The official count released recently by the Ukrainian government was 31k, vs Russia's totally believable 6k dead on their own side.

I will happily concede both have incentives to misrepresent their casualty numbers but the difference between Ukraine's official death toll and the estimates you see from military analysts have a much smaller discrepancy than the official reported losses and independent analysis on the Russian side.

But hey, you believe what you want to believe. We're all still free to disagree.