This is Day 100 of the illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or, as Euromaidan Press put it, this is day 100 of an 8-year war that has been going on for centuries.
Going into this war, advisers inside the Kremlin were genuinely predicting to Vladimir Putin that Russian forces would be inside Kyiv in no more than three days, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would flee the nation before the first Russian tank crossed the border, and that Russia would have no problem at all installing a puppet regime that would surrender to Russia before breaking Ukraine into bite-sized pieces.
It’s starting to look as if those guys might have been slightly off.
On Thursday, President Zelenskyy said that Russia now controls about 20% of Ukraine. Whenever we’re looking at maps of the country, it’s very easy to concentrate on the red areas—the areas that are occupied by Russian forces. But this seems like a much better day to look at all the yellow on this map from Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000).
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There’s a huge amount of area around Kyiv, taken back in a battle that cost Russia over 10,000 soldiers and thousands of vehicles. There’s the area in the southwest, where Russia’s area of control once ran far north of Mykolaiv as they searched for a way to get at Odesa. There’s the area by Kharkiv, which Russia held even after retreating from the cities of Sumy and Chernihiv, but is now falling to Ukrainian advances. There are areas all over the east and south where Russia was momentarily successful, only to find that latest advance or salient beaten back by Ukrainian forces.
Russia may now hold about 20% of Ukraine. But it once held a lot more. Then it lost ground. It can lose again.
On day 100, Oryx verifies that Russia has lost 4,214 pieces of equipment, including 751 tanks. That’s an average of over 42 vehicles, including 7 tanks, a day. And these are minimum numbers—only the equipment whose loss can be verified by photos or video released to the public. The real numbers are higher; we just don’t know by how much.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense estimates that Russia has lost 32,000 soldiers killed in 100 days. That’s 320 a day.
The Ukrainian government estimates that 1,014 villages and towns have now been recaptured from Russia. That’s more than 10 a day. Actually, it’s a lot more once you realize that the recapturing of lost ground didn’t start until weeks into the invasion.
We don’t often mention it in these updates, but Russia’s economy also continues to suffer as a direct result of Putin’s illegal invasion. On Thursday, the European Union added still more Russian companies and Russian oligarchs to their sanctions list and, most importantly, moved ahead with a plan to phase out imports of Russian oil and natural gas into Europe (with a few exceptions, namely Hungary under Orban). This week, Ireland joined several other nations that recognize Putin’s efforts in Ukraine as genocide. The diplomatic isolation and economic damage Putin has generated with this war will be felt in Russia for generations.
Ukraine has also suffered losses. Those losses have been tremendous. They’ve lost lives, equipment, 40% of their economy, and whole cities to Russia’s bloody destruction and theft. But they are still on their feet. 50+ embassies are back up and working in Kyiv months after most of the world thought it was lost. The possibility that Ukraine could actually win this war, not in the sense of a partisan underground, striking back at an occupying government, but in the form of an actual military victory over Russia in the field, has gone from unthinkable to almost undeniable.
It’s been an amazing 100 days. It’s been difficult and heartbreaking, especially when dealing with the utter destruction in places like Mariupol, the mass deportation of Ukrainian citizens to Russian labor camps, and the mass graves in places like Bucha. But it’s also been defiant, surprising, and uplifting, especially when witnessing the continued determination and spirit of the Ukrainian people in unimaginable conditions.
However, according to Axios, something else has happened in the last 100 days. Something that seems all too predictable: Americans are tuning out the war.
Let me say this is not happening here. At Daily Kos, the attention level given Ukraine updates continues to be high. Frankly, there have been several times when we discussed cutting back on the frequency of the updates, giving them less time and attention, and maybe doing something more like a summary every few days.
The reason that hasn’t happened is that the Daily Kos community has continued to show unbroken interest. The Ukraine updates are, almost without exception, some of the most viewed and most commented on articles each day. We continue to scan Russian Telegram accounts, and follow the action village by village, detail the effectiveness of various military systems, and update all those darn maps—because 100 days in, you’re still eagerly following the plight of a poor, determined country fighting to prevent a militaristic dictator at the head of the world’s second-largest army from swallowing up their nation.
100 days in, you’re still interested. That’s also amazing. Stay tuned for further developments.