>

Starting to think maybe those Russian soldiers shouldn't have been there in the first place?
You know its bad when russia admits 63 deaths. >

Confirmed are around 600... Yeah, Russia is quite predictable in inflating/ deflating X10... >

Confirmed is a strong word. It is only some Russian milbloggers who claim this number.
Other Russian milblogger estimates are lower, but still in hundreds of dead and more wounded.
~~Ukrainian side as far as I know published no estimate.~~
Edit: I somehow missed that they estimate 400 KIA. >

From the article itself:

Ukraine had alleged that 400 Russians had been killed, a number dismissed as an exaggeration by Russian bloggers. >

How could I miss this... >

That doesn't exactly confirm it either keep in mind. 
The Ukrainians are going to high-ball the number after all. >

If you have seen the photos of the site you know there is no way in hell less than 300 people died. >

I’ve seen the pictures. It’s a huge building that was flattened into a big pile of rubble and I’m sure everyone inside died. But how do you know how many people were inside? Are there other photos where you see 300 dead Russians? >

One would hope that before sending a decisive killing strike on a massive building, one would have fairly confident intelligence about that building. Such as military strategic importance, estimated personnel and materiel contents, active use, and whether or not it's a school for gifted children or perhaps a lovely wedding hall. >


If you have seen the photos of the site you know there is no way in hell less than 300 people died.

How do you glean that from the pictures? >

Life Pro Tip: don’t sleep in an ammunitions cache. 
I have slept on a mattress stacked on crates of 40mm grenades. It was unsettling then, though low threat at the location. This is why. >

Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards from the barracks. This building is in the wrong place.
-Captain America >

That general idea has been a thing for almost as long as gunpowder has been a major factor on the battlefield. >

which really goes to show how dire things must be on the russian side. they either didn't have anywhere else to put them, or were ordered to do so by short-sighted leadership >

The Russians being incompetent, disorganized and having completely disregard for the lives of their own people has been pretty dire for the whole campaign, if not the last 500 years. >

The story of the Russian fleet sent to attack Japan in ~1904 is something that wouldn't be believed if a movie was made out of it. It's like an episode of The Office. Complete ineptitude. >

Yes, the Second Pacific Squadron that got slaughtered at the Battle of Tsushima. Their incompetence is exemplified by the repair shop Kamchatka almost starting a war with the British Empire because it started shooting at civilian fishing boats in British waters...because it claimed they were Japanese torpedo boats. >

Not just British waters. They thought they were Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea...
And despite the entire fleet firing for 20 minutes, only one trawler was sunk. They also damaged 2 of their own ships in the night battle confusion. >

Russian General: Master Putin, we had 500 soldiers in barracks at the time, sir.
Putin: How many bodies did we find?
Russian General: 63, my master.
Putin: So 63 were killed in the attack, the rest were deserters, have them killed on sight and get their names so we can conscript their families. >

It's also equally likely that the deaths are under reported so the field commanders can pocket the ghost soldiers' pay. >

Wait...how is Russia military paid nowadays? Unless they are handing out physical cash/gold how exactly would a commander divert their pay without being immediately found out? >

Apparently Russian commanding officers are the ones who handle pay getting to their soldiers, its not a centralized system like the US or other countries. Thats how all the corruption in the military you hear about happens. The officers have full control of the money they are supposed to be spending on the military. >

So the russian officers are financially incentivized to get their men killed... This whole war is finally starting to make sense >

It's kind of amazing it functions at all, to be honest. 
Russia has always had more bodies to throw at the problem. >

And it always kinda worked in the past because the peasants popped out kids left and right, but now their population is in steady decline. The last predictions estimated they'd be down to 143m by 2030, and 135m by 2050.
God only knows how much the population may decline now. >


God only knows how much the population may decline now.

Well they already lost over a million due to Covid, then another million or two left the country in the past year due to the war/conscription. Along with the 100k+ that have been KIA in Ukraine. Their population is officially 143.3 million (according to google which is probably using Russian census data, though others say it's 145.8 million), so in reality they're already probably at or below 142 million people. They hit their 2030 goal almost a decade early, not gonna be good for Russia in the next 25-50 years. >

Don’t forget the impact on birth rates by 100k+ Mil Aged Males! >

That is KIA only. A significant number of the wounded will suffer from stress induced wilting willy or straight up had their dicks shot off. >

So actual number probably around 250. About half what Ukraine says and 4x what Russia says! >

It’s, like, reverse Herodotus. >

The guy that wrote Histories? 
... I don't get it. Explain? >

He reported an insane amount of soldiers (I think more than a million) in the Persian army, but modern historians argue that the logistics of moving such a force would be impossible and calculate a much smaller (closer to 400.000) force. >

That information seems to be missing from his Wikipedia page. Thank you. >

No worries, it's in the battle of Thernopylae page. And I was wrong, the number is even more absurd than I remembered 

Herodotus claimed that there were, in total, 2.6 million military personnel, accompanied by an equivalent number of support personnel. The poet Simonides, who was a contemporary, talks of four million; Ctesias gave 800,000 as the total number of the army that was assembled by Xerxes.
Modern scholars tend to reject the figures given by Herodotus and other ancient sources as unrealistic, resulting from miscalculations or exaggerations on the part of the Victor's. Modern scholarly estimates are generally in the range 120,000–300,000. These estimates usually come from studying the logistical capabilities of the Persians in that era, the sustainability of their respective bases of operations, and the overall manpower constraints affecting them. >

An order of magnitude and then some. >

Yeah. We have to remember, he wrote almost 50 years after the facts and the stories he collected certainly grew with the telling, plus, the concept oh "history" wasn't yet solidified as "the retelling of facts", it was still a nebulous thing between 'exaltation of a glorious past' and 'things that actually happened' >

So apparently they store ammo and personnel in same small building. Also many vehicles was parked nearby. Play stupid games, win nothing. >


ammo and personnel in same small building

The sign said "expendables' storage". >

Lets be honest here, Russia is probably more upset about losing all that ammo.
To Russia, lives are cheap, ammo is not. >

I, too, played the original Call of Duty >

630 soldiers in one strike? Holy Shit! >

A lot of pro-Russian Telegram messages mentioned that there was ammunition stored in the school that the Russian soldiers were sleeping in. Which would explain why the entire place was leveled on a scale that is disproportionate to the GMLRS's explosive yield. >


there was ammunition stored in the school that the Russian soldiers were sleeping in.

Russia claiming war crimes in 3.. 2... >

They already declared that attacking military targets in times of war was an "act of terrorism" (when done by Ukrainians). >

But they haven't weighed in on Ukrainians bombing schools yet.  
Edit*: >there was ammunition stored in the school that the Russian soldiers were sleeping in. >

A building full of soldiers and ammunition sounds like a military target. >

It sure is, but the optic is "you just bombed a school!"  
The US faced severe backlash in afganistan more than once for that.  
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti Ukraine by any means, I'm pointing out the potential propaganda and am surprised Russia hasn't used it. >

The building was not functioning as a school >

And what were 63 Russian soldiers doing inside another country?
Maybe that's the problem, eh? >

Flying through the air, with the greatest of ease. >

The daring Z grunt on the drone IEDs! >

I saw the pics.  63 is laughably low. >

Do you have link to pics? :) >

So, uh... that was a building just yesterday? You wouldn't guess by looking at the scene today. There's nothing left. >

That's because Ukraine aims for military targets.
Russia might wanna try that. >

Aiming? They cannot hit a barn from one meter even! >

Russian artillery couldn't hit the broad side of a barn… from the inside. >

Any side really >

Whattt?! There are consequences for invading a country for no fuckin reason? CRAZY!
On the real though, it's really tragic so many Russian soldiers are dying because of a lunatic like Putin, along with all the propaganda and indoctrination. Really, really fucked up situation all the way around. >

Oh shit! They better get out of Donetsk! It doesn’t sound like it’s safe to be there! >

Don't start nothing, won't be nothing. Poor lads just getting thrown into the meatgrinder while Putin sits in his bunker. >

I hope every day the Russian people gain the confidence to turn on their oppressors and oligarchs.  The police are the biggest bastards of society, as they are the ones that arrest protestors and enforce sending them to mobilization. >

I live for the day that American people do the same >

r/im14andthisisdeep >

I keep forgetting that America is not oppressed by oligarchs and corporate masters. >

So leave Ukraine, then no more soldiers need to die. >

Oh stop their lives are a sacrifice Putin is willing to make