If true, these are truly staggering numbers:
In June 2026, Russia experienced around 40,000 casualties in just one month of combat, significantly surpassing its monthly recruitment capability of 24,000 to 30,000, indicating that the nation is losing personnel more rapidly than it can replenish them. The Center for Strategic International Studies reports that total Russian casualties have escalated to 1.4 million. Currently, Russia is incurring losses of 1,298 troops for every square kilometer of Ukrainian territory seized, a stark contrast to the 68 casualties per square kilometer recorded in June 2025, marking a drastic decline in military effectiveness by a factor of 19. Analysts from the US Department of Defense caution that this rate of loss is not sustainable and may lead Moscow to consider escalatory measures targeting NATO supply chains or American resources.
I stopped reading at “if true” It isn’t. By a way of comparison the USSR suffered 500,000 casulties per month fighting the Nazis. The Soviet Union was larger and could better afford the losses but not that much bigger. Your source is ESTABLISHMENT in capital letters. Lots of funding comes from foreign governments and defense contractors. The board chair is Thomas Pritzker. They want us to continue to be entangled with Europe.
The post wasn’t about the casualties per month as much as it was about the casualties per square kilometer.
Look up the Battle of the Somme. More than 300,000 dead on our side, over a million on both sides by the time it was over. One long battle. The British had more than 57,000 dead to capture 3 miles initially. In the opening day they were losing a man every 4.4 seconds.
If true, it’s still far from as bad as it has been.
I would be interested in how many square miles rather than linear miles.
Six miles deep, by about 25 miles long. about 125 square miles over all.
Consider the casualties per square mile at Iwo Jima or Tarawa.
Remember, “casualty” is both dead AND injured. Many a “casualty” has relatively minor wounds, it patched back up, given a Purple Heart (or equivalent) and sent back out. It is not a grave-count.
Drone warfare is brutal, and I’ve only seen the beginnings of signs that NATO or the US is starting to realize their old methods of war don’t work, and adapt.
That said, two things: everybody lies in war, so I’d take those numbers with a truckload of salt, and to the globalists who want to kill off all us “unnecessary eaters,” a high body count is a good thing.
Old methods of war never work but the generals always fight the last war until it becomes absurd. Sometimes really old ways can come back. America’s first war of the 21C was fought by dragoons who also had laser designators. Current exercise in trench war is another example. Beaufort Castle is another example of the old being new again.
The adaption may actually involve a shift back towards Armor, contrary to what you might think at first. Defending against incoming drones is an ADA issue.
Aside from them already training to use the 120mm M1028 canister cartridge on larger drones/drone swarms, I except that soon there will be scaled down versions of the Phalanx CIWS mounted to armored vehicles (some dedicated for just that role), as well as “claymore mine” type reactive panels that will go off before the drone closes with the vehicle.
I know that on Camp Anaconda (Balad) we had at least one Phalanx CIWS system that saw regular use intercepting indirect fire.
Really, it’s just the cycle of “new offensive weapon” followed by “new defensive system”. The machine gun didn’t end the concept of cavalry, it ended cavalry’s use of horses.
And yet the Russians continue to take ground against the Ukes.
Modern trench warfare is incredibly dangerous to the troops on and beyond the lines. The Russians have always considered attrition to be an acceptable (often normal) form of warfare, and studied it professionally.
“Analysts from the US Department of Defense caution that this rate of loss is not sustainable…”
That rate is sustainable until Putin says it isn’t.
So which is it?
Is Russia a hugely powerful militaristic nation that poses an existential threat to Europe, and we need to expand out mil spending and prepare for their inevitable advance, and we need to send lots of equipment to Ukraine to slow the inexorable advance to buy us time?
Or are they a fragile, over-extended, nearly exhausted has been on the verge of collapse, and we need to keep feeding UKR supplies so they can hang on just a little bit longer, to give time for RUS to inevitably implode in another color revolution?
A lot of talking heads appear to be pushing both narratives at the same time, if not in the same breath…. while also doing very little to actually bolster their defenses by seriously ramping up military production, recruiting and training, ending disruptive economic and demographic policies, and modernizing training and doctrine?
Which one do most people reading this blog think?
They can both be wrong, but they can’t both be true.
“There’s a lot of ruin in a nation.”
Putin can keep feeding bodies into the meat grinder for a loooooooooooong time. I doubt very seriously any kind of collapse or color revolution is coming any time soon… general damage to their country will accumulate, but it will likely keep crawling on.
If Putin doesn’t give up, it seems Ukraine will eventually be subsumed… if Putin stays in power long enough. Ukraine could fold suddenly, or it could grind on for 10 years, but eventually (barring a major change), they lose.
And then, Putin could move on to the next country, if he really wants to. Grind onward, continuing to do damage to Russia that likely won’t matter all *that* much in his lifetime.
So, some middle course, I think. Supporting Ukraine keeps the grind long, but doesn’t really change the end game, I don’t think. Eventually, he finishes that meal and moves on to the next.
But “eventually” could be a pretty long time.
That leaves some truth in both of those things. But only some.
We simply do not and cannot know the truth about what’s happening in this war. NEITHER side is honest about any of the “numbers” involved. I’ve heard reports that the Ukrainian population has been halved since this fracas began. Who knows. All we can say is Ukraine CANNOT defeat Russia and apparently Russia is incapable of conquering Ukraine. Thus the meat grinder continues to grind.