Putin's Folly: A Million Casualties, a Struggling Economy, and No Signs of Quitting a Ruinous War

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

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/