Putin's growing pile of corpses

Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister, believes that in a little more than two years of war in Ukraine, Russian casualties have already reached half a million. "Russia’s military failure is already a fact," he told an interviewer from Novaya Gazeta Europe, a refugee Russian newspaper now based in Latvia. "We estimate that Russia has suffered 500,000 military losses, including 150,000 dead. And for what? ... for nothing."

The French estimate is even higher than Ukraine's, which as of yesterday put enemy casualties at 473,400 killed, wounded, and missing in action. Not all are Russian nationals, however. Wherever possible, Putin sends Chechens, other ethnic minorities, foreign mercenaries, and conscripted Ukrainians to die in human wave attacks on Ukrainian positions.