Once in a million men
Russia and Ukraine fulfilled exchange of war dead bodies in the biggest such swap so far since the onset of the Ukraine war, thus committing to enactment of June 2 round of the 2025 Istanbul negotiations. But there’s, as always in this conflict, a catch.
Since June 2, Russia returned to Ukraine, cumulatively, 6,060 of the fallen (another 2,300 are pending confirmation), whereas Ukraine, after a lot of procrastination and faffing, has managed to present only 78 dead Russian belligerents. Yes, 78, instead of 6,000 quota, as per Istanbul June 2 terms.
This is all that the Western readers should know about official Ukrainian stats, provided by Zelensky’s propaganda outlets: in there, Russia’s losses, as of June 12th (Russian national holiday), neatly crossed the 1 million mark, and Ukrainian fantasy writers continue to blather about 5 to 10-fold edge over Russia in terms of KIA and MIA.
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Ask yourself a simple question: if Russia is able to return, during a couple of weeks, more than 8,000 bodies from Kursk region and in June alone, whose data seems closer to reality on our brane, Zelensky’s fanciful 46,000 Ukrainian dead and 1M of Russia’s losses… or those provided by “sources of disinformation” and the “Kremlin’s shady horses”?
Now about that unnaturally long Ukraine’s procrastination. The main reason is disgustingly simple.
Recently, “victorious Ukraine” entered the corridor of eclipses, that is, defaults.
I write “corridor,” because, obviously, this is but a first in the series; it may be connected somehow with the return of 6K+ frozen bodies of Ukrainian fallen, which, in a blink of an eye, added ca. USD450,000,000 of obligate compensation payments to Ukraine’s already strained military budget for the next 40 months.
