Jason Smart: The Russian military is struggling as casualties per square kilometer seized has surged. Incredibly, it increased over 8,700 percent between January and March. Yet for some in Russia the war has not been all so grim. Since the war began, Russian billionaire wealth has grown 97 percent. Those in Putin’s inner circle have gained $68.6 billion dollars – seven times more than oligarchs who are not connected to him. How does a nationalist, like Putin, justify these staggering human losses while his closest associates amass such massive profits? David Satter: During the 1990s, people were starving and not receiving their salaries. The people considered oligarchs at that time were unrestrained in their stealing. They stole even the last sums of money that had been set aside to pay for basic needs of the workers because it was available to be stolen. What happened to ordinary people was of no interest to the oligarchs. The same thing is happening now. Putin and his associates don’t look at the soldiers who are dying as people. They view them as units, objects that can be used for their purposes.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The only thing that really matters to them is money and the exercise of power. This is a mafia but its mentality is different from the mentality of the Italian mafia which developed within the framework of a Catholic country. The Italian mobsters were not good Christians, but they were affected by the culture in which they grew up. The criminals in Russia were affected by the Soviet culture, which defined human beings as a matter of ideology, as raw material in the achievement of some greater social goal. For communists, it is clear that human beings can be used for any purpose, they have no independent importance. The personality counts for nothing.