Almost 500,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine war, GCHQ says

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9. 1.2 million Russians killed or wounded

Afghanistan, resulting in only 15,000 KIA, was a major political liability for the Politburo, corroding their grip even further. As always, authoritarian regimes often appear stable until suddenly they are not.

I think from Putin's POV, the issue is less the number itself than the perception that losses are pointless. At the moment, the Kremlin has mostly avoided that perception domestically. But if Russia keeps taking 30k+ casualties per month indefinitely, eventually social tolerance will corrode.

Serbia under Milosevic was on-brand, until suddenly he wasn't. It's a tough lesson to learn, and humans tend to complacently forget those lessons after a generation or two.