Presidential candidates RFK Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy seem to contend that Ukraine is suffering seven times more battlefield casualties than Russia. Tucker Carlson has supported this line. It begs the question, where is journalistic skepticism?
I'm just a retired guy with a computer. But I do live in Kyiv. I'm going to ask some questions that would be worthy of Tucker Carlson or Glenn Greenwald, but which they don't seem to be asking.
Personnel losses
Do you recognize that traditional military logic says that an army suffers three times more casualties on attack than on defense?
Do you recognize that Russia was on the offensive attacking Kyiv, attacking Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, Vuhledar, and in fact for most of the duration of the war?
Do you recognize that Ukraine's major offensives, retaking Kharkiv and Kherson, were relatively brief and successful, and that neither side suffered tremendous casualties in these campaigns?
Do you refute the observation that the Wagner forces led the assault on Bakhmut?
Do you refute the fact that the Wagner's soldiers were largely convicts released from prison to fight, poorly trained and equipped?
Do you refute the claim that many of the regular Russian Army soldiers fighting in 2023 are "mobiks," hastily trained and poorly equipped conscripts?
Do you refute Wagner leader Prigozhin's claim that Wagner stopped fighting in Bakhmut because they could no longer get prisoners as soldiers, and they had suffered an unsustainable number of losses?
Do you refute the many claims that Prigozhin and other private army leaders such as Razman Kadarov make that the Russian soldiers are simply incompetent?
How, then, do you figure it is Ukraine on the wrong end of the 7:1 ratio???
Equipment losses
Do you acknowledge that Western weaponry has been effective against Russian airpower – denying using their aircraft anywhere far from Crimea, Donbas and Russia itself?
Do you acknowledge that Western weapons such as the Javelin, Bayraktar and such have been consistently reported as effective against Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers? And that reported losses of Ukraine's armor are relatively infrequent and inconsistent?
Do you refute NATO's assessments that Russia's prewar inventory of tanks and armored personnel carriers? Of their ability to manufacture new equipment? Of their ability to repair armor?
Do you refute the observation that Russia is sending armored equipment dating from the 1960s and 70s to the battlefield?
How, then, do you figure that Russia still has the material resources to overwhelm Ukraine “once they stop fighting with one arm tied behind their back?”
Observations from Kyiv
I have lived in Kiev for 15 years and been here throughout the war. I know many people who have lost civilian relatives living in Mariupol. I know people who are living now in the occupied areas. I know people from Chernigov who have witnessed Russian shelling throughout the war. These are real.
We know quite a few soldiers, and more families of soldiers. We pray for them every night. Their morale is high, as far as I can tell. As I observed in Vietnam, soldiers don't usually dwell on talk about death, and I don't ask, but I don't think they have seen an exceptional number of deaths.
I do not know, even secondhand, anybody who has lost a relative killed as a soldier. I have never seen a military funeral here in Kyiv. I do not see memorials to fallen soldiers similar to those for the soldiers who died in World War II, or even the "heavenly hundred" martyrs who fell during Maidan in 2014.
This is of course anecdotal, simply my observation, but I have to assume that if the Ukrainian army had suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths it would have touched somebody that I know. Journalists, please ask questions!
Conclusion
Why don’t conservative journalists ask these questions? Credibility is their stock in trade, and if they don’t they lose it. Tucker? Tucker???
Follow-on
Many other events in this war are likewise questioned, with Ukraine being blamed for, among many other things:
· Bodies in Bucha
· Mariupol Drama Theater
· Nordstream Pipeline
· Nova Kakhovka dam
Here is the headline and lede of Matt Taibbi today:
Does Anyone Believe American Propaganda Anymore?
A new Washington Post article about Nord Stream throws Ukraine overboard and absolves the United States, offering another version of reality we'll have to strain to take seriously.
It is time for a good look at American propaganda.
Graham
We no longer have media in the US. We have propaganda organs. All who dare question the narrative are shouted down, just as they were with Covid. Right now, they're tired of it. Once they get angry about it, change may come.
Could any of commentators deal with how long it took to conquer Bakhmut? The Wagner forces were never large enough to enter despite continued supply of bodies, poorly trained and motivated bodies at that. While Wagner troops are know for brutality, they used convicts to spare their trained troops who, I gather, are more needed to make money in Africa. I can imagine a lot of lives lost even using the conservative 3:1 attack/defend ratios. I suspect the 7:1 ration was used in reverse to truth by Tucker.
Seems the error in these kinds of observations is the assumption of the huge population differences between nations. While Russia has many more people, so far it seems Russia central folk have not been conscripted in great numbers. I suspect Putin is quite wary of doing that despite his bloviating.
I think Putin is betting on the likes of Tucker to sway public opinion but most of the US isn't paying much attention since it's only money being supplied. Apparently the US has not run out of other people's money so aside from inflation/devaluation most aren't affected. After all, the US must fret about important issues - like drag shows, trans stuff, white supremes running wild killing black/brown people constantly. /s.