Ukraine, on ‘La Ragione’ quantitative analysis of civilian victims by Luca Ricolfi and the Hume Foundation

Today the usual weekly column of the opinion newspaper La Ragione – leAli alla liberty edited by Professor Luca Ricolfi and Fondazione Hume dedicated to the quantitative analysis of topical issues talks about civilian victims in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. When this war began, the most optimists hoped that, thanks to new war technologies, there would be a ‘modern’ conflict that would mainly involve the military on the ground. It was hoped that smart missiles (however a killing instrument may be termed such) would only hit sensitive targets, leaving civilian structures relatively unharmed. However, after a few days, it became clear to everyone that we would see the same atrocities committed in all wars, aggravated by being perpetrated in the 21st century. The Bucha massacre recalls the actions of the Nazis when, in retreat and close to definitive defeat, they left behind them a long trail of blood between Poland and Austria. The Second World War caused the highest number of victims (more than 70 million, according to recent estimates), with a frequency of about 31 thousand deaths per day (about three times the number of the First World War). The two world wars are clearly out of scale for a comparison with the war in progress. In fact, to try to provide the reader with a dimension of the levels of violence reached in Ukraine, we have chosen to compare the daily frequency of those killed in this conflict with that of the main war theaters of the last thirty years. text, the total number of daily casualties in Ukraine (349 per day) is unprecedented between the wars under review. Only on the occasion of the Second Gulf War and the First Chechen War was there such a pronounced fury on civilians. In fact, it is estimated that about 82 civilians have been killed every day since 25 February. These data, albeit provisional and awaiting verification, seem to support the thesis according to which civilians have also become targets in the eyes of Russian soldiers. Compared to the other conflicts analyzed, however, it is necessary to consider the time factor: the approximately 400 thousand dead estimated for the war in Afghanistan were distributed over 20 years (7,627 days) during which there was not always a bitter fight. The complete analysis by Luca Ricolfi and Fondazione Hume correlated with the comment by the editorial staff of La Ragione are available in today’s issue of the newspaper and forever free of charge on the app and website www.laragione.eu.