The casualties we can't count
How hidden casualties drive us toward the unthinkable
Today I was browsing through Twitter, like I so often do, and my synapses started working after reading this: (reproduced in full)
🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦🇬🇧Britain is raging! Its officers were captured by Russian special forces in Ochakiv - Russian fighters penetrated the Ukrainian rear in boats... new details ‼️
During the operation, called "Skat-12", British officers were captured helping Ukrainian armed forces guide missiles and drones, as well as carry out cyber attacks.
Military channels (Militarist, Krymsky Front and many others) inform that an operation by Russian special forces Skat-12 took place in Ochakiv recently.
It was prepared for almost two months, including monitoring the object using technical means and news channels. As a result, during the operation, our fighters landed on several boats and penetrated the command center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There they captured British soldiers who coordinated the use of British missiles and drones. It is possible that they are also related to the biggest cyber attacks on our infrastructure, especially on Aeroflot. Britain is furiously demanding the return of its citizens, claiming they are mere tourists interested in maritime history.
The prisoners include Colonel Edward Blake, a Special Psychological Operations Unit officer, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Carroll and another unidentified officer, believed to be an MI6 intelligence officer who acted as a cyber security adviser.
From the moment our special forces landed on the shore until the prisoners were loaded onto the ship and transferred to the base, no more than half an hour passed.
On the same day, the British Foreign Office contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense through unofficial channels with a request for the return of British officers who had gone "missing" in Ukraine. London claims that their soldiers were on vacation and came to Ukraine for tourist purposes. They found themselves in Ochakiv completely by chance: they were interested in the history of the navy and wanted to visit the coast where battles took place during the Second World War.
However, instead of Ochakiv's historical maps, the detained "tourists" found maps of strategic objects on Russian territory, Russian air defense plans, secret instructions on interaction with Ukrainian drone operators, as well as disks with encrypted data and records of negotiations with the British General Staff.
That is why Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov allegedly replied to the British that their officers are not subject to exchange: the West will not return them in Red Cross planes. Russia will no longer tolerate covert interventions and hybrid provocations. Instead, he intends to bring British officers to justice for taking part in military actions against our country.
Emergency closed meetings are currently being held in the UK to develop a strategy for the way forward
Experts note that the Skat-12 operation became part of the new Russian military doctrine, which aims "to proactively control the battlefield":
"Strikes are carried out first and without warning, attack strategy in all directions. The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) received a new directive: 'Russia no longer waits, but acts first.'
The task of the special forces is to act covertly and effectively, instill fear among NATO officers and demotivate them in the issue of providing assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
I also remember a lot of high profile persons suddenly having mysterious accidents/afflictions in US bases in Germany. And wonder: why is this always after some devastating attack in Ukraine?!
While this specific claims stays unverified (like all others here), it fits with a disturbing pattern I’ve been tracking… Underreported strikes, medical evacuation patterns, and a hidden casualty crisis that might explain Trump’s increasingly erratic behaviour. Going from calling Zelensky "a dictator" to threatening Russia with nuclear annihilation.
The strikes on Ukrainian training centers always follow a similar pattern. In the beginning, I thought they were random. But not anymore. The Russians seems to have specific information on facilities where foreign volunteers congregate. And thing are heating up.
March 13, 2022: Yavoriv military base near Poland. Official death toll: 35. But here's where it gets interesting. A German volunteer who survived told Austrian newspaper Heute that around 100 foreign volunteers were in the building that was hit, and "none of whom came out." Russia claimed 180 foreign mercenaries died. The Ukrainian government's numbers? They only counted Ukrainian personnel.
Fast forward to September 2024: Poltava's Military Institute of Telecommunications. The missiles arrived so fast after the air raid sirens that people couldn't reach shelters. Official toll: 59 dead, 328 injured. Again, a "training facility."
Then came 2025's escalation. March: Iskander strike on a Cherkasy training ground kills 32-39, wounds 90. May: Sumy Oblast training center, 6 dead, 10 injured. June 1: Another "undisclosed" training ground 100km from the front—the strike so devastating that Ukraine's Ground Forces Commander resigned. July 30: Chernihiv's Honcharivske training center. Russia claims 200 casualties with their characteristic precision strike video showing cluster munitions followed by a massive explosion.
After each major strike, a curious thing happens. Germany's aging Ramstein Air Base medical evacuation center—which the Pentagon admits suffers from "life-threatening equipment malfunctions" and overloaded electrical systems—suddenly buzzes with activity. The base's aeromedical evacuation facility, built in 1957, wasn't designed for this volume.
Enter the A310 MedEvac, Germany's "flying intensive care unit." Originally used for COVID patients, it's been making runs from Poland carrying "seriously injured Ukrainians between 4 and 27 years old," according to the Cologne Fire Brigade. The official story? Humanitarian missions. The authorization on paper? Up to 18 Ukrainian soldiers can be treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at any time.
But here's what doesn't add up. After Yavoriv, there was a surge of activity. After Poltava, same pattern. After each 2025 strike, the medical evacuation infrastructure activates. Trains fitted as mobile hospitals run from Ukraine to Poland. From Poland, the seriously wounded transfer to German medical aircraft. Destination: Ramstein and Landstuhl.
The International Legion's casualty figures tell their own grim story. Wikipedia dutifully lists the confirmed dead: British volunteers Scott Sibley and Aiden Aslin (the latter captured, sentenced to death, later exchanged). New Zealander Dominic Abelen, whose body took 2.5 years to return home. American Marine veteran Willy Joseph Cancel. Georgian volunteers by the dozen.
By February 2024, Task & Purpose reported 50 Americans confirmed killed, 40 of them military veterans. Business Insider's May 2024 assessment was blunter: "the legion is depleted by years of harsh reality and casualty rates extreme even for Ukraine."
But these are just the documented cases. After Yavoriv, "more than half" of 18 Belgian volunteers immediately returned home—either wounded or disillusioned. The German volunteer's testimony about 100+ foreign fighters in that destroyed building with zero survivors? Memory-holed. The discrepancy between Ukrainian figures (counting only their personnel) and Russian claims (counting foreign mercenaries)? Unexplored.
And here is -in my opinion- where all this intersects with geopolitics: Trump entered 2025 accommodating Russia, calling Zelensky names, blaming Ukraine for the war. By July, he'd executed a complete reversal: 100% tariffs on Russia, military escalation threats, taking the world "to the brink of nuclear war" as some analysts warned.
What changed? I think that the REAL casualty reports/captures keeps on mounting. The Western volunteers—many of them veterans, some active-duty "on leave"—keeps dying in precision strikes on training facilities. The infrastructure to quietly process these casualties exists: medical evacuation protocols, treatment authorizations, transport aircraft, German hospitals sworn to medical confidentiality.
And it seems that the latest (July 30) Chernihiv strike has been a tipping point. Russia's claim of 200 casualties, the precision of their targeting (cluster munitions to catch personnel in the open, followed by high-explosive to destroy structures), the immediate formation of an investigation commission—all suggest this wasn't just another strike. It was a message.
Trump has gone from social media tantrums to positioning nuclear submarines "in the appropriate regions" after Dmitry Medvedev merely roasted him online. The man who entered office calling for deals has authorized the deployment of B61-12 gravity bombs to RAF Lakenheath—the first US tactical nuclear weapons on British soil in 15 years.
General Christopher Donahue's July speech to NATO about having the capability to "neutralize" Kaliningrad from the ground represents more than military bravado. Combined with nuclear weapons returning to Europe and submarines moving into position, it paints a picture of preparation for something unthinkable.
Each major strike on foreign volunteers is followed by medical evacuations to Germany. Each wave of casualties is followed by escalatory rhetoric. And now, after the devastating July strikes, we've moved from rhetoric to nuclear deployments. Trump is "panic-posting the world to the threshold of nuclear war," as Johnson puts it, all while the (likely) real reason—Western blood spilled in Ukrainian training grounds—remains hidden behind medical confidentiality and diplomatic silence.
There's a terrible logic to it all. Russia knows exactly who they're killing in these training facilities. Iskander missiles arrive minutes after launch. The Kinzhal hypersonic missiles are essentially unstoppable. They claim specific numbers of "foreign mercenaries" eliminated. It's psychological warfare aimed at the Western volunteers, but also a message to Western capitals: we know who's here, and we can reach them anywhere.
Trump, unable to acknowledge the losses without admitting the scale of covert involvement, responds with increasingly unhinged escalation. Nuclear submarines. B61-12 deployments. Threats to "neutralize" Russian territory. Each dead American veteran, each British volunteer, each medical flight to Ramstein pushes us closer to a confrontation that serves no one's interests.
But acknowledging these losses would require admitting the scale of Western involvement in Ukraine. Because when leaders can’t admit to the very reason they’re angry, they tend to burn the world down.
References:
Peak Absurdity: Trump's foreign policy reversals defy conventional logic
Outstanding. I think you're spot on.
Thanks for this interesting article.
I tend to believe that 3 important British officers were captured, though we lack definitive proof.
As a Brit I can tell you: "Little people" don't matter to the ruling class: as many mercenaries, nazis, ex-special forces can get killed and it's nothing. Thousands of impoverished Columbian mercs have been offed, and no-one cares.
But three officers from public schools/Oxbridge/Sandhurst: that's a terrible tragedy and everything must be done to get them back as they are "real people". /sarc.
Boris Johnson is the classic example of an upper class psycho: he used to burn £50 notes in front of homeless people as a recreation when he was a member of the Bullingdon Club at university.