After 1000 Days of War, Russia Managed to Expand Its Occupation of Ukraine from Seven to 18 Percent

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 18 – Statistics never tell the whole story about any human activity. That is particularly true about wars given the human suffering they involve. But the numbers in themselves are important, and they provide a framework for discussing the conflict and its total impact.
    That makes the collection of data that the Important Stories portal has assembled from various authoritative sources about Putin’s war in Ukraine worthy of note (istories.media/stories/2024/11/18/1000-dnei-voini-v-tsifrakh/). Among the most important of these are the following:
•    Before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia occupied seven percent of Ukrainian territory. In 1,000 days of fighting since then, it has expanded its occupation and that now totals 18 percent of Ukraine, a vast swath of that country but far less than Putin promised at the outset.
•    Since February 2022, approximately one million people have been killed or wounded in Ukraine and Russia combined. Most are military personnel, but at least 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 26,000 wounded since February 2022 – 12 dead and 26 wounded every day of the war.
•    These losses are putting the demographic future of Ukraine in peril. Because of these losses and flight, Ukraine has lost seven million in areas Kyiv controls in addition to the nearly five million who live in areas under Russian control.
•    Approximately a third of all Ukrainians who remain – 10 million people – now suffer from mental disorders because of the war.
•    Russian forces are intentionally destroying Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, having destroyed or damaged the homes of 3.4 million people and reduce the production of electric power by 70 percent.
•    The war is costing Russia and Russians as well. Almost half of all Russian government revenues now goes to military needs, almost 150,000 Russians have died, and the additional number of wounded means that the irrecoverable losses of the Russian army could be more than 300,000.
•    Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine is now the most frequent cause of death among young Russian men, with every second death among that category having died in the war itself.
•    Increased military spending has sparked inflation and wage increases have not kept up.
•    Russians in Kursk Oblast are suffering following the advance of the Ukrainian army into that portion of the Russian Federation. Nearly 400 have died and more than 130,000 have fled.
•    But one of the most serious costs to Russia of the war lies ahead: Returning veterans are committing more crimes and as the number of former soldiers increases, these crimes will increased as well.
•    And many of those Russians who fled the war to avoid mobilization or because of opposition to the war as such won’t return, inflicting yet another cost on Russia and its people. Those who oppose the war but have remained in Russia have suffered as well from repression of various kinds.