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Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at this year's Munich Security Conference, which included a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Not surprisingly, the Democrat praised his resolve and successes in the fight against Russia.
But a Reuters report highlighted a statistic that seemed especially notable.
Russia, meanwhile, has suffered more than 300,000 casualties in the Ukraine war and depleted its military’s stockpile, [Harris] said, calling it an “utter failure for Russia.”
That was, to be sure, a striking figure. Vladimir Putin invaded a neighboring country, launched an avoidable war, and two years later, his country has suffered more than 300,000 casualties.
It’s also a statistic that’s easy to believe. NBC News published this report a couple of months ago:
In the past 22 months, 315,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded, according to the assessment provided to lawmakers. Prior to the invasion, Russia had a ground force strength of about 360,000. Russia has also sustained huge losses in equipment, with 2,200 tanks destroyed out of a force of 3,500 and one-third of its armored vehicles knocked out of action, the assessment said.
The report added that Moscow’s military resources were depleted to such an extent that Russia was forced to “draw on Soviet-era hardware to replace the lost equipment, even bringing 50-year-old T-62 tanks onto the battlefield.”
Around the same time, a New York Times report added, after Russia’s army lost 315,000 out of 360,000 troops, Putin’s government was forced to “recruit and mobilize new recruits and convicts from their prison system.”
I’m trying to think of these developments from the perspective of an American policymaker. The Ukrainian military, thanks in large part to support from the United States, has been able to inflict devastating losses on the Russian military. After two years of an avoidable war, Putin has seen his army shrink, his tanks destroyed, his armored vehicles knocked out of action, his economy weakened, and his international reputation left in ruins.
All of this has unfolded without sending U.S. troops into battle, and without the death of any U.S. soldiers.
I’m also trying to imagine why some American policymakers in one political party would see this assessment and think, “Let’s stop helping our allies defend themselves against a foreign invasion and stop weakening an adversary that’s suffered brutal casualties as a consequence of a war they didn’t have to launch.”