Putin's Folly: A Million Casualties, a Struggling Economy, and No Signs of Quitting a Ruinous War
By Carol J Williams
As Russia passes the tragic milestone of 1 million dead and critically injured young men in its unprovoked war on Ukraine, one wonders if there is any level of self-inflicted injury to Russia’s future that would convince President Vladimir Putin to abandon his quixotic mission to conquer a sovereign neighbor.
In 3 ½ years of full-scale invasion, Russian recruits and mercenaries thrown into “meat-grinder assaults” have taken control of another 5% of Ukrainian territory to expand the Kremlin’s 2014 occupation of 15% of Ukrainian land.
Much of the occupied territory lies in ruins, a no-man’s land left behind by the painfully slow and destructive advance into four of Ukraine’s 27 provinces.
British military intelligence tracking Russia’s war casualties projected earlier this year that Russia’s human toll in Ukraine would top 1 million this summer. That analysis was validated last month by a report from Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies that called the grim statistics “a sign of Putin’s blatant disregard for his soldiers.”
https://www.postalley.org/2025/07/10/putins-folly-a-million-casualties-a-struggling-economy-and-no-signs-of-quitting-a-ruinous-war/
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Russia's population is now about 145 million but because of all these lost millions, it should've been many tens of millions more.
What is it about the Russian character that they are willing to sustain so many deaths that just lead to even more losses and a poorer economy?
Putin's gigantic ego's refusal to settle for peace/lose in the Ukraine war epitomizes it. Such great leaders that society comes up with 
, they've never managed to form a democracy.
Pathetic. And with all that land that can hold millions more.