Geenstijl

In het begin probeerden we hier ook mee te turven, maar zijn rond de 20.000 dode Russen eind september 2022 - destijds voornamelijk uit de 'etnische republiekjes' - gestopt.

Op basis van "vertrouwelijke Oekraïense schatting" schrijft de Wall Street Journal dat Oekraïne nu zo'n 80.000 dode en 400.000 gewonde soldaten telt. Wat Rusland betreft noemen "uiteenlopende Westerse inlichtingen" nu aan de hoge kant van de schattingen 200.000 Russische doden en 400.000 gewonden. In totaal komt dat aan beide kanten dus meer op ongeveer 1 m i l j o e n slachtoffers.

Zelfs voor Rusland met 144 miljoen inwoners is zulks een demografische mokerslag, zeker gezien Ruslands vooroorlogse geboortegraad al zeer laag was en die honderdduizenden naoorlogse emigraties hielpen ook niet.

Maar voor Oekraïne met 48 miljoen inwoners is de demografische nood nog veel hoger. WSJ schrijft: 

"Russia’s assaults on Ukraine have had a catastrophic effect on its neighbor’s population. The most recent census, in 2001, recorded 48 million inhabitants. At the start of 2022, before Russia invaded, that had fallen to 40 million (...). With over six million fleeing Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, according to the United Nations, and Russia seizing further land, the total population on Kyiv-controlled territory has now dropped to between 25 million and 27 million, according to previously undisclosed Ukrainian government estimates.

(...) The effect could be enduring. Alongside military deaths, Ukraine’s birthrate also collapsed to the lowest recorded level: In the first half of this year, three times as many people died as were born, according to government data. Some 250,000 deaths and over 87,000 births were recorded in this period, which is 9% less than the same period last year, according to government figures. In 2021, the year before the full-scale invasion, over 130,000 births were recorded."

En dan even de grimmigste passage uit het hele artikel:

(...) One of the key reasons Zelensky refuses to mobilize the key cohort of men aged between 18 and 25—typically the bulk of any fighting force—is because most of these people haven’t had children yet, according to the former Ukrainian officials."

Het Slavische slachthuis.