TWO YEARS AGO, VLADIMIR PUTIN launched a war of conquest and extermination against Ukraine. He failed. Yet now he hopes by guile to snatch victory from the jaws of genocide.
A decorated officer, Patrick Mercer believes him. “Now [Russia] stands within a spit of victory,” he writes elsewhere in The Critic. He accuses journalists of “lies” about the real extent of Ukrainian casualites and claims that “a subservient media” has reported the war in such a biased manner as to give the impression that Ukraine was winning, doing us a “grave disservice” by “underestimating Russia”.
There is, though, no conspiracy about the casualties on either side. NATO’s latest estimate at the end of 2023 was that Ukraine has lost more than 300,000 killed and wounded. US intelligence suggested that Russia had lost 315,000 troops, though Kyiv puts the number at 350,000.
Given the Russian army’s well-documented disregard for losses and for its soldiers’ welfare, the fact that these numbers
