Over 2 1/2 years since its start, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has laid claim to a haunting statistic - approximately one million Ukrainians and Russians have been wounded or killed, according to the WSJ as reported last month.
The WSJ cites confidential reports that pit Ukrainian deaths at 80,000 and wounded counts at 400,000. Russian deaths are estimated to be anywhere between 70,000 to 200,000, with the wounded toll being even more speculative, hovering around 400,000. Regardless, it is difficult to perfectly estimate the true death tolls, especially with propaganda claiming little to no losses on both sides to bolster morale.
These are real human lives, not just numbers on a screen.
Resilience
Ukraine seems to be doing "good" militarily when they're getting fair fights. Many accounts describe the success of Ukrainian forces in neutralizing Russian forces, highlighting kill/death ratios that favor Ukraine's side. And, considering Russia's blatantly brutal military strategy, it is safe to assume a fair portion of the deaths on Ukraine's count can be attributed to civilians.
Ukraine is still at a disadvantage, though. Even if casualty counts are even on both sides (a miracle in and of itself considering the military might of Russia and the relatively guerilla forces of Ukraine), Russia's population is still more than 3.5x larger than Ukraine's. Birth rates have dropped, too, and not from a good starting point - even before the war, Ukraine's birth rates were the lowest in Europe.
And, it won't matter if Ukrainian forces don't have a country to return to when everything cools.
Attacks on energy systems and power plants restrict and deny Ukrainians what many would consider a basic human need, destroying military capabilities simultaneously. Ukraine lost more than half its power-generating capacity in the first 14 months of the war according to the UN and World Bank, with the situation only having gotten worse since.
Then, in July, we saw the bombing of Ukraine's largest children's hospital. Before and since that, we've seen Russian targeting of healthcare infrastructure, and even private residences. High rises, hospitals, homes - none are safe and to be excluded from Russia's military strategy. If they can't effectively destroy Ukrainian military capabilities, crippling the country itself is the next best option, and we all know who would win the war of attrition.
Retaliation
Ukraine isn't going down without a fight, at least. Recently, Ukraine's been on the offensive, targeting ammunition depots with drone strikes to stifle Russian bombing power. Funding has been key to this, which is why aid to Ukraine is so important, and so controversial at the same time.
The real question lies within long-range missiles, though. More important than any other risk is the risk of nuclear war.
With the battle getting more serious as time progresses, the latest idea at the forefront of Ukrainian leaders' minds is the possibility of using the long-range missiles they've gotten from nations like the US to strike deeper into Russia.
Ukraine sees these missiles as a strategic opportunity to start crippling the Russian war effort just as Putin has been doing to Ukraine. However, considering Russia's size and the amount of firepower necessary to sustain consistent attacks to truly cripple the Russian war effort all while maintaining a perfect balance to not trigger the country which holds the largest confirmed nuclear arsenal in the world (home to over 5,500 nuclear warheads) will be extraordinarily difficult.
The US is skeptical, and for good reason - without a definitive picture of Ukrainian military strategy and what the end goal is, risking a possible nuclear war should not be condoned whatsoever. The possibility of nuclear winters, retaliation, and then pre-emptive bombing brings the ominous concept of human extinction into the realm of possibility.
Liberation
The real question, then, lies in what the future of Ukraine will look like. We know what modern wars look like - the War in Afghanistan lasted over 20 years, and as soon as the US pulled out, the Taliban immediately assumed power and completely recovered.
For Ukraine, a comparatively tiny and insignificant country to Russia, it is near impossible to make an accurate prediction of what might come to be. Much less than that, it's difficult to even make a prediction that feels morally and ethically OK to have even constructed.
What happens if Ukraine does use long-range missiles? Russia will always out-tech them, and keep bombing, them with even longer-range missiles. Or, they'll retaliate for real, and drop a nuclear bomb - then, what does NATO do? How does the US react? Does the world devolve into chaos, or does the West "cut their losses," and sacrifice a nation of almost 40 million in favor of the other 7.9 billion that make up the world?
Hopefully, Russia will simply back out and realize that the war isn't worth it anymore - for the territory, the status or the display of might. And hopefully, peace will come, because remember, the 1 million people wounded or killed aren't numbers on a screen, they are not symbols for something else, they are human beings, with friends, families, lives, memories, and experiences of their own, and to see the number increase even by one each time is horrifying.
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