1/ Russia's statistical agency Rosstat has recently highlighted Russia's dire demographic situation, which has become far worse due to its war losses. Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent Grigory Kubatyan suggests nuking Ukraine as a solution. ⬇️
2/ The slumping birth rate has recently been the subject of Rosstat data and has produced alarmed commentary from Russian commentators (see thread below). The war's human losses have also become so huge that they can no longer be ignored.
3/ While Russia has declined to release casualty figures, Western and Ukrainian sources have consistently estimated between 1-1.2 million Russian casualties (with estimates of around 500,000-600,000 Ukrainian casualties). Russian warbloggers seem increasingly to accept this.
4/ Grigory Kubatyan writes on Telegram:
“We don’t know the exact number of losses at the front, but we can get an idea of the order. Let’s round it up to the nearest million (if the enemy’s losses exceed ours, that doesn’t change the situation)."
5/ "Let those who know their statistics better correct me. I found the following figures. According to Rosstat, as of 1 January 2024, there were 68 million men in Russia (including immigrants who managed to obtain passports).
6/ "Of these, only 30% were of working age (they are the ones fighting), the rest were children or the elderly.
7/ "That means there are just over 20 million men in Russia. One million casualties during the Special Military Operation is almost 5 percent of the adult male population. One in 20. How long will it take to get that million back? And nothing will happen!
8/ "The birth rate in Russia is 1.5. Of all the former Soviet republics, this rate is worse only in Ukraine. That means there will be no increase in the native population.
9/ "Our elite's motto, "We have money, we can buy anything," doesn't work well even with goods. It's even worse with people. You can't buy more Russians. You can try buying Afghans or Nigerians, but it's not the same. We are ceasing to be Russia.
10/ "We are becoming something else—a Russia without Russians. And Europe hasn't even entered the war yet, it's only preparing.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 200,000 people. A bomb dropped on Kyiv or Lviv in 2022 would also have claimed many lives.
11/ "But it could have frightened Europe enough to stop the war and save the lives of a million Russians and a million Ukrainian soldiers, not to mention civilians. I won't say what the US and Israel would have done. Even North Korea.
12/ "In our situation, mathematics and statistics, alas, are not on the side of humanism.
When a reporter directly asked about the bomb, Press Secretary Peskov replied that the bomb was needed in case of an existential threat to the state. Let's assume that's true.
13/ "But then, strikes on Starobilsk aren't grounds for a threatening response. But, for example, is the enemy's destruction of Belgorod already considered a threat to the state or not? And what about Moscow? Where is the final red line?
14/ "We're like a dinosaur, with such slow reactions that it only notices it's being eaten when it's too late." /end
Source:
t.me/reporter_shtur…
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