Meatgrinder

In recent months Russia has launched a concentrated attack against Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, and the media often gloomily reported that the Ukrainians were stretched so thin that they were having trouble repelling Russian advances.

Those advances seemed now to have slowed as Western weapons have begun to reach the front lines and we're learning the price the Russians have paid for their recent incursions around Kharkiv.

The British Sun has the numbers:

Vladimir Putin suffered 1,270 casualties in 24 hours, Ukraine's Defence Ministry announced yesterday, marking Russia's deadliest-ever day in its two-year-old meatgrinder war with Ukraine. But the figure was topped today as the defence ministry claimed Ukraine's military had "eliminated" 1,290 more Russians.

In two days the Russians have lost almost 2600 fighters. That puts the total number of Russians killed since the start of the invasion at well above 500,000. In addition, yesterday's fighting alone cost the Russians 15 tanks, 18 combat vehicles, 65 artillery systems, 27 drones, 69 vehicles and fuel tanks, 3 air defense systems, and 12 special equipment pieces.

The Ukrainian military reports that Russian casualty figures have been above 1,000 per day since Moscow launched its offensive in Kharkiv on May 10. Yet they still keep coming as though Putin has an inexhaustible supply of bodies to throw into the meatgrinder. Here's a chart showing the total Russian losses since the onset of the war:

This is an incredible and completely unneccessary squandering of blood and treasure. If Vladimir Putin ultimately fails in his Ukraine gambit he will go down in history as one of the most evil men of the 21st century, or perhaps of any century.