Don't patronize me. It's a stunning amount of money, equipment and lives lost for a small amount of meaningful land (otherwise quite empty) in a country that th

Don't patronize me. It's a stunning amount of money, equipment and lives lost for a small amount of meaningful land (otherwise quite empty) in a country that the USSR used to entirely control at one point, and that they can easily deploy forces to, right in their backyard. It's a terrible outcome for a "modern war". In Vietnam, America's prominent 'disaster' of a war, roughly 58,000 american soldiers died over 20 years, in awful terrain. Russia has managed to achieve similar numbers on a relatively flat, unwooded country, without achieving much of anything, in under one year. If russia had a functioning media and democracy, this would be the end of an elected government.