Post-Memorial Day Thought: 500k Russian Dead in Ukraine

A post-Memorial Day thought: Russian casualties in Ukraine are now more than half a million dead.

Yet Another Russian Casualty Milestone in Ukraine

We’ve been following the dire and dispiriting Ukraine invasion for some time now, writing about it occasionally on this Crummy Little Blog That Nobody Reads (CLBTNR). ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]}

The data has been remarkably consistent that the Russian rate of death is high, and sustained. There are, of course oddities:

• Why does the death rate look so well-fit by a straight-line model in time?
• How does the Russian Navy keep losing ships – and even a submarine – in a land war with a country that has no navy?

But the real mystery is why this goes on, and on, and on?

On 2024-Apr-10, we noted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reported a cumulative 450k Russian dead. We were shocked to see, about 6 weeks later on 2024-May-25, that it had broken half a million dead:

What can one say? I have no words for the depravity and moral squalor of the Russian invasion. But that doesn’t mean these conscripts deserved to die.

Previously, we’d done regressions showing this casualty rate had a very strong linear trend, i.e., Russians were dying at a roughly constant rate. It was even a little weird-looking, with an $R^2 \sim 99.43\%$, which is just too good a model.

Shown here (the 2 red points at the upper right) are how the 450k day and 500k day compare to the trend. Overall, they line up reasonably well, even somewhat above the previous trend line.

If anything, despite Republicans obstructing weapons aid in apparent collusion with Moscow, Ukrainians are killing Russians at what appears to be an increasing rate.

The Weekend Conclusion

Trump and the Congressional Republicans have shown time after time that they are pro-Putin, even down to repeating Kremlin talking points.

This is what they’re enabling: mass death.

So now more than ever, conviction having been achieved: Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.

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Notes & References

1: Weekend Editor, “Another Grim Anniversary”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-Mar-02. ↩

2: Weekend Editor, “Do the Ukrainian Reports of Russian Casualties Make Sense?”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-Apr-15. ↩

3: Weekend Editor, “Update: Ukrainian Estimates of Russian Casualties”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-May-01. ↩

4: Weekend Editor, “Updated Update: Ukrainian Estimates of Russian Casualties”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-May-09. ↩

5: Weekend Editor, “Updated${}^3$: Ukrainian Estimates of Russian Casualties Hit 200k”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-May-17. ↩

6: Weekend Editor, “Ukraine Invasion: 250k Russian Dead”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-May-17. ↩

7: Weekend Editor, “Tacitus in Ukraine”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2023-May-25. ↩

8: Weekend Editor, “Casualties in Ukraine: Grief Piles Higher & Deeper”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2024-Apr-10. ↩