Click to see the full-size image
Written by Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert
There seems to be a conflict of narratives between Ukraine and its Western supporters. The American media tries to disguise the tragic reality of Ukraine in the conflict by reporting a reduced number of deaths, but is careful to make the narrative realistic enough for its readers to believe it. However, the Ukrainians are not concerned with making the narrative credible, stating completely unrealistic numbers.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) stated that Ukrainian casualties in the current conflict with Russia amount to about 80,000 soldiers killed and 400,000 wounded. The newspaper stated that its data was obtained from confidential Ukrainian sources familiar with the matter. Furthermore, the article stated that the Russians suffered about 600,000 casualties, including 200,000 dead and around 400,000 wounded.
Obviously, the article published by the WSJ is a piece of Western propaganda that has no credibility. According to all estimates made by honest and impartial analysts, Ukrainian casualties are much higher than Russian ones, and there is no way that only 80,000 Ukrainians died in the conflict. In April 2024, Russian authorities confirmed 500,000 Ukrainian casualties, including all dead and wounded soldiers. Currently, estimates range from 600,000 to 700,000 Ukrainian casualties, given the high level of lethality in Russian operations in recent months.
Although Russian authorities do not reveal their casualty figures – which is a common procedure for countries in conflict situations – there seems to be a consensus among Russian and neutral sources that the number is considerably lower than 100,000. Only Ukrainian and Western sources estimate high numbers of Russians killed and wounded, which is part of their propaganda scheme to maintain public support for financing the war.
However, even the Western media’s efforts to disguise Ukrainian losses were not enough to please the authorities in Kiev. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky harshly criticized the American media, claiming that the WSJ inflated the real figures. He did not provide any figures to refute the WSJ’s data, only stating without any evidence that the number of casualties is much lower than what the newspaper said.
“80,000? That is a lie. The actual figure is much lower than what has been published. Significantly so,” he said.
It is curious to see how Zelensky seems to act in a way that is completely out of touch with reality. Both Westerners and Ukrainians want to hide the truth about what is happening on the battlefield, since it is obviously not convenient for them to admit that Ukraine is losing. However, the West seems to act with more strategic sense, worrying about making its narratives realistic enough for public opinion.
Zelensky is so desperate that he seems to simply not understand what is even remotely credible to public opinion. His intention seems to be to spread in 2024 data that could correspond to the reality of the conflict as early as 2022. For example, without mentioning the number of wounded, Zelensky claimed in February that 31,000 Ukrainians had died in two years of hostilities with Russia. This sounds unbelievable, having no way to convince public opinion with such “data.”
The Western propaganda machine is usually managed by professional journalists who know how to convince readers. Obviously, it is not interesting to present figures that are completely unrealistic, since in the current phase of the conflict no one believes in narratives such as “Ukrainian victory” or “humiliation for the Russians”. Now the goal is no longer to say that Kiev is “close to victory”, but simply that “it is still possible to change the game”.
Zelensky is unable to understand these journalistic tactics. His only intention is to keep the lies going as they did in 2022. He is desperate to maintain his illegitimate regime and is doing everything he can to prevent public opinion from turning against him. That is why he criticized the American media. Zelensky did not understand the tactics behind the WSJ’s story and is now trying to use an even more false and unbelievable tale.
However, all such maneuvers are likely to fail. Western public opinion is increasingly aware of the reality of the war and understands that the mainstream media is not telling the truth. Actions such as the catastrophic invasion of Kursk – which has already resulted in the death of more than 15,000 Ukrainians – show that Kiev has no chance of “changing the game”. It is useless for Ukrainians and Westerners to fight over which lies to tell, since none of them will be believed.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
100k dead russians is less then wagners suffered alone. russian casualties are 300k dead, ukraine has the same number. nato has less then 1k dead plus 5k mercenaries. this is bad for russia as nato has 5 times more soldiers and proxies. even if putin depopulated the whole ukraine by heavy bombardment the very first day of war like u.s. did with berlin, hamburg, cologne, dresden and hiroshima, they still can send poles, romanians, bulgarians, french, canadians, australians, germans..
are u dumb or just retarded? ww3 will be decided by nukes, not by troop numbers. and ru has more nukes than the entire nato put together
we’ll go with retarded armchair expert who has never set foot in the donbass or ukraine.
the war has been over since 03.04.22, the day when russia ran out of ammunition ….heheheh
actually he’s both……
you’re quite adept at jewish mathematics. keep it up.
and what they are gonna do there? getting killed, all those except english ones and zio fuckers.
breaking news!!! ru forces got overrun in wolfsschanze (vovchansk) !! ukraine took all the important ru positions, killing most of the ru invaders in swift battles & now russians are in full withdrawl from vovchansk barely holding fragments of the outer northern parts of the city, while having lost the complete south & centre-parts of the city. and ukraine forces – now that they got significant reinforcments – is still pushing !! see: http://alturl.com/ya49t
ghost of kiev goes into a split s as he downs his three hundredth russian fighter!
300th and the last one with not “intel”, but putin inside. peremoga!
did you get that from ukraine’s one state channel? lol
with a 10 to 1 shelling capability, and air superiority, and a long counter offensive with heavy loss, i doubt your numbers add up. and nato piss in ukraine uniforms aren’t counted.
anybody who believes anything coming out of ukraine by now is beyond mental salvation.
sure amerikunt—even cia claims 70,000 deceased russians–1 million dead ukies
pretty close. about 400k russians, 90k dead, 310k wounded beyond returning to service, ukraine is at about 1.6m, 800k dead, including those murdered by ukrop nazi blockers, 800k wonded beyond returning to service, mia, or captured, and easily 20k nato troops and mercenaries dead or wounded. i’m not using girl math or wishful thinking for either side, but russia is about a 1:4 ratio on causualties comparatively.
snowden, i agree, but i’d even put ru casualties more close to 400k dead because of their lastest half year of constant storming operations where the ration is always at least 3 to 1 dead against the attacker. and in kursk we know that ukraine stormed in there without much losses.
btw. now its confirmed that the new ukr rocket-drone palyanitsa is great, and that it is the cause for latest explosions of 1 years worth of ru ammo production (!) in two big strikes against giant ru ammo storage facilities. causing explosions so strong that even in belarus they were detected by earthquake seismic detectors. see: http://alturl.com/2qcrn
is that the source that gave us the snake island last stand story?
delusional
the ukrainian suicide raid into kursk into an undefended region wasn’t much of a storm, was it?
so in russian army are present just the ghost of the dead soldiers lol.
ghost of kiev against phantom of the opera, i like these stories!
do you think that they would send both members of the canadian armed forces?
somebody must drive the only “tiger” tank of mighty latvians from waffen ss. canadians have some hohols, they could send them under command of indian general. time has passed, ss have changed a bit.
only if they promise to use the correct pronouns…..
you are literally echoing the wsj propaganda
simply lies, if to talk straight. propaganda of lies. if it was propaganda of truth for merit purpose, then it’s good. propagatio is just a spreading, sharing, widening in latin, neutral word.
we know the figures are the converse. but even if they weren’t: the russians are the ones who get stronger each day and take more land. its the ukrainians who are retreating and whose land will be shrouded in freezing darkness this winter and whose fields will lie idle next spring because all of her sons lie in an early grave dug by zelensky using an american spade.
by the end of 2023 most reliable sources would put ukraine kia at 460k-490k. with ukraine losing 35k-40k/month in 2024 (many wounded die away from the front). ukraine likely has ~ 780k up to ~850k killed, and well over 2m total casualties. russia has ~75k + <30k from donbass ~ 100k.
yes i agree. according to military statistics the majority of modern battle casualties has always been caused by artillery. the war in ukraine despite the drones etc is predominantly an artillery war. the russians are about 6 to 1 dominant in terms of pieces and munitions over ukraine. therefore, the russians will always outkill the ukrainians according to statistical logic.
death and wounded rate among hohols was around 1/1,5 while 80% wounds been done with artillery. now it’s harder to say. drones not so lethal, but bombs can be more lethal than artillery. very often they prefer to not evacuate wounded ones. 35-40 t/month is the rate of winter. since volchansk (7 may) the rate is ~2000 a day, 50-60 t/month. this month 50 thousands were done in 21th of september according mod data. aftershock.news/?q=node/1423901 complete month may reach 70 thousand level.
this data also include wounded ones and pows. so it’s far from 2 million level, +/-10 or 20%, not more. even if half is dead, it’s huge number from 700-800 thousands. rural nazis have no ability to press gang new “volunteers” instead dead and wounded, this is the main achievement as i think. no army — no reich.
“dug by zelensky using an american spade.”
spade that is made in china…
russia has way lower death numbers than ukr because of massive stand-off weapon assaults.
some people actually believe all this “russian human wave attacks” bs.
crazy people.
we remember: 30.11.2022, 17:05 uhr “eine bei twitter veröffentlichte und inzwischen gelöschte ansprache ursula von der leyens hat für aufregung gesorgt. dabei sprach sie von mehr als 100.000 getöteten ukrainischen soldaten. vor knapp drei wochen hatte us-general mark milley die ukrainischen verluste an toten und verwundeten auf rund 100.000 soldaten geschätzt”
we remember: 30.11.2022, 17:05 uhr “an address by ursula von der leyen, published on twitter and since deleted, has caused a stir. she spoke of more than 100,000 ukrainian soldiers killed. just three weeks ago, us general mark milley had estimated the ukrainian losses of dead and wounded at around 100,000 soldiers.”
if we now take the date of publication (30.11.2022) as a yardstick, the real number of victims of ukraine today, measured by the course of the war, should be about 400,000 soldiers killed.
think it through – if your numbers ‘d be true – russians would already sit in kiev eating bortsch !!! but surprise surprise , it is ukraine that just recently stormed into kursk oblast and is now sitting in sudzha and drinking ru vodka !! so forget your numbers. truth is somewhat around 150.000 dead ukros and 450000 dead ruskies.
there’s one born every minute.
feel free to explain how the russian maintain a vast army fighting on territory forfeited by the failed ukrainian cia project if they’ve lost 450 000 kia.
they (ru) lost up to 27 mio people in ww2 – so why you think now they could not continue fighting because of losing 450.000 troops ? that’s the question you skunky no-brainer should ask yourself !
please support my down syndrome charity, it helps to find meaningful work for retards with no grasp of math, reality, or common sense…thank you, every penny helps.
so fake. such fidge. simply fascinating.
from sources in donbass. est ukr dead close to 1m.
i have evidence of more than 200k ukronazis dead, probably more than 600k wounded… in 50 hds… collection of 2 years and 6 months of telegram… i collect dead nazi photos and videos and i love it! i just need a site to publish it… someone could please help me?
ja ja ja con ese poderio de fuego que tiene rusia nsdie cree las estimacones de la premsa norteamericana. cuando termine la guerra……..ya veran.
4 jews took ukraine to hell and putin let this happen….sitting on his ass in 2014 at the sochi olympics while this maiden ukraine genocide was in its embryonic stages. putin and his group are fuck ups this would have never happened on my watch. maiden and nuland would’ve been crushed in 2 hours. ukraine was destroyed by subhuman kikes….let this be a lesson to the weak willed.
on your watch? when is your watch as president of the russian federation?
this guy is nearly as emotional as a white liberal bitch… nearly… “on my watch” says it all…like he thinks he ever had a say in shit beyond his ability to affect yet alone comprehend.
it’s basic thinking dumbass…on my watch i wish i could. putin was outplayed by subhumans on every corner. yeah on my watch i would have sent nuland home in a box…get it wanker. what putins excuse ????…pffff
you ignore the fact that in 2014, russians didn’t have a mass production line for hypersonic missiles, but in 2022, they did. imagine that.
if zelensky is talking he is lying or begging, maybe both!
they enhance each other in a synergistic dance macabre.
western media always told that soviets killed in afganistan was 150k but it was 15k. for orther side surovikin knew how to win this war and the examples was the captute of severodonetsk and lissichanks….then the ukraine army was kaput, kh 22 missile were destroying targets in kiev, hundreds of ukraine soldiers were captured at each advance….but someone decided to play the good cop.
and the 3 days war continues…
20 year 3 trillion $ failure and put amerikunts sodomized by taliban
the war has been over since 03.04.22, the day when russia ran out of ammunition ….heheheh
until april 2024 ukraine had lost 60,000-65,000 killed and all russian or pro russian forces have lost 90,000 killed soldiers. the ratio is 2:3.
i always believe homer simpson when i lick his peniz
russia’s got way lower casualty numbers, they bomb the hell out of the nazis then go in using drones to locate what’s left of the enemy and kill em, no country does hardcore combat like russia!
we know that the russians has had and has fired at least three times as many artillerishells as the ukrainian side.
furthermore russia has had a both quantativly and qualitatively superiority in aircraft, missiles and bombs.
we also know that ukraine has had to enforce their regime for recruitment, while russia has more volunteers than needed.
i therefore believe ukraine has three to five more losses than russia.
i believe all homer simpson amerikunt media–17 million dead russians—only 31 dead ukies
ukraine started the war with 700,000 men which they took a beating. nato helped rebuild their army with about 400,000 when zelensky did his big push last year which was nothing. now he is crying he needs more men and he said he only lost 31,000, the numbers don’t add up!
i’d put it at 700,000 dead ukrainians and about 150,000 russians.
some of the confusion could be due to whether the donbas secessionists are considered russian by the russians or ukrainians by the ukrainians, and those men have a high death toll since this war is about them.
“ukraine and west clash over narratives about casualty figures”
i’ll settle this once and for all: they’re both liars peddling poo. neither one’s fit for human consumption.
they’re not “out of touch with reality”, not at all. there has been no objective reality in the usa or its vassals since wolfowitz, cheney, rumsfeld, rove and the rest of the lunatic zionist-fascist gang declared it so. “reality” is whatever they choose to believe at the time and they simply repeat it until a new reality is declared. no facts necessary, re bernays, goebbels et al.
just once i would love to see the russian federation take the “high road” and the initiative to name and memorialize every man and woman in the russian armed forces (and counting) since 2014 both within the military and intel communities who gave their lives for their country in this fight. until that day they are no better than their adversary!
… as well as remaining a loyal member inside the western un/unsc that will continue to be the worst threat for the russian federation as long as they remain in that “hou$e of cards”!…