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Where is Putin’s Nuclear Red Line?
More than 70 days into what historians will one day call “Putin’s folly”, Russia’s disastrous war of choice in Ukraine is not going well — for Russia.
In what was supposed to be a three-day “special military operation” to overthrow the legitimate Ukrainian government, the Russian military has now lost as many as 25,900 fighters, according to a call intercepted by Kyiv.
In the call, a Russian soldier said “The official tally is one thing, but I’ll tell you now — 25,900 have died. That’s in two f***ing months.”
What’s more, western intelligence estimates that Putin has lost so many war machines (well over 3,000 armored vehicles by some estimates) that it will take years, perhaps decades, before Russia can pose a legitimate threat to any of its neighbors.
Yesterday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has claimed that 12 Russian generals have been killed since the invasion began.
This may be Ukrainian propaganda, but the New York Times recently reported that the United States provided intel to the Ukrainian military to help track and kill Russian generals — something U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson pushed back on saying: “That is not how we operate.”
Still, this gives some veracity to Ukraine’s claim of 12 dead Russian generals.