To further put it into context, the pre-war population of Bakhmut was 71,094. Now it is some number close to zero. Ukrainian forces have been evacuating civilians throughout the assault, but some people refused to leave, and Ukraine (unlike Russia) does not evacuate people against their will.
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The number of casualties given by Biden are specifically of Russians, not Ukrainian civilians.
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Yes, I was just pointing out that Russian losses in taking the town were greater than its population.
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Ah, gotcha!
Itâs insane that anyone could look at this, and be like âyeah, this was a great idea! Weâre doing incredibly well in this invasion! Letâs keep at it!â
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Sunk cost falllacy writ large 
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That describes pretty much the whole war from the Russian side.
Their initial plan failed, and they clearly did not have a functional plan B. So now theyâve been wasting their own strength, and killing and terrorizing Ukrainians, stuck in a war thatâs not going anywhere and which they canât win. Just because Putin canât or wonât admit failure, and wonât scale down the war aims to something he could claim as a victory and stop.
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Calling this wreck of a city, this corpse of a human settlement, this hell on earth âpretty devastatedâ makes me think that US-american English is maybe not the best language to talk about topics as grave as this.
It counteracts the emotional waver at the beginning of what the president of the only remaining superpower had to say there.
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And I doubt even if he did scale back his attempt, at this point, the Ukrainians are not going to be satisfied until Russia is completely out of their sovereign territory. Which is as it should be, actually.
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Zinn quoting Bourne
âWar is the health of the state,â the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on battlefieldsâoften for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches.
It also makes me think of George Orwell 
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The war has given Putin the chance to suppress all remaining opposition. Now he only has to worry about âangry patriotsâ like Igor Girkin who support the war and only complain that it is being fought badly.
Andrei Kozyrev was the first Russian foreign minister after the collapse of the USSR.
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⌠has he met âthe Westâ
CPT AMERICA: I can do this all day
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Iâm guessing not.
That doesnât seem to be a society particularly susceptible to âwar fatigueâ.
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I mean how many people lived in Verdun, or Ypres, or Paschendaele?
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Yes but the First World War ended in mutiny in Germany, Britain, and Russia (the allied invading forces with the white army). It also cost even the winners their empires.
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Reuters reports that Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russiaâs Belgorod region claimed on Monday that a Ukrainian army âsabotage groupâ had entered Russian territory in the Graivoron district, which borders Ukraine.
On Telegram, Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed that the Russian army and security forces were taking measures to fight off the incursion.
âA sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has entered the territory of the Graivoronsky District. The Russian Armed Forces, together with the border service, the Russian Guard and the FSB, are taking the necessary measures to eliminate the enemy. I will report the details,â he said.
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