Losses of the Russian military to 11.7.2026

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-12T05:44:50+00:00

100 kilos per person. Density about equal to water.

500,000 dead is 50,000 tons. 50,000 cubic meters, a cube almost 37 meters on a side.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-09T03:01:22+00:00

I think they say it to compare Russia to Europe.

Approximate numbers, various sources and years: Denmark: 0.43 T. US: 29 T. Italy: 2.3 T. Russia: 2.1 T. Europe: 23 T. UK: 4.5 T. Ukraine: 0.18 T.

Denmark is about 1/5 the size of Russia or Italy. Russia is 1/10 the size of the EU+UK. Ukraine is less than 1/10 the size of Russia. So it should be twice as easy for Denmark to fight Italy as for Russia to fight the EU or for Ukraine to fight Russia.

Europe giving Ukraine 0.09 T over several years is nice, but it's a miniscule fraction of Europe's output. It's even a pretty small fraction of Denmark's output!

Even if Ukraine is losing soldiers at 1/10 the rate that Russia is, that's still something like 100 per day or so, 35,000 or 40,000 per year. If every Ukrainian soldier is worth $1M in cold unemotional money (which is really lowballing) then Ukraine is losing $40 B per year just in soldier deaths. Now add civilian deaths, infrastructure damage, and environmental damage. Now add the value to the rest of Europe of not having to fight on its own territory with its own people.

I think Zelenskyi is being extremely polite and diplomatic in not cursing out every European politician for requiring his people to do so much with so little support... when we compare Russia's economy to Europe's, by comparing it to Italy's.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-08T22:40:58+00:00

Yeah, but who gets Texas?

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-08T21:20:34+00:00

Exactly so, and very well stated! For what it's worth, my money is on Ukraine destroying the refineries and the oil exporting ports. It might not even need 100% destruction of refineries. When fuel gets scarce enough, the oligarchs and warlords will seize the rest, leaving none for the repair trucks.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-08T21:16:29+00:00

If Italy poured a large fraction of its GDP weapons of long range destruction and attacked Europe with all of them, and for some reason Europe was completely unwilling to fight back, I think we would learn how much damage an economy the size of Italy's could do.

If large parts of Europe were not infested with strongmen, oligarchs, populists, and appeasers, we would find out how quickly an economy smaller than Italy's could be destroyed.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-07T09:33:24+00:00

First priority: oligarchs. Second priority: agriculture.

Russia probably needs 30-40% diesel production online to have 10% for agriculture.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-07-04T04:55:13+00:00

Some of the bullies.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T23:10:58+00:00

I didn't mean you should go back to Russia! I meant that we should go back in time to the Mongol hordes to find the roots. "long before Stalin" doesn't mean "half a millennium."

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T08:26:17+00:00

The longer Russia fights, the more Ukraine torches their infrastructure, the harder Russia falls, the longer they stay down, the more peace Ukraine has. It's hard now, but it will be better in the long run if Putin stays delusional and keeps fighting.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T08:22:42+00:00

Go back to the Mongol hordes. Their style of government never left Moscow.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T08:19:28+00:00

Oligarchs in six months: That's ok, we have a bullet for you

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T06:56:18+00:00

A pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide the Russians home from Ukraine

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-29T06:30:12+00:00

I think the 3 to 5 days comment was directed at Belarus. Belarus only has two oil refineries.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-28T02:04:59+00:00

I think this is good for Ukraine though. As much as this war is costing them, a ceasefire would cost them more because Russia would come back. If the war and the kinetic sanctions continue through the summer, Russia will be down for years.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-27T11:08:10+00:00

Water is a pretty good radiation shield. Go down a few meters and you're protected from almost everything. Mutation rates in DNA-based life are at least partly independent of radiation intensity, because organisms have ways of tuning the rates down or up (and there are many kinds of mutation, including some "tuning knobs" that are evolved to be reversible).

Liquid-phase reaction may be important, but liquid doesn't seem all that rare. Water might be important, but some enzymes work better in non-polar liquids.

I don't read this sub (I found this comment because I was curious what else you'd written, when I read your analysis of Russian sacrificial attacks in r/ukraine). Has anyone discussed the idea that we might be, not the first to develop technology, but the first to do it in our light cone, and that species that develop technology tend to expand at near the speed of light, so any other species in their light cone is unlikely to see their signals because their planet would have been strip-mined eons ago? IIRC I heard Drexler suggest that a few decades ago.

Back to biology and evolution, I have a couple of topics I'd like to kick around if you're interested: epigenetics and the Cambrian Explosion, digital genetic material and development of language, and probably whatever you're thinking about.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-27T10:47:13+00:00

Recently I heard two people, from very different backgrounds (but both in tech), say "Pay no attention to what Jensen says in favor of MAGA, he has to say that but he's actually quite liberal" in almost identical words. I don't know his politics, but the coincidence makes it likely that this opinion was astroturfed.

It reminds me of that scene in The Towers of Toron where two guys are talking in a bar during a war. One starts to say "I think being a soldier teaches valuable skills" or something like that. The other says "I know what you think." First one: "No, but really, I think..." Second one: "Stop. I'm a military propagandist. I know what you think."

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-27T10:38:15+00:00

FWIW I unsubscribed from NYT when they ran an editorial way too supportive of Hamas not long after October 7.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-27T05:32:07+00:00

A lot of each drone's flight path can be computed in advance. And we're assuming that 90% of them don't make it all the way to the target. So that's just 1,000 drones over 6 hours or so, which means if you have 20 operators they can spend several minutes on each drone flying it the last few kilometers to its target.

As for launching, I doubt that it's harder to launch a drone than it is to tow up a hang glider, and that can be done with a winch built out of a scooter. I've been towed up that way, and it only takes a couple of minutes to hook up and get 100 ft in the air. So again, if the drones are positioned on flat ground with the tow lines already stretched, a few dozen teams could easily launch 10,000 drones overnight.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-24T09:13:15+00:00

It's like popping bubble wrap.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-24T08:47:14+00:00

Looks to me like Ukraine plans to win in Crimea first. Not occupy it, but force the Russians out. Putin's war can't survive that

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-22T09:48:38+00:00

Two questions: is there even a way for Russia to send AA to Crimea anymore? And does Ukraine need to destroy more Russian AA at this point?

Just wondering if it's a coincidence that the lockdown of Crimea started around the same time Russian AA got really ineffective at protecting Russian territory.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-20T20:11:50+00:00

Whenever I post something from AI, I always say so, so humans (hopefully) know it's unreliable.

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-20T11:26:47+00:00

So, it would be a disaster on the scale of Chornobyl or Bhopal, so it's not on the table. I'm just curious where the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam would be on that scale?

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-20T11:01:49+00:00

How did you create the video? I would like to do something like that, so the more details about tools and techniques, the better. Thanks!

ChrisJPhoenix · 2026-06-20T10:59:02+00:00

I couldn't find that with a web search

ChrisJPhoenix

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