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She describes the early days of the occupation, with checkpoints, curfews, and people being moved to detention centers. Many civilians tried to flee the town to Ukraine-controlled areas. Some made it, some were likely arrested because they disappeared. Olena was eventually arrested herself, moved to a filtration center, threatened and beaten. She spent some time at a work camp. She was eventually released, after which she moved through Russia to the Baltics, and through Poland back to Ukraine, and she now lives in Kiev.
It's likely we won't know how many people were disappeared from the occupied towns, and their fates, until many years in the future.
He describes how he enlisted because he was under house arrest, and was then sent to the front with minimal training and information. The article also covers how Russian soldiers are encouraged to take their own lives instead of surrendering. Partly because getting medical treatment on the front lines is so difficult, partly because it's just cheaper to pay out a lump sum instead of providing long-term care for wounded soldiers. Question is of course how often that lump sum materializes.
Some good info on drone warfare. Also, Ukrainians plan to get to 50k russian kills (not wounded) per month this year.
Aspirational goal. Hard to go from around ~3k to 50k, needs solid planning and execution from the entire organization. The only way to hit that would be to get to 0 wounded since they all die and still hit more people than they do normally. Russia would have to help by launching mechanized large scale offensives or stop reinforcing at all.
The only realistic path would be to hit Moscow or other large cities and aim for citizens. But Ukraine doesn't currently have the capacity to do that. And if they did they would lose a lot of support from EU, which is a war losing move.
I think that's the result of a poor clarification of fatalities and not casualties, since that includes wounded. The objective isn't to kill everybody they would have just wounded before.
Some good info on drone warfare. Also, Ukrainians plan to get to 50k russian kills (not wounded) per month this year.
Aspirational goal. Hard to go from around ~3k to 50k, needs solid planning and execution from the entire organization. The only way to hit that would be to get to 0 wounded since they all die and still hit more people than they do normally. Russia would have to help by launching mechanized large scale offensives or stop reinforcing at all.
The only realistic path would be to hit Moscow or other large cities and aim for citizens. But Ukraine doesn't currently have the capacity to do that. And if they did they would lose a lot of support from EU, which is a war losing move.
I think that's the result of a poor clarification of fatalities and not casualties, since that includes wounded. The objective isn't to kill everybody they would have just wounded before.
Ukraine said specifically that they want to get to 50k fatalities. They have 35k confirmed kills (not wounded) in December. This also fits with what I mentioned previously, the shift in tactics on the Russian side made it so that in assaults instead of having 1:3 killed/wounded ratio it's pretty much 1:0. Almost all of them are getting killed and there are very few wounded.
On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
Who is they?
From what I found.
Zelensky said 35000
UA general staff said 1130 per day
Ukraine's Delta Battlefield Management System, an internal command-and-control platform, recorded 33,019 Russian soldiers eliminated based on verified reports
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte cited a figure of around 30,000 Russian soldiers who died in December
As mentioned who knows who is telling the truth but this seems much closer than 3000 given the reality of the multiple hot spots with daily Russian massive infantry attacks with not cover and occasionally motorbikes or atvs.
Also, a lot of the analysts have been predicting some sort of mobilization and stating current recruitment not meeting front needs. They are usually using some combination of total army size and recruitment to estimate losses. And noting the flaws of inflating recruitment numbers and awol troops.
On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
Who is they?
From what I found.
Zelensky said 35000
UA general staff said 1130 per day
Ukraine's Delta Battlefield Management System, an internal command-and-control platform, recorded 33,019 Russian soldiers eliminated based on verified reports
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte cited a figure of around 30,000 Russian soldiers who died in December
As mentioned who knows who is telling the truth but this seems much closer than 3000 given the reality of the multiple hot spots with daily Russian massive infantry attacks with not cover and occasionally motorbikes or atvs.
Also, a lot of the analysts have been predicting some sort of mobilization and stating current recruitment not meeting front needs. They are usually using some combination of total army size and recruitment to estimate losses. And noting the flaws of inflating recruitment numbers and awol troops.
Ok, few things going on here.
1. You're mixing up casualties and kills. Zelenskyy/Ukraine are talking about casualties, not kills. Ukraine asserted total Russian casualties on Dec 31 2025 of 1,207,910 and 1,172,860 on Nov 30. That's 35,050 for the month, it's probably where the 35k is coming from. We should treat this number as a ceiling and as a problematic one at that. It assumes that every claim is accurate, that there aren't accidental duplicate claims, and that there are no bad actors claiming to overperform in what is still a legacy Soviet military and culture.
2. You're using "confirmed kills" when you mean claimed casualties. I'm not saying that Ukraine substantially overclaims, I normally treat their numbers as reasonable because there are secondary sources that we can use as evidence to support them. For example we can infer the attrition of the Russian army by looking at recruitment rates and total army size. But confirmed has a specific meaning. There are open source intelligence projects devoted to confirmed kill analysis that look at probate records, obituaries, social media posts and so forth within Russia. Their work lags months behind Ukrainian claims. There are absolutely not 35,000 confirmed kills in December, confirmed December kills will be coming in for months.
3. Rutte's numbers don't make any sense. He is, without any source or reference, asserting substantially higher kill rates than Ukraine's own military in wartime.
I'm assuming nobody who has posted in this topic would mistake me for a pro Russian. But 35k dead Russians in a month is just not in line with what we know about the war, it would be a dramatic change from what has been a very consistent monthly trend. To me it smells like a classic example of the youtube information game that we all know and love from this war (like when any Russian killed becomes 200 dead Russians because Russia's military uses 200 as their internal code for KIA). The official Ukrainian military number for all casualties for December is 35,050. That goes through the youtube information game and comes out as 35k confirmed kills.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
As someone who has watched a lot of drone footage I can let you know that a lot of drone footage goes to potato quality as the drone moves in for the strike because of the curvature of the earth and that FPV drones are very bad at providing damage assessments because they don't outlast the strike. You get the footage of the drone swooping towards the back of the vehicle or whatever but you don't see what the vehicle looks like after the drone has self destructed.
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
The idea that most casualties are visually recorded is simply false. It is still the exception, not the norm.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
As someone who has watched a lot of drone footage I can let you know that a lot of drone footage goes to potato quality as the drone moves in for the strike because of the curvature of the earth and that FPV drones are very bad at providing damage assessments because they don't outlast the strike. You get the footage of the drone swooping towards the back of the vehicle or whatever but you don't see what the vehicle looks like after the drone has self destructed.
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
The idea that most casualties are visually recorded is simply false. It is still the exception, not the norm.
The way UA drones operate is that you have the FPV drones doing the strikes with their own cameras. Non-wired ones do get jammed but even then they typically have one or more high altitude surveillance drones in the area to get a big picture view on the situation, help guide the strike drones etc. footage from those is typically not jammed because they operate outside of the jamming area and you can use it to confirm the kills.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
As someone who has watched a lot of drone footage I can let you know that a lot of drone footage goes to potato quality as the drone moves in for the strike because of the curvature of the earth and that FPV drones are very bad at providing damage assessments because they don't outlast the strike. You get the footage of the drone swooping towards the back of the vehicle or whatever but you don't see what the vehicle looks like after the drone has self destructed.
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
The idea that most casualties are visually recorded is simply false. It is still the exception, not the norm.
The way UA drones operate is that you have the FPV drones doing the strikes with their own cameras. Non-wired ones do get jammed but even then they typically have one or more high altitude surveillance drones in the area to get a big picture view on the situation, help guide the strike drones etc. footage from those is typically not jammed because they operate outside of the jamming area and you can use it to confirm the kills.
I'm not saying that there is no footage of kills, I'm saying that we're a very, very long way from 100% footage.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
As someone who has watched a lot of drone footage I can let you know that a lot of drone footage goes to potato quality as the drone moves in for the strike because of the curvature of the earth and that FPV drones are very bad at providing damage assessments because they don't outlast the strike. You get the footage of the drone swooping towards the back of the vehicle or whatever but you don't see what the vehicle looks like after the drone has self destructed.
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
The idea that most casualties are visually recorded is simply false. It is still the exception, not the norm.
The way UA drones operate is that you have the FPV drones doing the strikes with their own cameras. Non-wired ones do get jammed but even then they typically have one or more high altitude surveillance drones in the area to get a big picture view on the situation, help guide the strike drones etc. footage from those is typically not jammed because they operate outside of the jamming area and you can use it to confirm the kills.
I'm not saying that there is no footage of kills, I'm saying that we're a very, very long way from 100% footage.
That's why I also said the fog of war lies heavy and we'll probably never know the full truth.
To change the subject a bit:
An interesting review of modern artillery systems when faced with realities of war.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
I think your info here is very outdated, I believe drones have been responsible for 50 % + for at least a year, if not way more then that, as reported here:
There's plenty more articles like this over the last year or so. It's not just media, it's every analyst that I've been paying attention confirming that artillery is no longer the top source of casualties.
Drones are also cheaper and safer then artillery, cheapest drone is 500 $ and a NATO artillery shell comes between 3000-8000 $, plus you have to worry about counter battery fire, move constantly, are a much bigger target that announces itself with every shoot, it absolutely makes sense that drones are replacing artillery for a lot of use cases.
There will, of course, still be a lot of use for it, but overall, drones are way more versatile, safe and precise.
I don't know the exact ratio, but both the Ukrainians and the Russians (military bloggers) have recently claimed that the proportion of KIA among the Russian casualties has increased drastically. They find it very difficult to help the wounded (and their barbaric tactics/policies do not help).
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
I think your info here is very outdated, I believe drones have been responsible for 50 % + for at least a year, if not way more then that, as reported here:
There's plenty more articles like this over the last year or so. It's not just media, it's every analyst that I've been paying attention confirming that artillery is no longer the top source of casualties.
Drones are also cheaper and safer then artillery, cheapest drone is 500 $ and a NATO artillery shell comes between 3000-8000 $, plus you have to worry about counter battery fire, move constantly, are a much bigger target that announces itself with every shoot, it absolutely makes sense that drones are replacing artillery for a lot of use cases.
There will, of course, still be a lot of use for it, but overall, drones are way more versatile, safe and precise.
Drones have pretty much replaced artillery in this war. They are now able to create 60-80km killzones so the role typically held by arty.
On January 26 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote: They beeing the UA army having it on video via drones and phones?
Most casualties are still from artillery, just as they have been in every previous conflict between peer powers. Drones are interesting, new, exciting, and very media friendly because of how much footage they generate. Everyone loves drones. But this is still a war dominated by impassable minefields covered by indirect fires.
I think your info here is very outdated, I believe drones have been responsible for 50 % + for at least a year, if not way more then that, as reported here:
There's plenty more articles like this over the last year or so. It's not just media, it's every analyst that I've been paying attention confirming that artillery is no longer the top source of casualties.
Drones are also cheaper and safer then artillery, cheapest drone is 500 $ and a NATO artillery shell comes between 3000-8000 $, plus you have to worry about counter battery fire, move constantly, are a much bigger target that announces itself with every shoot, it absolutely makes sense that drones are replacing artillery for a lot of use cases.
There will, of course, still be a lot of use for it, but overall, drones are way more versatile, safe and precise.
Drones have pretty much replaced artillery in this war. They are now able to create 60-80km killzones so the role typically held by arty.
Drones are a workaround they came up with during the shell famine. They’re not a replacement. The Ukrainian military is still asking for, receiving, and consuming vast amounts of shells. But they’re still not getting as many as they’re asking for.
In a timeline where Ukraine gets the tens of millions of shells NK gave Russia we don’t see drones being used the same way. Drones matched up against shells in 2023 and shells won decisively in Bakhmut and Siverskodonetsk when the cities were simply leveled.
Also 60-80km killzone? What are you talking about? That is the extreme exception, that’s way outside line of sight, that’s outside of fiber optic, that’s even outside mothership relay line of sight, that’s moving in to very high cost starlink carrying platforms territory. We’re not talking $500 artillery correction viewing drones there, we’re talking absolute chonkers like sea baby at that point.
There’s a lot of numbers in this war that are unknown. But in those cases we still know what the numbers are not. We don’t know exactly how many Russians were killed in December but we do know that it wasn’t 35,000. We don’t know the exact % of enemy units that are destroyed in every 10km band from the line of contact but we don’t need to to know that there isn’t a killer robot killzone operating 80km from the line of contact (and at least 100km from the source of control). We don't know the exact ratio of killed to wounded in Russian casualties but we know that it's not 700:1 which is what we'd need it to be to get 35,000 killed out of 35,050 total. It’s just not in line with everything else that we know.
But, we do know, as noted above that your confident statement that artillery is still the top casualty cause was false.
Given that this is the case, I don't think I buy your theory that drones are only as prevalent because of the shell shortage, as there is plenty of analysts and people from the ground interviews who are saying the opposite.
Artillery is never going away, drones absolutely compliment it in more ways then one, and the numbers of casualties caused by which system are way to consistent and come from too enough sources that we don't have to doubt them in the same way that we can the casualty count from less then a month ago.
The largest kill zone I've seen mentioned was around 25 km around Kupiansk:
And it's obviously not just one type of drones, it's all of them, layered, with ability of different ones to swarm on a location as soon as troop movement is detected by the reconnaissance ones, which makes sense.
That, plus the terrain means that they don't have to cover 100 % of the kill zone to be effective, just the ones where Russians show up.
On January 27 2026 03:54 Jankisa wrote: Given that this is the case, I don't think I buy your theory that drones are only as prevalent because of the shell shortage, as there is plenty of analysts and people from the ground interviews who are saying the opposite.
Your source above said this FYI.
Ukrainian commanders have also revealed that the military’s reliance on drones is not just tactical but increasingly essential. With a notable decrease in ammunition – including fewer rockets from the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) – drones have filled critical gaps.
While I'll take the correction about the changing cause of deaths over time I don't think it changes the conclusion of the argument I was making. There is no world in which Ukraine has video damage assessment of all of its claimed casualties. Even with drones.
EPT
