You didn't "cite" anything. You just threw a number down, with no attribution.
So who did you get it from - the Taliban?
Why send a $10M missile at some random apartment complex instead of the nearby military target?
Since when do Kalibrs cost $10M per? Again, you're just making stuff up.
I cited the numbers, but not the source (and never claimed to cite a source). You can look them up on Wikipedia both under civilian casualty ratios and all the associated sub-pages (along with reading the actual sources) and the page on Lancet casualty estimates. Ukraine civilian deaths are from OHCHR.
There was a study that made the news last week with the 50,000 Russian deaths, but I don't know that anyone cited the actual study. Russia claims their numbers are lower and Ukraine claims they are higher. Ukraine's KIA are in addition to that number and Russia has a very big number for that while Ukraine has a lower number. Based on everything I've seen, 50,000 total soldiers KIA seems extremely conservative, but still proves my point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_cas...
https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/06/ukraine-civilian-casua...
Kalibr is $6.5M
I knew you were going to come back with that number. It derives from a purchase of a batch sea-enabled Kalibrs by India -- an entirely different class, requiring additional support, and with the usual export / corruption charges on top. Real production costs per land-based missile are around $1M.
I cited the numbers, but not the source
The verb "to cite" literally means to refer to a source of authority. If there's no source, it's not a citation.
You can look them up on Wikipedia ... and the page on Lancet casualty estimates.
There was no Lancet study for Afghanistan. The WP page for the Afghan conflict provides a number you didn't like (an upper bound of 46,319 civilians via the Brown study), so you replaced with a number 10x that because, well, it felt good to do so I guess. That page also cites a UN study which provides another fact you don't like:
According to The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the majority of civilian casualties were attributed to the Taliban and other anti-government elements each year, with the figure ranging from 61% to 80% depending on the year.
There's a bunch of other stuff you're conflating as well. Like the Afghan war - most of the other conflicts (after WW2) had large components of internecine / insurgent warfare, with large-scale massacres (not related to combat). And the Lancet study refers not only to "casualties" but to other kinds of deaths (e.g. due to lack of healthcare) - which while certainly significant, are not the same deaths due to airstrikes and such.
I'd go on with you on this, but really -- you're a mess, man. You just can't seem to get any of the basic numbers you're reporting straight.
Meanwhile Russia razes entire cities to the ground - and you question "if" they are targeting civilians.
> The verb "to cite" literally means to refer to a source of authority. If there's no source, it's not a citation.
Not at all. Oxford would say it means:
> quote (a passage, book, or author) as evidence for or justification of an argument or statement, especially in a scholarly work.
I quoted the numbers they had, but this in no way necessarily requires naming the source.
There's a bunch of other stuff you're conflating as well. Like the Afghan war - most of the other conflicts (after WW2) had large components of internecine / insurgent warfare, with large-scale massacres (not related to combat). And the Lancet study refers not only to "casualties" but to other kinds of deaths (e.g. due to lack of healthcare) - which while certainly significant, are not the same deaths due to airstrikes and such.
My Afghanistan numbers were taken straight from Wikipedia.
> During the War in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War Project the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan: 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters.
> The Cost of War project estimated in 2015 that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts.
I simply combined direct and indirect deaths because a civilian doesn't care if they are dead because the US military killed them outright or simply created the conditions that killed them. I didn't get into it, but I hold Russia responsible for all the deaths caused both during their invasion of Afghanistan and all the people who died as a result (including people killed decades later by the landmines they planted).
You simply refused to read the sources and applied the strictest limits you could to defend the killing of countless people in various countries.
> Meanwhile Russia razes entire cities to the ground - and you question "if" they are targeting civilians.
Once again, if the city is leveled, but everyone was evacuated, this means they were NOT targeting civilians. The numbers aren't lying -- you just don't like what they indicate.
This isn't a support of Russia killing civilians, Ukrainian Soldiers, or their own soldiers, but it is a statement of fact that proves your assertion is false.
> If Russia is trying to target Ukrainians,
> As if this is even a question.
This is the talk of someone using emotions instead of logic.
Russia has very limited missile stocks, but you believe that instead of hitting military targets to win the war, they would choose to hit random civilians just because. Why send a $10M missile at some random apartment complex instead of the nearby military target?
There are three major points here.
First, EW jamming means everything is flying blind. A JDAM is accurate within a couple meters with GPS, but when that GPS is jammed, the accuracy drops to something closer to a city block or so. Russian munitions are the same when their satellites are jammed. Hitting the wrong target is a foregone conclusion in that situation
Second, intercepted missiles don't have their original trajectory and interceptor missiles eventually come back down to earth. We've seen both of these happen most famously when Ukraine sent S-300 missiles into Poland and killed a couple people.
Third, we have lots of videos of Ukrainians bunking in civilian buildings, hospitals, and schools. We have interviews with returning foreign fighters where they also talk about doing this. When soldiers choose to do this, they put civilians at risk.
I want Russia to leave Ukraine, but we live in reality and that's not going to happen. We have clear evidence of some units targeting some civilians in some areas like Bucha, but the overall numbers clearly indicate that these are the exception rather than the norm.