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To: Prince of Space; bimboeruption; UMCRevMom@aol.com; BabaOreally
Prince of Space #84: "It’s interesting that the “ministry of defense” in Ukraine can somehow analyze the data and determine the losses and casualties Russia has suffered but can’t seem to figure out how many Ukrainian soldiers and equipment they’ve lost."

Russians don't report their own casualties and Russians estimate Ukraine's casualties at around 400,000 so far.
Ukrainians don't report their own casualties and estimate Russian killed or seriously wounded at around 350,000 so far.

US intelligence estimates put Russian casualties, total to date, at 315,000 in December.
The UK puts Russian casualties at circa 350,000.

Estimates of Ukrainian casualties run in the 200,000 range.

It's worth remembering here that Russia's population is around 145 million (75% ethnic Russians), Ukraine's maybe 40 million (80% ethnic Ukrainians).

As for numbers of various nations' equipment on hand and lost in Ukraine, those are said to be well known by Pentagon and other US government officials.
Whether making such numbers public would benefit Ukraine's war effort is at least debatable.

bimboeruption #84: "The American people don’t know how much money we’ve poured into Zelensky’s corrupt little paradise or where the equipment we’ve sent to him has gone."

Those numbers can depend on who is counting and how, exactly, they count.
The top line number is usually put at $113 billion total authorized over two years, of which roughly half is through the Pentagon ($62 billion) and the rest through mostly the State Department ($51 billion).
The appropriation requested by the Biden administration for 2024 is another circa $60 billion.

How much of that was actually delivered, we are not told, though it's often implied that the current authorizations are now nearly all used up.

So, it's worth noticing again that most or all of the military hardware delivered so far is said to be surplus or obsolete pending scrap, and that the values listed as shipped to Ukraine were actually our own costs to replace such obsolete hardware with our latest technical upgrades.
So, the actual values of equipment Ukraine received were far less than the amounts in our budgets.

As for alleged Ukrainian corruption, by all objective measures it is vastly less than Russian corruption, and has improved significantly in the past 20 years, though Ukraine still has a way to go before it can meet European Union minimum standards in such matters.

Turns out that all reports of alleged Zelenskyy yachts and foreign homes are pure Russian propaganda, however Russia's Vlad the Invader is himself reported as one of the world's wealthiest men, worth $70 billion, with many reported yachts, including this one:
Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy's wealth is estimated at $30 million, of which 75% is in the value of his TV production company, which produced the Ukrainian hit TV series, "Servant of the People" from 2015 to 2019.

One of Vlad the Invader's yachts, worth $700 million, in Italy:

107 posted on 12/31/2023 5:26:36 AM PST by BroJoeK (future DDG 134 -- we remember)
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To: BroJoeK; BabaOreally; Monterrosa-24; Prince of Space; PIF; MalPearce; UMCRevMom@aol.com; ...

“So, it’s worth noticing again that most or all of the military hardware delivered so far is said to be surplus or obsolete pending scrap, and that the values listed as shipped to Ukraine were actually our own costs to replace such obsolete hardware with our latest technical upgrades.
So, the actual values of equipment Ukraine received were far less than the amounts in our budgets.”

Whose idea was it to make our aid to Ukraine look more valuable than it really is by claiming replacement cost for items that were obsolete or even required to be deactivated? I remember the fuss over the cluster munitions we were give Ukraine. These were scheduled for deactivation/dismanteling very soon, which would have cost our Defense Department additional money. Now they are being used to defend Ukraine, in the manner originally intended by us.

So we have gotten rid of something we had to get rid of anyway, and we don’t even have to pay someone to deactivate them for us. There would be shipping costs. So what will we spend to replace these weapons, and how much would we have paid for the deactivations process? All those figures should immediately be calculated and this amount deducted from the so called dollar value of our aid to Ukraine. The same should be done for all the other weapons and military materiel being sent to Ukraine.

Fair accounting should include some of the following factors.

1. True value of old or soon to be scrapped military supplies. Deduction

2. Value of cost to scrap materials. Deduction

3. Cost of shipping materials. Addition

4. Money saved on storage, security, etc. in buildings and on land. Deduction

5. I’m sure the active minds of FReepers can think of items to add to this list.

Then I have another question. We are paying interest on our military debt. Are we paying interest on the “like new” value of what we sending to Ukraine. If that is the case then we are probably making some bankers even richer than they already were. Companies like Goldman Sachs come to mind who have had high officers working closely with past administrations.

Are we taxpayers subsidizing a double rip-off, and blaming Ukraine for it? In fact, this analysis should be done for all our military material gifts. Bottom line—no “like new” charges for what we plan to replace anyway, and no interest paid on phony inflated valuation levels.


110 posted on 12/31/2023 8:26:50 AM PST by gleeaikin ( Question authority)
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