https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oral-history-00083757
GEN. MARK MILLEY: People don’t think about war — even today. When I say to people, “There have been 35,000 or 40,000 innocent Ukrainians killed in this war, a third of their economy has been destroyed, an estimated 7 million internally-displaced persons, and another 7 million refugees out of a pre-war population of 45 million — you’re looking at 30 to 40 percent of that country displaced out of houses.” People sit there and go: “Oh?”
Tip O’Neill — I’m from Boston, he was a Boston guy — and he said all politics are local. If it’s not happening to you, or in and around you, there’s a sense of remoteness. It doesn’t strike through the same way it does if it happens to you and your family. But for some of us, who have a lot of combat experience, who have seen a lot of war, it’s very real. For many people — good people, smart people — it’s very difficult to get your head around this stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s human nature. Just the other day, there were 1,100 Russians killed in a single day — more than that, closer to 1,200 — down around Bakhmut. That’s Iwo Jima, that’s Shiloh.