haven't also been some of the young people imprisoned for protesting the war at the start, now used as fodder at gun point. Russia has shown no issue with sending their soldiers on suicide missions to test defense lines etc. A body can have "use" to the war machine, whether it's willing or not.
The war is righteous for Ukraine and needs to be fought, but I never feel celebratory about the scale of death.
I do kind of feel good when i see aggressor troops fall/perish . At least that soldier can't kill anymore defenders, so it's like a +X ukrainian lives lootdrop that pop's out of them. I'm not happy a human is now dead, but I am happy that there is one soldier less in poot poot's army killing other people in their home country.
If you loose an arm or a leg as a russian fighter, you are not gonna survive. Doubtful you will even be looked at twice. A wounded russian is a MIA russian. Russia is a cold place. Not just literally.
Russia apparently has a deep history of spending enormous numbers of lives for military victories. Unless something changed I wouldn't rely on casualty numbers to indicate if they are close to breaking.
It's worth remembering that WW2 was an existential threat to the Soviet Union and most of the people living in it. This war isn't. See how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan turned out.
And, of course, Ukraine was also part of the Soviet Union. Russians weren't the only ones fighting the Nazis on the Eastern Front