I hate to pull anyone away from the novelty that other people can reach different conclusions from a similar set of data, but this is another of these short videos that says so much about the Russian way of war and the grand deception Putin is thus far successfully engineering with respect to losses. This video was posted on Telegram by a Russian soldier. It shows he and his squad moving to reinforce a defensive position. They are moving through the bodies of other Russian troops in various stages of decomposition left to rot on the battlefield.
The Kremlin's strategy would seem fairly simple. A corpse that is never recovered never died. To a worried wife or family, from the MOD's perspective he simply has not contacted home in a while. Eventually, particularly as nature takes its course, he will be listed as MIA. The family never officially learns the truth, Putin's mafia like government doesn't have to pay a death benefit, and the general population, particularly that key one in heartland encompassing Moscow and St. Petersburg, continues to be largely blinded to human cost of this invasion - at least until they no longer are. I should note conservative non Ukrainian estimates believe Russia is currently suffering 1200 casualties a day.
Putin is engaged in an ever more dangerous balancing act. Casualties, his economy, export collapse, and faltering military morale (filmed suicides are increasing dramatically) and now an occupation force in Russian territory. At this point, I doubt this ends well for the little KGB thug regardless the conclusion of eventual negotiations.
