The Russian casualty toll is staggering

If the Ukrainian leader is right and 23,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the first 65 days of the war in Ukraine, it is beyond staggering. And what's more, at least a dozen Russian generals dead! As Nato top commanders and ex-commanders like to point out, that's a helluva lot more than the total number of American troops killed in Iraq and Afghhanistan since 9/11 - in other words, over 20 years. The actual figure is roughly 7,000 US troops, plus about 8,000 contractors, not all American. For every Russian family back home, the 23,000 deaths is an unbelievable tragedy. At what point in this Putin debacle will the Russian people rise up and condemn the actions of their president and demand an end to the war? And an end to the Putin regime. The staggering casualty statistics cannot be kept from the Russian public for ever. Russian mothers should by now be demanding to know what has happened to their sons. There was an outcry from mothers and wives when the Russian nuclear-powered submarine, Kursk, sank after an accident on board with the loss of all 118 crew members in August 2000. Where is the outcry now over the deaths in the war in Ukraine which has been so incompetently run by the Kremlin? Even if President Zelensky's figure of 23,000 is an exaggerated estimate, there is no doubt that the casualty toll has been enormous in a relatively short perid of time. Nato estimates are more in the region of 15,000. Putin at some stage in this war will have to be confronted by an angry Russian population demanding to know the truth. For everyone's sake, not least for the poor Ukrainians,let us hope it's soon and Putin has to fight for his political survival. And loses.