[epistasis]

> There is Ukraine of course, where the UN says 14,000 civilians have died.

Point of order, the UN says they have documented that number, and certainly dont count it as anything representing the actual death toll for civilians. The count doesn't cover most of the areas where civilians are dying at high rates. Sure, the UN stayed in Gaza to see what happened and delivered, but occupied Russian territory is too dangerous for the UN and they don't even try to monitor the death and atrocities happening in the occupied areas.

[lawn]

Yeah, 14,000 is very low. In Mariupol alone more civilians are estimated to have died but it's impossible to get an exact count.

[matusp]

Do we have a better estimate? I don't think it's particularly difficult to get information from the occupied territories, the people there seem to freely use Internet.

It's my understanding that this war is really not particularly bloody for civilians as it is moving so slow that Russians are taking month to conquer pretty small towns and cities and the civilians can usually evacuate or hide. The bombing campaign has some civilian casualties, but I mostly see headlines mentioning <5 dead overall per occasional huge wave of drones and missiles.

[lawn]

Yes we have better estimates. In Mariupul for example estimates are above 20k civilians dead and murdered.

UN cannot personally verify any of this though so it counts them as zero. It should be at least the double of their estimate.

> It's my understanding that this war is really not particularly bloody for civilians as it is moving so slow that Russians are taking month to conquer pretty small towns and cities and the civilians can usually evacuate or hide.

Russia's advance has slowed to a crawl yes but the amount of people murdered in the places where Russia does take control are still very high (see Mariupul as an example). Especially in the early days of war they took a lot of land.

> The bombing campaign has some civilian casualties, but I mostly see headlines mentioning <5 dead overall per occasional huge wave of drones and missiles.

5 per day is too low as that would only add up to around 5.5k civilians and per UN's own calculations that's too low.

They've been targeting civilians, including schools and hospitals, daily since the war started.

[spwa4]

> UN cannot personally verify any of this though so it counts them as zero. It should be at least the double of their estimate.

UN has not verified any of the 70k death toll in Gaza either. Those numbers come from hamas. Why is it a problem in Ukraine?

[lawn]

You'd have to ask the UN. Fact is they aren't counting deaths in Russian occupied land, take that as you will.

[mcphage]

> Those numbers come from hamas. Why is it a problem in Ukraine?

Because in the Russian occupied territories, Russia has no interest in reporting the number of civilian deaths.

[Yizahi]

It's almost like both numbers are heavily biased in the UN. Almost. Surely such bias and possible corruption couldn't happen in the esteemed institution, known for its impartial and objective rulemaking. Right?

[spwa4]

> It's almost like both numbers are heavily biased in the UN.

Yes, but in the opposite direction. It would be baffling if the UN's claim of 16,000 Ukrainian victims wasn't at least 100,000 in reality.

And, let's be honest, in Gaza, it does not seem realistic that there are even 50,000 victims of the 70,000 civilian victims claimed total. Don't get me wrong, significant amount of victims, but much less than reported. And on top of that it doesn't seem realistic that none of those are militants. I'd guess, say, at least half of those are militants, not civilians.

And on top of that, UN has no problem to state that of those 16,000, about 70 Ukrainian dead are not victims of Russia but of Ukrainian frienly fire. Again, of the 70,000 claimed dead in Gaza ... let's assume at the very least 300 are victims of hamas friendly fire (probably more, since hamas is no stranger to boobytrapping civilian buildings), rather than enemy action.

If you count the way the UN counts in Gaza in Ukraine, Russia has killed some 400,000 people minimum. Maybe half a million, and of course climbing fast. No distinction between civilian and military, no distinction between accidents vs friendly fire ...

And I guess in the Gaza case I sort of understand. But why downplay Ukrainian victims? Why by a factor of 2, not counting military deaths, which would make it a factor 5 lower than real, minimum? I guess if you discounted everything the same way in Gaza the numbers would also drop by a factor of 5 there, but still.