Peloni: Are rhetorical taunts over exaggerated Russian casualties and failing economy another Biden policy hold-over under Trump?
Seems to endorse a discredited theory on Russia
The body of a Russian soldier is seen near a destroyed Russian tank in the village of Storozheve in the Donetsk region on June 14. —RFE
President Donald Trump, on Truth Social and in interviews, is pushing the idea that Russia needs to hurry up and make a deal on Ukraine before Trump, taking advantage of Russia’s economic problems, imposes high tariffs and other sanctions on Russia. To emphasize his own thinking about the futility of the Ukraine war, Trump says that Russia has suffered over a million casualties and Ukraine 800,000.
Trump’s numbers on casualties exceed even Ukraine’s wild estimates of Russian losses. The “official” number pushed by Ukraine’s Zelensky is Russia has suffered 812,670 casualties to date, while Ukraine has lost 43,000 dead, according to Zelensky. It is widely accepted that the ratio of wounded to dead in the Ukraine war is running 3 to 1, so following Zelensky’s number, Ukraine has lost 129,000 in total.
Zelensky’s Speech at the 2024 Borys Paton National Prize of Ukraine Award Ceremony on Dec. 10, 2024. (Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Official website)
Don’t believe Zelensky’s numbers, as Ukrainian casualties are higher than he says.
Both sides naturally misrepresent information on losses. The Russians do not give any numbers at all, while the Ukrainians vastly exaggerate Russian losses to reassure their own public and their NATO supporters.
The best information on Russian casualties comes from an organization called Mediazona. Mediazona is Russian independent media outlet that the Russian government has tried to shut down. It is fiercely anti-Putin. Mediazona’s report on Russian “confirmed killed” between 24 February, 2022 and 18 January, 2025 is 88,726. Using the 3 to 1 ratio, that would bring total Russian casualties to 266,178, or roughly one fourth of what Trump has said.
Trump’s view of the Russian economic situation likely follows what he has been told by US intelligence. He appears to think Russia’s economy is near collapse which leads him to tell Putin to hurry up and make a deal or suffer the consequences.
The western press has been full of stories all of which have the same thing. Russia’s economy is in free fall and in a huge crisis. This “theme” is followed up with reports that Putin is in trouble at home, has been furious with his economic advisors, and is demanding some kind of fix. Anyone running a war that is costly and where the national currency value has fallen precipitously, where interest rates are outlandish and inflation nearly out of control, would naturally be worried and alarmed. But that does not mean either Putin or his ministers are in a panic, and it does not mean that the Russian government is about to collapse.
Most of these articles plastered in Western media reports lack sources. Even where they exist, they are indirect. For example, the pro-Ukraine Daily Mail (not known for any objectivity on the issue of Ukraine) reports that Oleg Vyugin, a former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia says that “Russia, of course, is economically interested in negotiating a diplomatic end to the conflict.”
So far the best non-government report coming out of Russia was published in Foreign Affairs by Alexandra Propenenko. She is a fellow of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. She worked at Russia’s central bank until early 2022. Her argument is that “Putin is not yet desperate” and that economic pain will not turn the tide in Ukraine. She writes: “The problem for the West is timing. Political leaders want the war to end quickly. Some analysts have also suggested that in the coming months, the pressure on Russia could be so great that Putin will have to seek an off-ramp to stabilize the economy and safeguard his hold on power. But Western hopes rest on a false assumption. Russia’s economic challenges are not yet so acute that they will make a meaningful difference in the war in the near term. For at least the next year, the Kremlin should be able to keep its overheating economy from exploding into a full-blown crisis. Putin will likely still have the resources to sustain his brutal campaign in Ukraine—and perhaps the incentive to wait out the West.”
Russia right now has a labor shortage and full employment. Typically an economy in trouble is characterized by people out of work, low wages or no wages, and supply shortages especially consumer goods. Russia has consumer goods, although imported ones and some domestic products (butter and eggs for example) are expensive but not in short supply. Sanctions have opened the field to China, and Chinese products are cheaper than western ones, automobiles for example. There is no doubt that the war has contributed to the labor shortage, but it is hard to tell how much. Wages are high and increasing.
Russia also is energy independent and can regulate fuel prices at home, unlike Europe. In fact, because of the sanctions imposed on Russia and the not-so-secret destruction of Russian pipelines (and the artificial decision to not renew transit agreements for pipelines through Ukraine), the European economies are in worse shape than Russia when it comes to employment and energy shortages and costs. Germany already is in a recession but Russia is not. Some think that the European currency, the Euro, is living on borrowed time. Further economic erosion in Germany and France could impact the value of the Euro.
The energy crisis in Europe could become worse if Russia decides to stop supplying gas, oil and LNG, meaning that Putin can damage Europe much more than Trump can damage Russia with new sanctions, tariffs or any other economic measure.
The flood of reports about Russia’s economy and Putin’s problems are part of a scenario promoted by Biden and his deep state colleagues on the mistaken belief that the US could engineer regime change in Russia. Trump seems to be endorsing that policy. Unfortunately, it is counterproductive as it only strengthens the Russian determination to finish the Ukraine war and win it. Worse still, it harms Trump’s credibility with Moscow in getting a deal to end the war. Trump came to office relatively free of any relationship to the Biden deep state policy. He seemed to understand that the policy of trying to upend Moscow and Putin was counterproductive and unintelligent. His approach gave him an advantage, coming into office without any Biden foreign policy baggage, which he is now in danger of losing.
The expected phone call between Trump and Putin has not materialized and the White House and NSC has not made any arrangement with the Russians to start a dialogue. The reason why is obvious.
Those who have antipathy towards Israel lack a moral compass and cannot be trusted. They tend to support evil actors around the world in general.
@Laura
McGreggor’s antipathy for Israel does not hold any basis for suspecting he is lying about Russia. Russia is not Israel, not related to Israel, and both it and Ukraine have joined the near universal condemnation of Israel in nearly all, if not all, the UN votes against Israel. Additionally, both Russia and Ukraine saw Israel as being neutral enough as to gain it the role of mediating the Istanbul peace negotiations. So your conclusion that McGreggor’s animosity for Israel is a valid basis of any inaccuracy which you find with his statements regarding Russia does seem a bit bizarre if not completely arbitrary.
Trump is being played by Putin. Putin will probably accept whatever deal Trump has in mind. But this will only be a temporary respite from the war. After Trump is out of office Russia will resume the war against Ukraine for the rest of its territory. Conveniently for Trump, he can then blame his successor and claim he brought “peace” between Russia and Ukraine even though Russia never intended for a permanent end to the war. This is probably the kind of “peace” deal Trump has in mind for Israel.
The warmongers are in Moscow. Since Macgregor has antipathy towards Israel he is a bad guy and it should stand to reason he’s lying about Russia/Ukraine.
I simply don’t get it. Trump seems to be so “right” on most things, but on something like how to approach Putin, to negotiate an end to this war, he seems to have gone totally Biden. Then there is also the problem of the ceasefire deal that he just forced on Israel. We need answers. What’s going on, Donald? If we wanted this, we could have just kept the senile sock puppet.
@fquigley
@Rafi
I agree with Rafi about the numbers. It was an obvious taunt to raise the number of millions of dead, and in fact it really doesn’t matter what the real numbers are, which have always been unknowable and irrelevant to the fact that the war should be ended.
This being stated, I do believe that Trump has done himself no favors by using this strategy to try to draw Russia into a dialogue.
@fquigley
Not true. I have posted about Ukraine’s human rights violations many time, and I am not the only one to have done so. It has also been discussed in many interviews over the years, though not recently.
Here is one example of some of the discussion I raised:
https://www.israpundit.org/russian-fm-lavrov-held-a-master-class-on-international-law-for-the-sky-news-journalist/comment-page-1/#comment-63356000258296
@Adam
It’s back
Also, you and Bryen make the same claim in stating that Russia’s economic woes are not so great that they are in any danger of falling over the next year.
Bryen:
Ted and Peloni, please rescue from electronic oblivion the comment that I have just posted in this space, which immediately disappeared. The jist of it is that I believe that Russia’s economic problems are worse than what Mr. Bryen thinks.
There is more evidence of economic ditress in Russia than Bryen admits, The incredibly high interest rates, 21 percent, have made it impossible for businesses or individuals to obtain loans. And without access to credit many businesses are failing. There has been an increase in bankruptcies and defaults, While nominal wages may be increasing, real wages have fallen behind the rate of inflation. Most foreign observers of the Russian economy believe that the real inflation rate is about three times higher than the officially reported rate of 9.5 percent. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the fact that the interest rate has been set at 21 percent by the Russian central bank. And even the official rate is quite high. Higher than the increase in real, as distinct from nominal wages.
I tend to discount the claims that Putin’s government is about to fall, or that there has been amassive decrease in his popularity. But it does appear that within about a year the Russian government will no longer have the money needed to continue the war.
Whether the UKraine can hold out long enough to “benefit” from a Russian economic collapse is an open question. The Ukraine is in truly awful shape after two and a half years of relentless bombing of its civioian population and infrastructure, and huge casualties and loss of life, both military and civilian.
A major source of credible information about the current economic situation in Russia is the podcaster who calls himself Constantine. His last name is reported to be Semoilov, or something like that. He doesn’t use his surname in his podcasts.
Rafi says but he is very mistaken
“There is ample incentive to try and stop the war which is going nowhere fast to a victory for either side. Trump’s point is that the carnage should stop and a solution to stop the fighting should be made! ”
I totally reject this.
1. Trump had a real chance to make a break with Biden but the scoundrel has, to put it simply, BLOWN IT. The Russians now are exclaiming.
“What’s possible with reactionary, vain, spouting, Maga nonsense, peacock, self preening, and also no more than inveterate hardened liar
Nothing was possible with Biden. Nothing with Trump.
So we will stop at the Polish border. ”
I personally forecast a rout. Followed by a Nuremberg settlement and the ringleaders of this 2014 coup tried for their crimes and bidding farewell to their existence in this life. And that includes Zelensky. Good riddance! The sooner the better!
2. THE FUTURE
A new Ukraine will arise. But it will not arise without the expungement of Ukrainian Fascism.
Rafi you are the one getting bogged down.
“Rafi
January 24, 2025 at 5:13 am
Do not get bogged down with exact numbers of dead or wounded. What seems obvious is that there a huge amount of dead soldiers from both Ukraine and Russia.”
Why add to the lies of Trump and the Ukrainian Fascists who launched this evil war on Russian Speakers in Ukraine in 2014 following the coup in Kiev in February of that year
State clearly Rafi about this or be quiet. If you lie your words are valueless.
Laura
Sadly Russia has only recently emerged a little from Stalin and remnants are bound to remain without a political revolution on the program of Leon Trotsky. However you lie about Putin’s position. Many there have as well as the West have drunk from the poisoned well of the Palestinism narrative and oppose Israel. But they did also oppose physically the arms flow to Hezbollah. Tell the truth Laura. It is not that easy to do.
Even the Russian hating United States Government had to state this about the Ukrainian Government (I do not think ever written about on israpundit )
Start quote
“The US State Department had to acknowledge and describe what it calls “significant human rights issues involving Ukrainian government officials”:
There were also significant human rights issues involving Ukrainian government officials, although not comparable to the scope of Russia’s abuses, which included credible reports of: enforced disappearance; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; restrictions on freedom of expression, including for members of the media, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and censorship; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association; restrictions on freedom of movement; serious government corruption; extensive gender-based violence; systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association; and the existence of the worst forms of child labor. Some of these human rights issues stemmed from martial law, which continued to curtail democratic freedoms, including freedom of movement, freedom of the press, freedom of peaceful assembly, and legal protection
https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ukraine/. )
Do not get bogged down with exact numbers of dead or wounded. What seems obvious is that there a huge amount of dead soldiers from both Ukraine and Russia.
There is ample incentive to try and stop the war which is going nowhere fast to a victory for either side. Trump’s point is that the carnage should stop and a solution to stop the fighting should be made!
Trump is not taking Russia’s side in the war unlike some on this site. He wants the war to end as that should be in all’s interest.
@Sebastien
Trump is going to close the net on sanction violations. By this, it should be understood that the reason that Russia has been able to deal with the sanctions policy is that it has had partners among the BRICS which have been double dealing, ie trading with the dollar in one market network and trading without the dollar in the BRICS network. This was only possible because the US was unwilling to draw a line in the sand and the BRICS members could do as they pleased so long as Washington turned a blind eye to the trading scams which were going on. This allowed Russia to still trade, and the war in Ukraine continued, and hundreds of thousands of Slavs died as a consequence, what should be understood to be a good start in the minds of many Neocons.
Going forward, countries such as India, which is a US ally and which still buys much of Russia’s oil, will have to decide if they will side with Russia and China or with the US. This will be difficult for everyone but this is how the genie gets put back in the bottle, with regards to defending the dollar. Many nations which recently joined BRICs will either end their association or deal with the financial consequences of losing their easy access to Western markets. Trump made this threat clear during his campaign and again referenced it in the Lame Duck period.
More than likely, the dollar will eventually go into that good night, but it will be a slow methodical process over time rather than the long told tale that the dollar will be destroyed overnight, or a few months, or even a few years. Defending the dollar is essential to maintaining the power of the US Empire without it having the US to go to war every time it wants to influence a nation to be cooperative. The phrase, “No more Mr. Nice Guy” comes to mind. In fact, defending the dollar may even come at the price of a few wars, but whatever it takes, the dollar will be defended, and likely the US under Trump, he will be successful in this campaign to restore American power, again, one way or the other.
Who is really providing DJT with the real casualties?
Until he has his own team in place he can trust NO ONE!
And then there’s Brics to offset sanctions. Aren’t a lot of sanctions already in place? As for intelligence agencies, weren’t these the folks who assured everybody Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation?
Douglas Macgregor has a lot of knowledge about the Ukraine war.
The whoremongers are pushing for WWIII!!!???
Is Trump being misled by deep state?
McG has a definite antipathy for Israel!
Putin is a psychopath and is allied with hamas and Iran. I’ll never understand your affinity for him. I’ll never understand why conservatives have made common cause with him and support his imperial war on Ukraine.