Von der Leyen’s hiccup

The most recent hiccup, let’s call it hiccup, of von der Leyen has three quick readings to be made. For those not aware the European Commission published a statement by its president announcing 100 thousand dead Ukrainian soldiers, plus 20 thousand dead civilians. I will say again what I’ve repeating since 2014: one death in a war is one death too much, this is why I favor ANY solution that puts a halt to the combats.

Now the readings:

1. The top of the European Commission is “inhabited” by total incompetence. If the values are not to be assumed (although high rank USA military have already advanced in public) then they shouldn’t even have made it to a draft, further more into a published video. But if you make the mistake of letting those values ventilate, you stick to them and find an alternative reading for them later on, because… the internet never forgets.

2. The page UkraineWorld gives a daily account of the estimated losses of the Russian forces: manpower losses (dead and wounded – military estimate this to always be a 1 to 3 ratio), and equipment. Today’s estimate is below 90 thousand, which gives roughly 22 thousand dead Russian soldiers. This means Ukraine has suffered 4 to 5 times more losses – very close to half a million soldiers.
This does not come in line with the narrative that Ukraine is winning the war and that, therefor, the intent to continue the war until the military defeat of Russia is a valid one.

3. With 20 thousand dead civilians announced (which is 20 thousand too much, I’ll say for the millionth time) the narrative of genocide does not stick also. This means that civilians represent 16% of all Ukrainian losses, which clearly prevents us from claiming that Russians are fundamentally aiming at the Ukrainian populations. To gain perspective, the 20 thousand dead represent 0,05% of the Ukrainian population in the beginning of the year – one in every 2 thousand.