>>46700
I don't trust the numbers for couple of reasons.
First is the "law of the ever growing numbers". This has couple of parts. First our number is high because we are the good guys and we are strong, ofc we are a lot in numbers. And the enemy's number is high - if we win because we can defeat so much, if we lose because only so much can defeat us. It's similar with the casualties, overreporting the enemy's is a thing, for same reasons. Note we have no reports of Ukrainian losses. Russians don't report at all (if there is no war, there must be no casualties anyway), and what numbers we get that is the tally done by the Ukrainian leadership.
Second, it is not easy to calculate. One guy said he saw a plane shot. Other guy says he also saw one. Then they check their testimony and there will be enough discrepancies in the story to count it as different event. Maybe airplane isn't the best example now they have cameras - and I see footages people walking up to wreckages - so that is a medium that can be relied on. But it's the principle of this. Two guys can fire on same target and both claim they got one each.
Take the numbers with hint of salt.
>anywhere near true,
But it could be close to that.

>textbook opening of the war
My impression is how differently the thing seems from what we could get used to in the case of Syria. In Syria they had a relatively long phase of shelling and bombing before each attack. Here in the opening move we could see couple of rockets and air strikes. Then came the helicopter/desant attack against Gostomel, or the tanks rolled in like in the Donbass, or a whole convoy sped through the border like in Crimea.
Now ofc they soften targets with artillery, just look at this smiley bloke and his pals with the katyushas. But it doesn't seem (from the map we follow) that they do it long (for days, like in Syria).