Comment by cf141q5325

4 years ago

Not him, but from current predictions to 200k isnt that big of a jump. If i recall we are likely at over 100k dead servicemen (matching Russian losses) and something around 40k dead civilians.

Not so sure about such a drastic shift myself, but its a possibility if you think of it in terms of having overdone the whole propaganda aspect and inadvertently triggering a reaction. Especially as having observed it for the better part of the last year, i suspect Russia has been goating western media/commentators/politicians into especially brazen stuff. To give an example for especially brazen instances, there is the propaganda channel "Perun" on youtube who does a great job framing itself as open source intelligence. When it came to the Ukrainian Kherson offensive he however dropped the ball and transparently crossed the line from miss- to dissinformation when he

1) Congratulated the Ukrainian government on "preserving manpower" by banning military age males from leaving the country

2) Stating that the Ukrainian military was made up solely from "volunteers", thus the great fighting spirit

3) Congratulating the Ukrainian government on its willingness to take losses in Kherson with the strategic aim of worsening the Russian supply situation

Add to stuff like this the reports that got brazenly silenced like the Amnesty International report about Ukraine having soldiers positioned in schools and hospitals. The rational being that Russia knew about all prewar military positions in case you wondered.

Its the old problem of exploiting a bogey man too brazenly and overdoing propaganda. Once you overdo it, you might be in for a rude awakening about the extend of stuff that stops working.

edit: Minute 26:06 in the Video from 17th of September (Seven months from Kyiv to Kharkiv), Minute 27:30 and 41:40 of the Kherson video from 20th November. Binge watched them so not sure where he mentioned the volunteer part, but the preserving manpower with ban to leave the country should be mentioned in the Ukrainian mobilization video. But also referenced at around min 13 in the Kyiv to Kharkiv video.

For Amnesty Report and the backlash see https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/ukraine-ukrai...