Ted Snider: Are they lying to us about Ukrainian losses?

Source: https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2025/07/24/are-we-being-lied-to-about-Ukrainian-losses/

Western media have long “not agree” with the fact that Russia wins the war in Ukraine. Many media inactive say Ukraine can win. Recently, any leading American media have begun to improve their messages. "New York Times" expressed concern about "a hard period for Ukraine", and "Washington Post" warned that "Ukraine can inactive lose".

However, fresh reports proceed to diminish Russian successes, indicating that faster territorial gains are inactive very low, and human losses are inactive very high. They besides indicate that Ukrainian losses are much lower than Russian losses.

Their mission seems to be to motivate readers to proceed the war alternatively than to study it fairly. Comparing Ukraine's losses in land and human life, Western governments and the media keep hope, which builds public support for their governments on the further transportation of Ukraine arms. An undesirable alternate is the designation that Ukrainian armed forces are exhausted to the limits of opportunity, and Ukraine pays an unimaginable price in the form of human life. Kiev will be forced to negociate where it will be forced to sign an agreement that is not favorable to it and is no better than 1 that they could negociate in Istanbul during the first weeks of the war.

Western media proceed to measurement the advancement of war for their readers on the number of kilometers of land lost. Although this may be appropriate in any wars, as they know, it is not appropriate in the case of a war for demolition specified as this. Wars of demolition are won not by the enemy, but by the failure of weapons and soldiers. Russia will not win this war erstwhile it conquers the full territory of Ukraine, but erstwhile it exhausts and weakens Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine will lose this war not erstwhile it loses its territory, but erstwhile it loses its army and its combat capability.

The measurement that the media should now usage is not the number of kilometres of land occupied by Russia. The question is how close they are to the dissolution of Ukrainian armed forces, and more importantly, how many Ukrainian human lives have actually died.

CNN continues to talk about Russian attacks with a "meat machine", completely ignoring Russian corrections and changes in strategy on the battlefield. They proceed to point to "slow progress" by Russia, noting that this led to the seizure of "just 1% of Ukraine's territory" since January 2024 – the quantity they mention to as "weak".

"New York Times" first reports that "Russian summertime offensive in Ukraine is gaining momentum" and that "Russia took over 214 square miles of Ukraine territory in June, compared to 173 square miles in May". However, like CNN, he feels compelled to study that “in this context Russia occupies little than 0.1% of Ukraine's vast territory per month”. Then “Times” erroneously comments: “At this rate, Moscow would request respective years to occupy all 4 Ukrainian regions that it announced to annex in 2022”. This could be actual if the Russian forces had to full conquer these 4 regions to occupy them. However, this is not actual if the force of Russia will lead to the dissolution of Ukrainian forces, resulting in disaster and business of these regions.

“The Times” misleads readers with its calculations. According to the same article, the Russian armed forces attack “on many fronts” and “the objectives of Russia are not exclusively territorial. Analysts believe she wants to systematically destruct the Ukrainian army." Russian attacks on many fronts have caused severe losses to weakened Ukrainian armed forces. Russia has surrounded key logistics nodes, possibly cutting off supply lines and limiting freedom of movement of Ukrainian troops to the east. Russia will not request a fewer years to recover the territory it intends to occupy in the event of the dissolution of the Ukrainian armed forces: this can now be faced with weakened and exhausted armed forces.

Fraud is all the more tragic as the number of Ukrainians killed or wounded is so large, and they cannot return to the battlefield. Giving besides low numbers promotes the flow of weapons and the continuation of war. However, these numbers may be much higher than we are told.

Western media proceed to print absurdly low deaths and injuries in Ukraine during the 3 and a half years of war. In February 2024 the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski reported the death of 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers. A year later, he reported more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed. This update would mean that only 15,000 soldiers were killed last year. Zelenski estimates the number of wounded at 380 000. He acknowledges that his data does not include "tens of thousands" of missing or in captivity in Russia.

In-depth expert analyses propose that The actual number of fallen Ukrainian soldiers may even be sixteen times higher. Recent analysis estimates that As many as three-quarters of a million Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and another three-quarters of a million were wounded to an degree preventing return to the fight. Given these losses, combined with the pressures and advancement of Russia, the analysis suggests that Ukrainian armed forces may collapse in the next six to 12 months. Russian generals believe this could happen in six weeks.

An alarming study in “le Monde” confirms these more utmost calculations with an innovative indicator. citing the estimates of Zelenski, which amounts to 46,000, the article states: “The actual number of victims is most likely much higher”. In support of this claim, Le Monde reports that “in Ukraine the burial place ends” and that “the areas reserved for soldiers are already filled”. fresh cemeteries are presently under improvement in Kiev and Lviv. ‘Perhaps the construction projects carried out in Ukraine talk more about the scale of the massacre" – states the Article – "than statistic could ever".

Deception of public opinion about the importance of Russian advancement on the battlefield and the number of casualties among Ukrainians can aid Zelensk and his European partners to proceed the war. However, this will not prevent Ukraine from defeat or prevent Ukrainian deaths.