从2014年到2022年，顿巴斯地区的内战已经夺去近1.5万人的生命。自2022年2月美国/北约同俄罗斯的代理人战争爆发至今，乌克兰方面的死亡人数尚不得而知，但肯定达到了数十万人。烈度史无前例的信息战掩盖了具体的伤亡数字。西方唯一能了解到的信息都来自基辅的政治宣传，后者宣称俄军伤亡惨重，却很少披露乌军的伤亡数字。至少到去年夏天为止，乌克兰总人口的10%都加入了武装部队，78%的乌克兰人有亲友在战场上伤亡。据估计，目前有2万到5万的乌克兰人因战争而截肢（补充一点背景，第一次世界大战中有4.1万英国人被迫截肢，这在当时往往是避免死亡的唯一办法。在入侵阿富汗和伊拉克的战争中，只有不到2000名美国退伍军人接受了截肢手术）。

这场战争开始时，乌克兰约有3100万人口。从那时至今，乌克兰失去了三分之一以上的人口，600多万人跑到西方避难，另有200万人逃往俄罗斯。还有800万乌克兰人被逐出家园，但依然留在国内。乌克兰的基础设施、工业和城市遭到破坏，国民经济也被摧毁。正如战争中常见的那样，腐败现象十分猖獗，这也是乌克兰政治长期以来的突出特点。在乌克兰建立起的西方民主制度已经不复存在，反对党、不受控制的媒体机构和异见人士都被法律取缔。

From 2014 to 2022, the civil war in the Donbas took nearly 15,000 lives. How many have been killed in action since the US/Nato-Russian proxy war began in February 2022 is unknown, but is certainly in the several hundreds of thousands. Casualty numbers have been concealed by unprecedentedly intense information warfare. The only information in the West about the dead and wounded has been propaganda from Kyiv claiming vast numbers of Russian dead while revealing little about Ukrainian casualties. Yet even by last summer, it was known that 10% of Ukrainians were involved with the armed forces, while 78% had relatives or friends who had been killed or wounded. It is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees. (For context, 41,000 Britons had to have amputations in the First World War, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death. Fewer than 2,000 US veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions had amputations.)

When the war began, Ukraine had a population of about 31 million. The country has since lost at least one third of its people. More than six million have taken refuge in the West. Two million more have left for Russia. Another eight million Ukrainians have been driven from their homes but remain in the country. Ukraine’s infrastructure, industries, and cities have been devastated and its economy destroyed. As is usual in wars, corruption — long a prominent feature of Ukrainian politics — has been rampant. Ukraine’s nascent democracy is no more, with opposition parties, uncontrolled media outlets, and dissent outlawed.