A big part of this war is the proportionality of threats and countermeasures, the economics in a war of attrition. When cities are defended by $1 million surface to air interceptors, they can't shoot down flocks of $20k shahed drones
Well, here is one example of it on video;



Ukrainian drones down a Russian radar reflector decoy. The decoy turns out to be... a cheap commercial mylar balloon with some aluminum dangling under it. Like the shit I built to keep woodpeckers off the side of my house. In this case its a big ol cow balloon floating through the skies, screwing up radar detection with a corner reflector;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_reflector

Particularly lopsided impact if Ukraine is fielding more single use drones, granted fly by wires can't reach that high but a lot of these suicide drones aren't charged for return trips, so if a drone flies out to intercept an enemy drone expecting a shahed and instead sees a $5 cow balloon its got no choice but to ram it and waste a drone

Artillery is the #1 killer in a war like this and by a wide margin, did you really believe that Ukraine had low fatal casualty numbers of 30k and Russia had a million fatal casualties?
Why would Ukraine be forced to start kidnapping people off the streets almost two years ago if that were the case?

It does in the modern era, but it becomes a fucking joke when they say they are charging putin with war crimes, then the war crime turns out to be evacuating children with their parents to Russia, because Ukraine owns those children apparently for some nefarious reason.

Where did I write that Ukraine had 30k casualties or Russia had a million fatal casualties?

Are you ok?

No Zelisky claimed that last fall

Also to this point
The formality of laws governing international relations and war is a western concept, but there have been loose parallels in eastern or maybe native africa/american cultures. We definitely see the sort of voluntary, opt-in style of 'rules of war' aiming to promote decency in ancient chinese/indian philosophy. Generally more as individual philosophers advocating a set of principles and those being culturally adopted, but not necessarily formally litigated The Methods of Ssu-Ma and Rites of Zhou are eastern legalese that have pretty direct parallels to western war crimes. The Mahabharata talks about rules of war in ancient india from a religious perspective, but the Manu-smriti establishes a formal hindu code for the laws of just war, negotiations, treatment of POWs/non-combatants/civilians.

The only thing that's truly unique in the western philosophy is also a neologism, not applicable to the modern era: A foreign authority claiming jurisdiction over rules of law. Only starting with the Nuremberg Trials. Prior to that, western rules of law were just like the other continents, we had philosophies, we had claims to rules of law, but breaches of them were still up to the warring parties to resolve. When the crusaders sacked Constantinople, what court could judge them? The pope impotently excommunicated them in absentia and rebuked them, but was cowed by the threat of them dissolving the army and returning home so he rescinded it a few months later, whoop-dee-doo. There was no court that could lay claim to all global conflict and hold a pretense of legitimate legal authority. That's what makes us different today, and it only exists insofar as we dominate the world. And as the Ukraine war shows, we don't. Russia, China, India and to an extent Japan have all carved out spheres of influence where the fist of America cannot rule. So any laws of war crime need to once again be negotiated between sovereign state actors, not our will imposed on the world. Russia's motivation to hold POWs safely is a self-interest in the reciprocal treatment of their own POWs, not America's judgment. And its not like we're bound by our own rules, as we ship weapons to Ukrainian Nazis who target medics, when we engage in blatant perfidy by sending Azov commanders back to war against the terms of their negotiated release

Well he has an incentive to finesse any narrative. Like any war time leader. I prefer to discuss verifiable statistics, like the bbc article.

I don't usually comment on Ukrainian casualties, because it is obvious they are high also; What is incredible though is that Russia invaded Ukraine, they instigated this war.
On the assumption it would be easy. They fooled themselves that it would be quick and with low casualties.

Now we get an incredibly costly war for Russia and strikes on Russian territory that are unprecedented.

We are witnessing the eventual collapse of Putins kleptocracy. Maybe not in a few years, but eventually the Russian federation breaks up on a scale that makes Iraq post Saddam look like a cake walk.

US military aid packages to Ukraine shrink amid concerns over Pentagon stockpiles
US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller in recent months, as the stockpiles of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon is willing to send Kyiv from its own inventory have dwindled. The shift comes amid concerns about US military readiness being impacted as US arms manufacturers play catchup to the huge demand created by the war against Russia.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/us-reducing-military-aid-packages-ukraine/