More than 400k Russians killed fighting in Ukraine war, leaked data suggests | Hacker News Reader

More than 400k Russians killed fighting in Ukraine war, leaked data suggests

theguardian.com

59 pointsljf11 comments

Let's disregard that the data is unverified, and assume it is factual - that Russia has indeed lost around 400,000+ soldiers so far.

It really looks bad until you consider that:

1. The territories in East Ukraine - Donetsk (DPR), Luhansk (LPR), Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that Russia seeks to annex had a population of around 10+ million in 2022 ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/1295222/ukraine-populati... ).

2. Conservative estimates of the population post-war, and under Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories is around 3.5 million ( https://frontliner.ua/en/nearly-a-fifth-of-the-country-life-... ).

3. Conservative estimate of the population in Crimea (which was annexed in 2014 and thus hasn't seen as much war displacement) is around 2.5 million.

So, if Russia manages to retain the territory it has occupied in Ukraine it is conservatively going to also add 6+ million people to its population. Even disregarding the economic benefits that Russia will accrue from the occupied territories, the cost-benefit analysis just in terms of population gain makes it clear why it is advantageous for the Russians to keep fighting, especially when it already has the advantage.

Yeah, about that.

That’s not going to work. The resistance in those cities is extremely efficient and decentralised, you arrest one, there are still 2000 people who don’t know each other but get orders and opportunities.

You need to control these cities and their populations, and that is an absolute nightmare, because you have hundreds of Ukrainians snitching on the Russians all day every day, and guys like Petro in the video below are having a day, exploding Russian police chiefs and mass poisoning their officers, soldiers, and shoots at poor traffic cops with rockets at work, making videos of how they puke their guts out while screaming and dying, bleeding out of every orifice.

They sent special forces and military intelligence after him, he sent them back in a dogfood bag. Can’t find the other video I have seen about this guy with a video compilation, probably got removed.

Who wants to work in those occupied cities as a Russian when there is a potential million people hunting your ass for sport on top of your own people who will help the resistance to put a bomb in your cute little police car?

You know corrupt Russian officers are corrupt Russian officers. You give them a few grand in a better currency than roubles, they will help to murder their own people. Growing up in Russia being loyal gets you nowhere, you need to throw everyone under the bus to have a good life, just like Putin shows you, if you are not the one fucking, you’re the one getting fucked.

The only sane way to survive as a Russian is to simply stay on your side of the border, and you don’t die a gruesome poison death or your legs getting blown to shreds with shrapnel.

"It’s fun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLERq02oexs

Oh, I am sure there is some Resistance, though not to the extent you described (which sounds more like a script from a western movie flix during the cold war than the current reality of Ukraine). Otherwise, Russia wouldn't be still occupying it now, would it?

You also disregard that the reason Ukraine is in this mess is because its people weren't politically united, and this was exploited by the superpowers to interfere in its internal political affairs. ( Ukraine’s sovereignty was violated long before Trump - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/6/ukraines-soverei... ). To fight Russian political influence, the right-wing in Ukraine (backed by western superpowers) sought to end multi-culturalism in Ukraine and introduce revisionist history, which was largely resisted by those in Eastern Ukraine (as they were the most affected by it). The Maidan coup, which got rid of the democratically elected government (that was popular and had good political support in East Ukraine) in Ukraine, and the failure of subsequent government to establish a political rapprochement with Eastern Ukrainians ( Discrimination against War-Zone Pensioners in Eastern Ukraine - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/14/money-slipped-through-my... ) exacerbated the civil war between the Ukrainian in West Ukraine and East Ukraine.

The failure of Ukrainian politicians and the foreign powers behind Minsk Treaties to end the civil conflict is what has allowed the superpowers to now divide the country, through political and military means. To me the future of a "united" Ukraine is implausible, and bleak.

There was no coup in Ukraine.

Eastern Ukrainian here. There was no civil conflict, russian army started conflict in 2014, not civilians. Russian troops were disguised as local militia etc., but most of them arrived from Rostov and Voronezh regions at a time, and all their leaders had russian passports.

Please do not spread lies on HN.

You are a relatively new member here. People here have varied views and opinions, some of which you may very well not agree with. That however isn't an excuse to disparage them. If you cannot engage with anyone here politely and reasonably, then just don't participate in that particular discussion.

That said, to address your particular point - explain to me why I should believe and accept your political views over that of Ukrainians like Viktor Medvedchuk, Ilya Kiva, Oleg Tsaryov or Yevhen Murayev? Unless you are someone like them, deeply involved in Ukraine politics too, why do you think your political opinions on Ukraine are more credible than theirs? I know many Ukrainians brand them as "Russian stooges" and "traitors". Many Ukrainians in turn call other politicians, like Zelensky and Poroshenko, as "western puppets" and "corrupt traitors" too. This also extends to the common citizens too - are all Russian speaking Ukrainians now traitors and enemies, if they don't agree with the current government?

For an outsider like me, leaders on both sides appear to be political idiots - their infighting is why Ukrainians still fight each other and aren't politically united. And why it was so easy for the superpowers to exploit your country for their own benefits.

As a native russian speaker born and raised in Donetsk, my suggestion to you, as an outsider, would be to avoid discussion on the matters you do not have knowledge about, because its rather simple to start spreading lies, without having direct first-hand understanding about what happened in a first place.

The russian invasion in 2014 is not a political view per se, it's a fact and everyone who was in Donetsk at a time knows that russian army was involved, and without involvement of that army there would be no conflict at all.

As for political views, if you wanted to discuss that. In Ukraine, our society comes with wih centuries old tradition of distrust to political institutions and all kinds of power. This tradition was reinforced by soviet rule that was building society based on doublethink and lies. This state of affairs is double-edged sword: there are good things that come from that such as ability to effective organize horizontally during hard times, but it also leads to weak political instituions and corruption because most people choose to be rather not involved in politics. That said, in Ukraine opinion of politicians does not matter much, and many politicians constantly switch sides and viewpoints, because people mostly do not care.

My own political view is far-left leaning and rooted in traditions of Makhnovism, internationalism and generally left libertarianism. I am looking forward for abolishment of all the nations and establishment of worldwide congregation of people. Obviously, this conflicts with russian government intent to establish spheres of influence and continuation of conquest of small nations. I support EU and other transnational institutions, because they are a good first step for future stateless society, but I do not support any national political movement and only look into their programs through the lens of whether they would be useful for my own globalist agenda or not. So I voted against pro-russian government in 2014, against Poroshenko in 2019, and I will be voting against Zelensky in post-war elections.

Interesting what are your own political positions ? I mean not regarding Ukraine but generally.

Most of the dead were legally citizens of the Russian Federation, but not what the leadership would really consider "Russian". To them, only people in the core Moscow - St. Petersburg region really count. Others are expendable. They may even see it as a net positive to purge some of population from the outer provinces: drunkards, unemployed, criminals, members of ethnic minorities, etc. (To be clear I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, just explaining what Putin and his key supporters seem to be thinking.)

The thinking hasnt changed since Stalingrad, where civilians could've been evacuated and Stalin decided not to to help absorb the impact of the incoming army. Expendable.

It's just a shithole country.

Inb4 "Russia isn't the USSR" - yes it is.

Imagine if someone told Russians that somebody would kill half a million Russians soon. He would be considered the worst enemy of Russia. This enemy is Putin

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