I know most people find it extremely annoying to deal with questions when they are confronting totalitarianism in the name of democracy. But why isn’t there even one English-language source estimating Ukrainian casualties in this war? We have extensive contacts with the Ukrainian government, and many outlets pass on what the Ukrainian ministry of defense says. At the beginning of the war, the total size of the Ukrainian military (not all battle-ready) was well over 400,000 men. How many are engaged? How many are wounded? How many are operating in the Eastern theater or around Kyiv?
I’m just an American citizen whose government has been supplying Ukraine with weapons for years. Our Congress continues to consider massive amounts of military and financial aid. Are we allowed to get an idea of how well our investment is holding up? Or are such questions supposed to be buried by the moral facts?
I find this utter silence infantilizing. For years, I’ve argued that our involvement with Ukraine tended to make our politics more like those in the Duma. Now we are subjected to their total lack of transparency.