The running tally has grown and grown, and I think these numbers are ahead of what Russia is willing to acknowledge, but in the past Russia has admitted 70,000 casualties when the estimates were not far ahead of that. So 120,000 troops is probably not that far off from reality and Russia will probably acknowledge 100K soon. The hardware is easier to confirm and the US has counts from our intelligence that are very close to these.
I hate this war for the people of Ukraine, nothing about it is fair to them. But strategically, this war is just too good to be true for the West in general. Russia is bashing their own head in on a brick wall, they are diminishing their might and threat for generations and they're still going to lose. Russia cannot build replacement hardware because of sanctions and they're expending a large percentage of their total armory on this ill thought out invasion. It's so advantageous for the rest of the world that I'd bet there is a good deal misinformation that Putin is getting that they're winning that is coming from the West. We want him to keep expending all of his military in Ukraine. or at least enough of it that it will be 40 years before Russia has invasion capabilities again.
And the end game is that Russia will be so diminished and poor, that denuclearization can be the carrot for them to rejoin the civilized world and its economy.
All of this is awful for Ukraine. Not only are they being brutalized, but we give them just enough to hold their own and make small gains so it drains Russia even more. All the while they have to act appreciative and happy we're giving them enough for that, but not enough to end the war.
It's a proxy war, and the best investment the US has ever made in one.
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