Russian propagandists can’t be trusted to tell the truth about anything. But, once in a while, a glimmer of truth does appear, usually when they can’t restrain their emotions while relating bad news.
Several months ago, for instance, Margarita Simonyan was visibly worried by the fact that, if Russia loses the war, she and her colleagues would be tried in The Hague. Vladimir Solovyov periodically loses his cool and rails against young Russians unwilling to fight, proof positive that morale is a genuine problem.
Most recently, Olga Skabeeva, who tends to let her emotions get the better of her, confessed that the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war was 284,000. And, she added, that estimate may be low, as it doesn’t include those missing in action. The source of the number appears to be ordinary Russians who wrote about their losses in social media.
Not surprisingly, Skabeeva was “shocked” by the number, especially as it exceeds by over 30,000 the official Ukrainian estimate, which at the time of this writing was 252,780.
Since Skabeeva’s methodology isn’t clear, it’s possible that her number is too high. But it could also be too low. All that we can say with certainty is:
First, Russian losses have been exceedingly high, so much so that even a veteran propagandist like Skabeeva was shocked. In all likelihood, many more Russians have met their deaths on the battlefield than most Western or Russian sources suggest. Thus, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated a few months ago that Russia had suffered 189,500-223,000 total casualties, including 35,500-43,000 killed and 154,000-180,000 wounded. In early July, two independent Russian media outlets calculated that about 50,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.
Second, Skabeeva’s number gives credence to the Ukrainian estimate. Ukrainian sources have been accused of inflating the numbers for their own propaganda purposes, while they claim to have their eyes on the actual battlefield and, thus, to be far more likely to tell how many enemy troops have actually been killed. Whatever the case, it seems reasonable to conclude that, while 284,00 may be an overestimate, 50,000 is almost certainly an underestimate. If the truth lies somewhere in between—say, 125,000—the number would still be astoundingly high.
Third, and most important, it doesn’t matter whether Skabeeva is right or not. What matters is that she, an authoritative source of supposedly reliable information for millions of Russians, believes she’s right. As do, in all likelihood, many of her viewers. Some Russians may now be inclined to end the war. Others may seek revenge and intensify the assault on Ukraine. But no Russians will be able to claim that the war is a distant affair and that, when the day of judgment comes, they didn’t know what was going on.
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
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