Former US State dept official Ukraine losing 36:1 KIA
- Thread starter nottyboi
- Start date
Measuring kill ratios by body exchanges is quite misleading. Russia has had the advantage in the attrition war sure, but that advantage has varied greatly throughout the war. Russia has also had the advantage of being in complete control on the ground after battles and are, therefore, able to retrieve their own dead where as the Ukrainians are not. I'd still largely agree with what he's saying but 36 to 1 is wishful thinking, this past summer the attrition rates where pretty close to one to one. Ukraine's use of drones is almost exclusively responsible for Russian casualties at this point
Yes Ukraine relied mostly on drones, but Russia has FAR more drones, more advanced drones and countless other ways to attack the AFU
36:1, huh?
Amazing how Russia didn't win this war in 2022. Or 2023. Or 2024.
Just like you told us Russia would. In 2022. And 2023. And 2024. And 2025.
Didn't you just tell us that Russia would win the war in a few weeks about 6 months ago. And 6 months before that. And 6 months before that. And 6 months before that.
Russia couldn't win because Ukraine had to fight on to the point there are
no men fit for combat left. I don't see what other alternatives to fighting
on until Trump and European 'allies' step in to stop Putin's advances could
rescue Zelensky from losing power.
I still think Trump can end the war soon like in the end of 2025 or early next
year. I suspect the west deep down has decided enough Russian and Ukrainian
lives have been sacrificed in the proxy war. But then Trump is so unpredictable
I am not sure if he will find a way to profit from extending the proxy war into 2027.
The west was way more confident of winning the proxy war against Russia
from the beginning than that.
Today these European and British clowns who predicted Ukraine will win will
have to hide behind Donald Trump's butt to confront Putin at the negotiation
table,
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This war will be won on the battlefield. Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger
April 10, 2022
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www.weareukraine.info
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www.consilium.europa.eu
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Dear friends, this is more than a war, this is a strategy of systematic destruction, to force you into submission, to force your country into becoming a vassal state. It is doomed to fail. And it will fail. Ukraine is unbreakable, Ukrainians are united, resilient, brave and rightfully proud.
Winston Churchill used freedom and hope as a weapon to strike back and defeat the Nazis. Nelson Mandela used his prison cell as a symbol of spiritual liberty to free his people and transform his country. Today, Volodymyr Zelenskyy embodies your spirit of national resistance.
This spirit of Churchill and Mandela lives in the heart of every Ukrainian. I have seen it with my own eyes, in Odesa, in Borodyanka and right here in Kyiv. You will win because of this spirit. And because you are not alone. We are with you.
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Feb 24 2024
Boris Johnson arrives in Kyiv on two-year anniversary of war
Former prime minister visits Kyiv on second anniversary of war
www.independent.co.uk
Jan. 24, 2025
Ukraine Must Win, Regain Full Territory: Germany’s Merz
Merz, favorite to become Germany’s next chancellor, said he wants peace in Ukraine, but not at the cost of offering up Ukrainian sovereignty to imperialistic Russia
www.kyivpost.com
Ukraine must win the war against Russia, regain lost territory, and be free to join military alliances, Friedrich Merz, favorite to become Germany’s next chancellor, said Thursday.
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Your usual nonsense.
A casualty ratio of 36:1 is something similar to a colonial war in the 1800's where the Europeans used automatic rifles and the indigenes charged with spears. If that was the actual casualty ratio, Ukraine would have collapsed in 2022 within a couple of days.
Had Ferdinand Magellan inflicted a 36:1 casualty ratio on
Lapulapu he would still lose the War of Mactan.
It is possible the real casualty rate suffered by Russia is nowhere
close to what the media reported. In that case a 10:1 ratio could
be survivable for Ukraine.
You really think the West gives a shit about Ukrainian lives let alone Russian lives? US politicians have quite openly said the money they are spending is well spent because they are killing Russians.
Blame game erupts in Europe as Ukraine strategy falters
Eldar Mamedov
Oct 17, 2025
Angela Merkel, the eternal pragmatist, has chosen her moment. In a recent interview to Hungarian media, the former German chancellor pointed a finger at Baltic and Polish leaders for their alleged role in “undermining” a potential EU-Russia dialogue before the war.
Whatever one thinks of her legacy, Merkel has an unmatched sense of political timing. Her statement is not a historical aside; it is the opening salvo in Europe’s looming blame game for the impending defeat in Ukraine.
Her comments land at the precise moment the foundational assumptions of Europe’s Ukraine policy are collapsing. On the battlefield, Russian forces are now grinding out slow, but steady gains. In the United States, Donald Trump keeps insisting that this is “Biden’s war,” not his, and that it should end.
While Trump no longer appears to be cajoling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting some of Russia Vladimir Putin’s terms, his current position — selling arms to Ukraine funded by Europe — does not satisfy the Europeans as they face increasing economic and fiscal difficulties. Europe finds itself holding a bill it cannot pay and for a war it cannot win — and a war whose strategic direction is being dictated from Washington, not Brussels.
This transatlantic shift is starkly evident in the recent flurry of activity between Trump and Zelensky. Their key topic is the potential provision of U.S. "Tomahawk" cruise missiles to Ukraine. This is a quintessential Trumpian gambit — escalation as a tool for deal-making — but Trump himself does not appear to have decided on the deliveries as he acknowledges this would represent a major escalation. Europe, meanwhile, is left entirely to lobby Trump to make “Biden’s war” his own which highlights the ultimate failure of its own policies.
Consider the plan to seize frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. While theoretically a massive windfall, estimated at €183 billion of Russian sovereign funds, it is faltering precisely where it matters: in Belgium, where most of those assets are held. Brussels is raising red flags over the legal precedent that would undermine its credibility as a global financial hub and the terrifying prospect of Russian retaliatory strikes on Belgian interests worldwide.
While the European Commission is trying to find a formula that would allow to use the funds while protecting Belgium’s interests, the Belgian government is not yet convinced. Privately, diplomats admit that legal concerns are compounded by Kyiv’s own corruption challenges, highlighted by Zelensky’s recent attempt to abolish an independent anti-corruption body — hardly a confidence-building measure for handing over hundreds of billions.
The EU’s other grand gestures are equally hollow. The attempt to fast-track Ukrainian EU membership collapsed. A scheme championed by the Council President Antonio Costa at the informal EU summit in Copenhagen a few weeks ago to switch to qualified majority voting on enlargement instead of the
unanimity rule was blocked by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Orbán provides the public “no” vote, but he merely gives political cover for a chorus of objections to Ukraine’s membership across the bloc, including from the new government in the Czech Republic. Addressing the issue, the winner of the elections, Andrej Babis, said Ukraine “was not ready for the EU, and the war had to end first.”
The “drone wall” proposed by the Commission in response to Russia’s repeated alleged violations of EU airspace is mired in the inter-member state scramble that has always limited EU defense integration: the countries in Europe’s south, which do not share the Nordic, Baltic and Polish perceptions of Russia as an existential threat, resent the fact that the proposed “wall” is to be funded by all member states but almost entirely centered on the north’s priorities.
This policy paralysis is mirrored by a crisis of leadership and a crumbling political center. A discontent with the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, is becoming widespread, even among her allies. Once applauded for her staunch stance on Russia, she is now perceived by many in Brussels and other European capitals as diplomatically inept and monomaniacally hawkish, needlessly undermining the EU’s relations with key players, such as the United States, India and China.
Meanwhile, the domestic foundations of the pro-Ukraine consensus are giving way. France has had four prime ministers in two years, with President Emmanuel Macron deeply unpopular and unable to command a parliamentary majority. A resurgent anti-war bloc spans from the left-wing France Unbowed to the right-wing National Rally, both of which oppose further support to Ukraine. The popularity of each of these parties dwarfs that of Macron’s faction.
In Germany, the Ukraine-skeptic and occasionally openly pro-Russia Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at record highs — and according to some surveys, at the same level as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union. The new Czech government was elected on a platform explicitly questioning the blank-check approach to Kyiv.
Yet, despite the overwhelming sense of a dead-end, the machinery of European policy grinds on, with a 19th sanctions package against Russia in the works. This is the power of political and bureaucratic inertia — reinforced by Russia’s own reckless escalations consisting in refusal to halt strikes on Ukraine and violations of the EU airspace.
Yet Europe has painted itself into a corner, hoping for a magic wand to alter these dynamics. The latest such fantasy has shifted to American Tomahawk missiles. It is uncertain whether they will even be delivered, and more uncertain still if they would change the military reality. What is certain, as the Kremlin has ominously stated, is that they would dramatically raise the stakes increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, with a prospect of a nuclear weapon use.
By refusing to pursue its own diplomatic solutions while simultaneously lobbying Washington for escalatory gambits like Tomahawks, Europe is effectively outsourcing its fate. It is a policy driven by the slogan of supporting the maximalist goals in Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” not strategic foresight. The continent has made itself an active party to a confrontation whose catastrophic consequences it would bear firsthand. When the reckoning comes, the blame game that Angela Merkel has just begun will remain the only policy in full swing.
responsiblestatecraft.org
Eldar Mamedov
Oct 17, 2025
Angela Merkel, the eternal pragmatist, has chosen her moment. In a recent interview to Hungarian media, the former German chancellor pointed a finger at Baltic and Polish leaders for their alleged role in “undermining” a potential EU-Russia dialogue before the war.
Whatever one thinks of her legacy, Merkel has an unmatched sense of political timing. Her statement is not a historical aside; it is the opening salvo in Europe’s looming blame game for the impending defeat in Ukraine.
Her comments land at the precise moment the foundational assumptions of Europe’s Ukraine policy are collapsing. On the battlefield, Russian forces are now grinding out slow, but steady gains. In the United States, Donald Trump keeps insisting that this is “Biden’s war,” not his, and that it should end.
While Trump no longer appears to be cajoling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting some of Russia Vladimir Putin’s terms, his current position — selling arms to Ukraine funded by Europe — does not satisfy the Europeans as they face increasing economic and fiscal difficulties. Europe finds itself holding a bill it cannot pay and for a war it cannot win — and a war whose strategic direction is being dictated from Washington, not Brussels.
This transatlantic shift is starkly evident in the recent flurry of activity between Trump and Zelensky. Their key topic is the potential provision of U.S. "Tomahawk" cruise missiles to Ukraine. This is a quintessential Trumpian gambit — escalation as a tool for deal-making — but Trump himself does not appear to have decided on the deliveries as he acknowledges this would represent a major escalation. Europe, meanwhile, is left entirely to lobby Trump to make “Biden’s war” his own which highlights the ultimate failure of its own policies.
Consider the plan to seize frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. While theoretically a massive windfall, estimated at €183 billion of Russian sovereign funds, it is faltering precisely where it matters: in Belgium, where most of those assets are held. Brussels is raising red flags over the legal precedent that would undermine its credibility as a global financial hub and the terrifying prospect of Russian retaliatory strikes on Belgian interests worldwide.
While the European Commission is trying to find a formula that would allow to use the funds while protecting Belgium’s interests, the Belgian government is not yet convinced. Privately, diplomats admit that legal concerns are compounded by Kyiv’s own corruption challenges, highlighted by Zelensky’s recent attempt to abolish an independent anti-corruption body — hardly a confidence-building measure for handing over hundreds of billions.
The EU’s other grand gestures are equally hollow. The attempt to fast-track Ukrainian EU membership collapsed. A scheme championed by the Council President Antonio Costa at the informal EU summit in Copenhagen a few weeks ago to switch to qualified majority voting on enlargement instead of the
unanimity rule was blocked by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Orbán provides the public “no” vote, but he merely gives political cover for a chorus of objections to Ukraine’s membership across the bloc, including from the new government in the Czech Republic. Addressing the issue, the winner of the elections, Andrej Babis, said Ukraine “was not ready for the EU, and the war had to end first.”
The “drone wall” proposed by the Commission in response to Russia’s repeated alleged violations of EU airspace is mired in the inter-member state scramble that has always limited EU defense integration: the countries in Europe’s south, which do not share the Nordic, Baltic and Polish perceptions of Russia as an existential threat, resent the fact that the proposed “wall” is to be funded by all member states but almost entirely centered on the north’s priorities.
This policy paralysis is mirrored by a crisis of leadership and a crumbling political center. A discontent with the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, is becoming widespread, even among her allies. Once applauded for her staunch stance on Russia, she is now perceived by many in Brussels and other European capitals as diplomatically inept and monomaniacally hawkish, needlessly undermining the EU’s relations with key players, such as the United States, India and China.
Meanwhile, the domestic foundations of the pro-Ukraine consensus are giving way. France has had four prime ministers in two years, with President Emmanuel Macron deeply unpopular and unable to command a parliamentary majority. A resurgent anti-war bloc spans from the left-wing France Unbowed to the right-wing National Rally, both of which oppose further support to Ukraine. The popularity of each of these parties dwarfs that of Macron’s faction.
In Germany, the Ukraine-skeptic and occasionally openly pro-Russia Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at record highs — and according to some surveys, at the same level as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union. The new Czech government was elected on a platform explicitly questioning the blank-check approach to Kyiv.
Yet, despite the overwhelming sense of a dead-end, the machinery of European policy grinds on, with a 19th sanctions package against Russia in the works. This is the power of political and bureaucratic inertia — reinforced by Russia’s own reckless escalations consisting in refusal to halt strikes on Ukraine and violations of the EU airspace.
Yet Europe has painted itself into a corner, hoping for a magic wand to alter these dynamics. The latest such fantasy has shifted to American Tomahawk missiles. It is uncertain whether they will even be delivered, and more uncertain still if they would change the military reality. What is certain, as the Kremlin has ominously stated, is that they would dramatically raise the stakes increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, with a prospect of a nuclear weapon use.
By refusing to pursue its own diplomatic solutions while simultaneously lobbying Washington for escalatory gambits like Tomahawks, Europe is effectively outsourcing its fate. It is a policy driven by the slogan of supporting the maximalist goals in Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” not strategic foresight. The continent has made itself an active party to a confrontation whose catastrophic consequences it would bear firsthand. When the reckoning comes, the blame game that Angela Merkel has just begun will remain the only policy in full swing.
Blame game erupts in Europe as Ukraine strategy falters
Recent remarks from Angela Merkel have set the stage for a continent-wide search for scapegoats amid a failing strategy and fading unity
responsiblestatecraft.org
Last edited:
