72,000 Ukrainian Casualties in $110 Billion Meat Grinder – UN: “The World Cannot Afford for this Senseless War to Continue”
By Richard Abelson Sep. 13, 2023
In the week of Sept. 2-9, Ukraine lost 5,955 casualties in its slow-moving counter-offensive, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed. On Sept. 5, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukraine had lost 66,000 men since the start of its counter-offensive June 4, which was supposed to break through to Crimea and the Black Sea before the end of fighting season, when fall rains set in. Ukraine has only made minor gains despite heavy losses of men and materiel.
The Russian estimates would put total Ukrainian casualties in the counter-offensive at 72,000. Observers including Col. Douglas MacGregor and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had claimed Ukraine had lost approx. 350,000 men before the start of the offensive. That would put total Ukrainian casualties at 422,000 since the Russian invasion.
The Ukraine Ministry of Defense claims that Russia has lost 270,350 men since the start of the invasion Feb. 24. Other sources put the number of Russian casualties at 50,000. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed an 8 to 1 casualty rate in Russia’s favor.
“The world cannot afford for this senseless war to continue,” said UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, appealing to all Member States to “make every effort for peace”.
At the meeting of the UN Security Council Sept. 12, British-Hungarian Journalist George Szamuely testified that “war could have easily been avoided” if NATO and the USA had been willing to negotiate with Russia. “At the heart of Russia’s proposals was a commitment by NATO to no further expansion, and in particular to no NATO membership for Ukraine,” Szamuely said. “There was nothing at all unreasonable about these demands, nothing there that could not have been addressed with a little deft diplomacy.”
The UK representative Dame Barbara Woodward accused Moscow of misusing the Security Council to obfuscate its responsibility for atrocities in Ukraine, pin blame on the West and hide its own failures. “Let us call this meeting out for the farce that it is,” she said.
While pro-NATO western media report Ukrainian advances in the south, the interactive maps released by the NATO-aligned Institute for the Study of War show the front lines nearly unchanged since June.
The Kiev regime has sustained such losses in its counteroffensive attempt that “never should have taken place,” that “it could be about 30 days before the Ukrainian army would be completely out of ammunition and manpower,” retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen told Russian government-controlled Sputnik News.
As for the looming change in the weather, it “will be so bad (the Ukrainian army) won’t be able to move forward, and will become even more of a target for Russian artillery and defensive actions,” Rasmussen said.
“They’re out of ammunition, the West is out of ammunition… They can’t get supplies quickly enough. Not only does the weather play in the ‘30 days’, but they’ve got a lot of other conditions there, too,” Rasmussen said. “I can’t see the Ukrainians doing much right now. There’s no way that they can, even if they wanted to… even before the weather. I always said that this offensive was a suicide mission, and with the weather coming in, it would definitely be a suicide mission to try to advance at all,” Rasmussen told Sputnik News.
Even US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had to admit Ukraine may not be conquering the Russian-speaking territories in Ukraine anytime soon. Speaking to BBC with UK Chief of Defense Staff Sir Tony Radakin on Sunday , Milley estimated “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left.”
Milley conceded that the Ukrainians “haven’t achieved – they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”
“The Ukrainians aren’t done, this battle’s not done”, Milley said. “We’ll get the cold as you mentioned. It’ll start, uh, the rains will come in, it will become very muddy and it’s be very difficult to maneuver at that point, and then you’ll get to deep winter, and then at that point we’ll see where things go. But right now, it is way too early to say that this offensive is failed or not failed,” Milley said.
