thanks richard.. do you have any thoughts on the number of mercenaries - foreigners - who have been killed, quit, or are still on the scene in ukraine?? i am sure this is impossible to know, but it would certainly add to our understanding here if we had any way of knowing..
The only info I have is what I've read. Supposedly about 6,000 mercenaries, i.e., the actual volunteers from countries like the US, of which half are either dead or left. The number of "sheep-dipped" NATO troops is estimated at up to 10,000, but no one really knows AFAIK. I've also heard references of up to 20,000 Polish troops and new cemetaries built in Poland to house the returning dead, but I have no official source for that either.
I don't think it's that important unless the numbers get much bigger. These numbers we're hearing are basically a couple of brigades which are militarily irrelevant. They're also not significant absent an equivalent amount of heavy weapons. From what the US volunteers say, all they get is man-portable weapons up to Stingers and Javelins and whatever weapons and equipment they brought with them. The Poles and other "sheep-dipped" probably get a bit more.
So I don't spend a lot of time or interest on them unless I start hearing more than single-digit numbers of brigades coming across the border with full heavy weapons TOE.
Do me a favor and reference my article over at MoA in case anyone there is interested. I'm sure they'd all like to dump on my numbers. :-)
Another good report and yes I'm sure your reputation will precede you at MoA and hordes of potential detractors will challenge your estimates. Not me though. I appreciate your work. Cheers ;o)
Thanks for trying to frame this number with some boundries and metrics. The danger is that you can extrapololate too far, but the methodology is sound. My personal take is after 500 odd days there are some 250,000 KIA, a bunch of MIA and upwards of 3X WIA, of whom 1/3 will be permenantly out of action, 1/3 returned by now to the ranks and 1/3 still recuperating. The UAF has moblised maybe a million men and lost most of them, but still maybe fields upwards of 250,000 in the field army and the same in support rear area roles. The flaws in your calculation might - and I only say might - be that (a) there will be a whole bunch of wounded who have been patched up and returned to the fight and (b) that I think foreign mercenaries might well number 100,000 or more. But I have little data for the latter and this is more of a guess based on comments seen elsewhere. However with NATO armies providing rear area support (outside Ukraine) the actual military effort is greater than the Ukraine itself could manage and it may be that its teeth to tail ratio is better as a result. The other factor is that we read a lot about the poor UAF medivac operation and so its KIA to WIA ratio is likely to be less than optimal for them - maybe 1:2? It is a guess but might be close to the truth.
However I take the point that this is the absolute key metric in this war and thanks again for trying to calculate it. I think the losses could easily and plausibly be towards the higher end of your estimates and as a minimum the lower end. And as you point out, losses of this scale degrade effectiveness and even if replaced in numercial terms, quality and morale drops accordingly. The UAF will not be defeated because it runs out of men and equipment, it will be defeated when its men no longer believe that their lives are being expended for a useful purpose and the war is lost. We will know this when they start surrendering in large numbers and are unable to hold ground.
I agree with most of your points. My calculations can only be considered tentative, but they are based on what I think are more accurate than the guesses, in particular about the ratio of killed to wounded, which as I note range from 1:1 to 1:4 historically, which is a 400% range. Assuming either end is a mistake in my view. The Ukrainian sociology study seems to give a better picture.
As for wounded returned to battle, I think this is offset by those subsequently being killed or wounded or offset by others killed or wounded. Desertion and prisoners are likely to be higher among those wounded who are returned as well. Since it's an estimate I have no historical figure for, I just ignore it for the most part.
I don't think the foreign mercenaries are up to the 100,000 level - yet. I think we would have that size of force confirmed by now. The Russians don't mention anything at that level, just "thousands" which implies in the double digits.
The poor medical evacuation effect is one reason I consider the 1.67 ratio reasonable. It means most of the wounded die on the field so essentially become KIA.
Where I disagree is that the UAF will be defeated not by loss of morale per se but when they are no longer capable of mounting an effective operation on a battalion or higher level. They seem to be near that point now, only able to mount platoon or company size assaults which invariably fail. This is the critical point at which the Russians will move to larger-scale operations than the "ground and pound" they've been doing.
The main reason the war has been so slow is that the Russians realized in their pre-war planning that trying to take on a force the size of Ukraine on a 1,000km front against fortifications built over eight years would entail considerable Russian casualties. Putin needed to manage the war in terms of the economy, the electorate, the casualty level (both Ukrainian civilian and Russian military) and the reaction of NATO and the rest of the world. So that's why he went in soft and slow and used mostly the Donbass militias, the Rosqvardia (including the Chechens), the Volunteer Battalions and Wagner to do the infantry fighting and kept the main Russian military behind in support (with the exception of the initial thrusts at the start of the war.)
Once the Ukrainian forces are degraded to the point that they can no longer mount an effective offense or defense, the Russians will speed things up, knowing that their casualties won't be as bad as they would have been had they gone in hard and fast from the beginning.
I think we're very close to that point now, very likely within the 3-6 month time frame I estimate - perhaps even sooner. Some analysts are talking about end of August or September, possibly to avoid the start of the rainy season in October or November.
By that time, the main Ukrainian combat capable troops - to the degree that there remain any - even at 250,000 will be degraded further, probably down under 100,000, and if there is 250,000 in the rear, they will be irrelevant as most of them are hiding in the larger cities or around Kiev or up near the Belarus border.
If the Russians do as I suspect and commit the bulk of their troops currently in reserve, roll up the ends of the contact line, shorten the line, consolidate their forces and then move forward as an "iron fist", the remaining Ukrainian forces will simply be unable to either hold them or inflict significant casualties. This is because the Ukrainians will no doubt do what they've done so far which is throw their remaining forces piecemeal against this fist to be destroyed with minimal casualties on the Russian side. The Ukrainians will never be able to - either because of time to stage or logistics - stage enough forces to present a significant impediment to the Russian advance.
This is likely to look a lot more like the "blitzkrieg" everyone expected at the start of the war. This is when the real capability of the Russian army will be on display as the Ukrainian military is utterly annihilated, with tens of thousands of prisoners taken. That's when Ukrainian morale will be destroyed and the end of the war will be clear to everyone.
So the point is that combat effectiveness is what matters. And Ukraine is near or at the point where that is no longer available to them. Right now it's a failure to penetrate Russian defenses, later it will be a failure to halt the Russian advance.
There are a number of studies on wounded etc and though these tend to reinforce the metrics this does depend on how different militaries classify and count things. The one I have to hand is Krivosheev on Red Army losses. For WW2 he quotes:
Total wounded 14.7M of whom 71.7% returned to duty, 7.5% died and 20.8% either discharged or sent on sick leave (long term convalesence?). This is really where I get my metrics from - of the wounded c 1/4 to 1/3 will be permenant losses and 2/3 to 3/4 will be able to return to the fight, but after a delay. The Red Army had over a million soldiers in hospital as the war ended.
He also notes 6.6M sick of whom 86.7% returned to duty, the rest died or discharged. I know I have tended not to count sick when looking at strengths but conditions look similar to WW2 so both armies must have a large number of sick at any time.
But with losses, sick and troops on leave it is no wonder that many units are now under strength for both sides, particularly in the PBI where over 80% of casualties occur.
The ratio of KIA to WIA is as you say normally in the 3 or 4 to 1 ratio depending on type of fighting and the effectiveness of medical services. However like you I think this is not where the UAF is at the moment, partly because they are sufferring from artillery fire which does more damage to the human body , but more so because of the reports of their medical services which appear overwhelmed.
The reason that the war was so slow was that the Russian leadership grossly miscalculated the amount of force that would be required to force the regime to collapse, and they miscalculated the bad faith of the West and their willingness to fight to the last Ukrainian.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have used soldiers on six month contracts, and they would have used SEAD loadouts on their aircraft. For that matter, they wouldn't have withdrawn from territory taken at a great price in men, as a token of good faith during negotiations.
By the way, I see that Milites has responded to your post at MoA in a similar manner:
"Possibly, but if Russia is given, or works toward gaining, an opportunity for corps level manoeuvre, then Ukraine’s weakness at such operations could expose not only their entire frontline but all those prematurely predicting the death of big arrow warfare. Russia has resurrected the division, as the armies core structure, for a reason and I doubt it’s simply because it allows a more unified and coherent defensive scheme to be designed and implemented. I think we are close to the ‘all at once stage’ and if/when the collapse is triggered some will be surprised at how quickly it occurs....A classic Russian echeloned attack that moves quickly, using EW to paralyse C3, maximising it’s air and artillery dominance, and only reinforces success against a relatively weak sector, could considerably accelerate the timetable for Ukraines collapse. "
I haven't been following the Russian operations in the North, but apparently they are having significant success lately. This tends to support my view that the Russians, when they do go on the offensive, are going to clean up the contact line from both ends to shorten it, so they can consolidate their forces into an invulnerable mobile force rather than a stretched-out "front."
I appear to be getting a bit of stick about my views on this. Oh well. The view you express may well be correct, and I share it by and large except for timing. My judgement is that there is more blood letting that needs to occur before any sort of sudden change in the UAFs morale and fighting power, and they need to suffer some tangible defeats not just losses. However it is really a matter of degree. Clearly the UAF is unable to make headway but it still has over 100 brigade sized formations, albeit most of them pretty cut up by now.
I'd be interested in where you get the 100 brigades info. I know there are people who claim to know where every single unit is, at least on the Ukrainian side (I'm sure they don't on the Russian side), but I have my doubts on some of these Telegram and Youtube channels. If you have a reliable source that has actual evidence for their claims, I can tuck that away for future reference in calculations. This sort of thing is usually very classified and I suspect people relying on "combat journalism" in terms of being precise.
A brigade is 3-5,000 troops, so 100 would be 300-500,000. 500,000 would in my view be the absolute maximum Ukraine could muster at this point IF they actually had one million men in total at one point - and even 300,000 is likely to be too much based on the calculations that they have lost probably 400-500,000, even with some returned to duty, if many of those are in the rear protecting the major cities.
As an example, allegedly Kiev has 20,000 troops up near the Belarus border. That's 4-9 brigades right there out of the fight, or 3-10 percent. Then there's Odessa, likely to have several brigades. You see how the total available for the front starts to dwindle. And how many of those are strictly support troops - truck drivers, supply depot workers, even if they're impressing civilians to help with those jobs? Actual combat available forces are probably close to 50 brigades or 150-250,000 men, which is pretty much what I estimated in my article. I estimated no more than 268,000 based on a maximum mobilization of 700,000 and 568,000 if one million.
If my calculations of current rate of losses - 700-800 per day KIA, and 1.67-2 that many WIA, or 2,000+ per day. or 60,000/month, we're looking at 432,000 - 857,000 Ukrainian troops total losses out of that hypothetical million - and I still see no real evidence that they ever had one million men rather than say, 700-750,000 or so - then they run out of men as I calculated in 4-9 months.
60,000/month is 12-20 brigades a month. 100 brigades (again, actually less in actual combat) divided by 12 to 20 is 5-8 months - pretty much close to my 3-6 months.
But the real issue as I stressed in the article is when do they run out of combat and operational effectiveness. And that will occur well before they run out of men. Despite having a lot of brigades available, we have to remember that those brigades are as stretched out across the contact line as the Russians are, many are not available on the front line, many are under-strength, are operating with a 10:1 disadvantage in artillery, no air power, and are facing Russian defenses as much or more formidable as the Ukrainians own.
So we probably should take half or 2-3rds of that 5-9 or 5-8 months - and that gives us 2-3 months. I've been generous with my 3-6 months. The collapse could come sooner.
Apparently there is something happening up north around Karmazyanivka. Defense Politics Asia and Alexander Mercouris have both mentioned a "collapse" of the Ukrainian lines there with Russia making advances. This may be an indication of what lies ahead for the rest of the Ukrainian lines.
A breakthrough by the Russians either in the south or the north could result in a major flanking of Ukrainian forces which would either force the Ukrainians to commit more their reserves to those locations - and thus run into the usual "ground and pound" - or worse the Russians could begin rolling up the contact line from the ends, as I believe they will do once the Ukraine lines collapse sufficiently.
As for 1945, I can imagine! I wouldn't bother posting at any site where the majority didn't already assume Russia is going to win this handily. I've even given up over at Antiwar.com where this idiot Thomas Knapp likes to troll people every time they post reality or give any credit to the Russians.
People tend to forget the military balance. As I said at MoA repeatedly, given the military balance at the start of the war, and regardless of Ukrainian mobilization or NATO support, it is a physical impossibility - short of the use of nuclear weapons - for Russia to lose this war. It may be a psychological possibility - i.e., that Russia loses its nerve, which appears to be what the West is counting on - but it's a physical impossibility. Russia at the start had 4 times the men, 10 times the reserves, 10 times the artillery, armor and air power Ukraine had. And Russia has only expanded that difference in the last 18 months while Ukraine has lost almost everything it had.
Ukraine is doomed in the next 3-6 months. Or NATO will have to find a way to intervene directly with something better than the Poles and Lithuania.
I once posted the details of the UAF OOB at Simplicus (and did not save it), but really did a very back of the envelope from Wiki re the 2022 UAF, adjusted for some new and maybe disbanded units. I can't recall exactly but think it was something like in 2022 35 to 38 Mech/Mountain bdes, 5 Armour bdes, 3 Marine, 2-3 special forces, 9-11 air mobile and upwards of 28 territorial infantry. Also 6 artillery, and a lot of AD units - plus intelligence and signals etc. An awful lot of independent battalions - mainly territorial plus the various Azov thugs and mercs etc, but some armour, artillery etc. There is a large armed Police and Border Guard Force. Since 2022 9 to 12 new bdes have been formed. Most Bdes consisted of 4 to 5 manoeuvre bns, an artillery bn and recce, AD, sniper, engineer, transport and logistic companies attached. Most Brigades added a further infantry bn when mobilised. This was a very very big army (according to wiki (???) and it was never going to evaporate if it decided to fight. Which it did.
It could easily have mobilised at TOE 500,000 men plus another 250,000 in LOC and training formations. My guess is that nearly a million souls have passed through its ranks by now, half of whom are dead or permenantly out of action. If correct that might suggest a field army still of 200,000 to 250,000, the same in LOC and maybe 100,000 in hospital. Order of magnitude stuff. Simplicus has some numbers on his post today. Done a different way.
You might like to set up a post here listing the OOBs for both sides? I doubt it will be so very accurate (location, real strength, TOE etc) but as a live document would be helpful in informing the debate. I am a bit of a geek when it comes to OOB but decided early on to not attempt to track units in this conflict as both sides would likely seek to mislead. For obvious reasons. However a collaborative effort might work.
I'm guessing that most UAF mobile units are now in a pretty parlous state and nowhere near full strength in numbers, and given my suggested scale of losses, have lost much of their orginal combat effectiveness. They are increasingly short of ammo and equipment. They will crumble at some point. You may well be correct in assessing this at 3-6 months or shorter. I think Russia needs to up the tempo of operations if this timescale is to be proven correct, but that may again occur.
I agree, Russia was never going to lose this war on numbers alone and indeed I think the plan was for the west not to win a war but to collapse the Russian economy and regime via sanctions supported by the Twitter War in information space. The plan then appeared to change to try to really win the war as sanctions failed and Russia has thus far proven robust. But the west seem to believe their own BS and it does seem that the expectation was that the RF would flee when the UAF attacked in July. Well the west believed Russia was a paper tiger ripe for looting, but it appears to have now encouraged the formation a real one, armed to the teeth and with a seasoned, honed and expanded military, backed by popular support and a revitalised MIC. Hubris then Nemesis.
I probably won't bother with an OOB. Since Russia can't lose this war I don't concern myself with the "tactical minutia" - as Andrei Martyanov calls it. I don't bother following the tactical back-and-forth in territory gains and losses, either.
The only thing I care about is the overall progress of the war and why it's going the way it is at any given time. Thus the interest in casualty rates as it directly affects combat and operational effectiveness.
I agree the West's initial plan was to crash the Russian economy and get Putin overthrown. I don't think the current plan is to actually win the war, but merely to drag it out hoping that the initial plan will become viable at some point, i.e., that the Russian public will become tired of the war like the American public does and then Putin will be overthrown. It won't happen, of course, if for no other reason than Putin and his team won't allow it to.
There are many other reasons. First, if I'm correct, the war won't last much longer. Second, as many, many people have pointed out, the Russian people remember their history better than the US public does and they understand more or less why this war is being fought and what has to be done to win it.
I'm sure some people in charge in the West believe their own propaganda and the crap intel they get from politicized organizations like the CIA and Mi6. Mostly it seems in the US at least that the upcoming election is governing their behavior. That and Biden's corruption scandal in Ukraine appears to be driving Biden's decisions. The neocon cult are locked in to their own ideological blindness which will never change no matter what happens.
My methodology is: always ask the next question based on imagination. So in this scenario, where Russia defeats Ukraine militarily by end of the year, give or take some months of this and that, what happens next?
Clearly there is an effort to get Poland (and perhaps the Baltic states) into the war. Poland wants to grab western Ukraine territory for their own reasons and the West wants to use that to get some semblance of Ukraine intact to use against Russia.
Most observers - even Andrei Martyanov - believe Russia may hand over western Ukraine to Poland. I am on record (as Andrei likes to say every two sentences) that I don't believe that. Karl has quoted Putin as saying "we will not interfere with that" - which I don't believe means Russia will ultimately accept that even if they don't immediately react.
I look at it from the point of view of the military options. If Poland enters western Ukraine, Russia can certainly rain down missiles and perhaps some air power on them. But depending on Polish determination and air defense level, Russia can't stop Poland from taking western Ukraine without committing large ground forces with Belarus' help. So why should Russia bother splitting its forces when it can deal with Poland later once the Ukrainian army is destroyed?
If Poland tries to invade Belarus, that would be another matter, as Putin has said. But I view that as unlikely precisely for that reason.
So I view it as likely that Poland will try to seize western Ukraine, Russia will "allow it" (as the saying goes), and then once the Kiev regime is destroyed, push Poland back out. As I've said since April, 2022, Russia intends to put a Military District in western Ukraine to counter the NATO Aegis Ashore installations in Poland. This is an overriding concern for Russia and I believe is the primary reason for the Ukraine war, so Russia has little choice but to follow through.
Of course, if Russia gets to fight Poland, perhaps those installations will end up being "accidentally" destroyed in the process. But Russia still needs a Military District in western Ukraine to link up with the Russian efforts in Belarus to integrate Belarus' defenses with Russia's as well as the efforts further north to counter Sweden and Finland. My concept is that Russia is building a new "Iron Curtain" to shut out the West from ever being able to threaten Russia with a land war again.
So I believe this is where the war will go between now and sometime in 2024: Ukraine is defeated decisively, Poland enters the war at least in taking western Ukraine for itself and is eventually pushed out.
Then the next question which I have no answer to at the moment: What does the West do next? Tuck its tail between its legs and slink away like Afghanistan - or send NATO into Ukraine? NATO can't beat Russia either without major US direct involvement, so that leads to the next question: Will the US commit major forces to the conflict or not? Will China become more important than Ukraine and Russia?
You roll the dice and you make your choices. I don't roll dice, so I don't make choices like that. We'll just see.
Appreciate the effort, and I hope your conclusion comes true.
r.e. casualties?
10:1, 7:1 ... Shoigu acknowledged 40k odd Rus KIA earlier in the year, a lot of fighting has went done since..... ?
I reckon 1+ million Ukros taken out of normal life (incl. WIA), with between 300-500k KIA? I appreciate that doesn't fit standard casualty proportions, but it is just an observation. It is incremental slaughter. terrible.
I am not of the troll element at all, but over at that Bar, there seems to be a lot of pretending hardly any Russians get killed.....
Shoigu said that (above) around Bakhmut end?? so, since, 50-60k KIA Russians is not absurd.
Maybe this was the wrong article i was reading. . .??
Carry on ye old fiend, I don't always agree, nor often entirely disagree... just stop that demented blocking!
Shoigu never said 40,000. That was a calculation done by Russian opposition media, i.e., it's likely bullshit.
After the first three or four weeks of the war in March, 2022, on March 25, Russia claimed 1,351 KIA. That was when they were getting ambushed and other problems in their initial rapid advance. That was I believe mostly regular army.
Since then they've been conducting offensive operations using the Donbass militias, the Volunteer Battalions, the Rosqvardia (which includes the Chechens) which are NOT regular army, and Wagner. So most of the ground fighting has been done by units that are not regular army, supported by Russian special forces, and with Russian regular army providing armor, artillery and air support as well as logistical support.
So the rate of Russian regular army losses has been minimal since they stopped their initial advance, mostly the result of hits on rear areas, artillery units and armor with probably some regular and special forces units casualties.
On September 21, 2022, Shoigu said 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start of the conflict.
My own estimate is based on the initial March report. I assume 1,300 Russian regular army killed per month. This closely tracks with Shoigu's statements.
In March, 2023, the BBC attempted an estimate by analyzing open source Russian death reports and came up with a figure of 16,071. Divided by 13 months, this comes to 1,236 per month - which almost exactly tracks my estimate.
Further the BBC article says:
"Throughout 2022, Russian sources typically reported about 250–300 deaths each week, doubling in January and continuing to grow again in February."
This also tracks.
As the intensity of the conflict has intensified since last fall when Ukraine conducted its limited offensives and since Bakhmut (again Wagner is not counted as they are not regular army, but reportedly they lost some 20,000 troops) and now with the Ukraine summer offensive, we can expect the Russian toll to increase somewhat.
As for the KIA:WIA ratio, we have no way of telling. However in June, after a three-day battle, Russia revealed that it lost 71 KIA and 210 WIA. This almost exactly tracks the usual 3:1 ratio most analysts use to estimate this ratio. On the Ukraine side, I've been using 1.67 which is a ratio established by the Ukraine International Institute of Sociology poll.
Based on that, we can believe that Russia has lost since the start of the war the following:
KIA = 1,300/month x 17 months = 22,100
WIA = 3 x KIA = 66,300
Total KIA and WIA = 88,400
Compare this to my estimate of a minimum of 432,000 to a maximum of 857,000 Ukrainian total losses. At the low end, this is five times more Ukrainian casualties than Russian. At the high end this is almost ten times more Ukrainian casualties than Russian. Since this is mostly an artillery and stand-off weapon war, and the Russians have ten times more stand-off weapons than Ukraine, the higher figure is more likely.
right RSH, you have trawled the data more than me, granted, acknowledged.
take me back to the non-regular russian forces..
Is Rosgvardia not like OMON? or is it a distinct unit/force? yeah, these took a drubbing in the Russki rapid recon early on, for sure. ambushed to fuck we might suggest.
LNR DNR? they always were the spirited indigenes, I have no doubt they've taken a heavy brunt, a significant dunt. The Real Heroes.
All the volunteer units? Wagner? 16.....K + 20k = ? aye aye, spare me.
Yes they are all just numbers too, are we there..?
My point, is excluding non official R army units, ruining your point?
And yes, I know you have addressed this , very well,
nonetheless i still see too much copium at large.. 20k russian dead 18 months into the grandest peer war since Korea?? come on man, . . . you declare 800,000 possible Ukrop dead, but say less than I suggest rus dead.. 16K+ ? come on. It is not chess on the battlefield.
Stop pretending the russians don't get frequent kickings too, if not on the same scale as the ukrops. I see many more ukrop fails, but that is my bias, if i went on u-toob i'd think russia was at tannenberg.
Keep in mind that, as far as the West is concerned, Ukraine has no reason for existence other than to act as a counterweight to Russia, and the West is willing literally to fight to the last Ukrainian and to subsidize the entire Ukrainian economy in the process.
Hell, take away Russia and Ukraine would be a pariah state.
At the same time, the median age in Ukraine was over 40, and that statistic came from before the war started. So whatever meat Kiev throws at the front will increasingly be old people and whatever children can be scraped up. Yesterday, I saw a weepy article about some conscripted old man bidding farewell to his family as he was sent off to be sacrificed, with much gushing Twitter commentary about how heroic he was and We Must Do More, rather than asking uncomfortable questions such as why some old man was being conscripted to participate in a meat wave.
Of course, if the NATO plan is to use Ukrainians to soak up as many munitions as possible before charging in, that would make sense in light of US strategy in WWI and WWII.
thanks richard.. do you have any thoughts on the number of mercenaries - foreigners - who have been killed, quit, or are still on the scene in ukraine?? i am sure this is impossible to know, but it would certainly add to our understanding here if we had any way of knowing..
The only info I have is what I've read. Supposedly about 6,000 mercenaries, i.e., the actual volunteers from countries like the US, of which half are either dead or left. The number of "sheep-dipped" NATO troops is estimated at up to 10,000, but no one really knows AFAIK. I've also heard references of up to 20,000 Polish troops and new cemetaries built in Poland to house the returning dead, but I have no official source for that either.
I don't think it's that important unless the numbers get much bigger. These numbers we're hearing are basically a couple of brigades which are militarily irrelevant. They're also not significant absent an equivalent amount of heavy weapons. From what the US volunteers say, all they get is man-portable weapons up to Stingers and Javelins and whatever weapons and equipment they brought with them. The Poles and other "sheep-dipped" probably get a bit more.
So I don't spend a lot of time or interest on them unless I start hearing more than single-digit numbers of brigades coming across the border with full heavy weapons TOE.
Do me a favor and reference my article over at MoA in case anyone there is interested. I'm sure they'd all like to dump on my numbers. :-)
thanks richard... yes - impossible to know, but you have added additional insights from all your reading.. will share to moa..
Another good report and yes I'm sure your reputation will precede you at MoA and hordes of potential detractors will challenge your estimates. Not me though. I appreciate your work. Cheers ;o)
Cheers back. :-)
A good report. Worth reading.
Thanks for trying to frame this number with some boundries and metrics. The danger is that you can extrapololate too far, but the methodology is sound. My personal take is after 500 odd days there are some 250,000 KIA, a bunch of MIA and upwards of 3X WIA, of whom 1/3 will be permenantly out of action, 1/3 returned by now to the ranks and 1/3 still recuperating. The UAF has moblised maybe a million men and lost most of them, but still maybe fields upwards of 250,000 in the field army and the same in support rear area roles. The flaws in your calculation might - and I only say might - be that (a) there will be a whole bunch of wounded who have been patched up and returned to the fight and (b) that I think foreign mercenaries might well number 100,000 or more. But I have little data for the latter and this is more of a guess based on comments seen elsewhere. However with NATO armies providing rear area support (outside Ukraine) the actual military effort is greater than the Ukraine itself could manage and it may be that its teeth to tail ratio is better as a result. The other factor is that we read a lot about the poor UAF medivac operation and so its KIA to WIA ratio is likely to be less than optimal for them - maybe 1:2? It is a guess but might be close to the truth.
However I take the point that this is the absolute key metric in this war and thanks again for trying to calculate it. I think the losses could easily and plausibly be towards the higher end of your estimates and as a minimum the lower end. And as you point out, losses of this scale degrade effectiveness and even if replaced in numercial terms, quality and morale drops accordingly. The UAF will not be defeated because it runs out of men and equipment, it will be defeated when its men no longer believe that their lives are being expended for a useful purpose and the war is lost. We will know this when they start surrendering in large numbers and are unable to hold ground.
I agree with most of your points. My calculations can only be considered tentative, but they are based on what I think are more accurate than the guesses, in particular about the ratio of killed to wounded, which as I note range from 1:1 to 1:4 historically, which is a 400% range. Assuming either end is a mistake in my view. The Ukrainian sociology study seems to give a better picture.
As for wounded returned to battle, I think this is offset by those subsequently being killed or wounded or offset by others killed or wounded. Desertion and prisoners are likely to be higher among those wounded who are returned as well. Since it's an estimate I have no historical figure for, I just ignore it for the most part.
I don't think the foreign mercenaries are up to the 100,000 level - yet. I think we would have that size of force confirmed by now. The Russians don't mention anything at that level, just "thousands" which implies in the double digits.
The poor medical evacuation effect is one reason I consider the 1.67 ratio reasonable. It means most of the wounded die on the field so essentially become KIA.
Where I disagree is that the UAF will be defeated not by loss of morale per se but when they are no longer capable of mounting an effective operation on a battalion or higher level. They seem to be near that point now, only able to mount platoon or company size assaults which invariably fail. This is the critical point at which the Russians will move to larger-scale operations than the "ground and pound" they've been doing.
The main reason the war has been so slow is that the Russians realized in their pre-war planning that trying to take on a force the size of Ukraine on a 1,000km front against fortifications built over eight years would entail considerable Russian casualties. Putin needed to manage the war in terms of the economy, the electorate, the casualty level (both Ukrainian civilian and Russian military) and the reaction of NATO and the rest of the world. So that's why he went in soft and slow and used mostly the Donbass militias, the Rosqvardia (including the Chechens), the Volunteer Battalions and Wagner to do the infantry fighting and kept the main Russian military behind in support (with the exception of the initial thrusts at the start of the war.)
Once the Ukrainian forces are degraded to the point that they can no longer mount an effective offense or defense, the Russians will speed things up, knowing that their casualties won't be as bad as they would have been had they gone in hard and fast from the beginning.
I think we're very close to that point now, very likely within the 3-6 month time frame I estimate - perhaps even sooner. Some analysts are talking about end of August or September, possibly to avoid the start of the rainy season in October or November.
By that time, the main Ukrainian combat capable troops - to the degree that there remain any - even at 250,000 will be degraded further, probably down under 100,000, and if there is 250,000 in the rear, they will be irrelevant as most of them are hiding in the larger cities or around Kiev or up near the Belarus border.
If the Russians do as I suspect and commit the bulk of their troops currently in reserve, roll up the ends of the contact line, shorten the line, consolidate their forces and then move forward as an "iron fist", the remaining Ukrainian forces will simply be unable to either hold them or inflict significant casualties. This is because the Ukrainians will no doubt do what they've done so far which is throw their remaining forces piecemeal against this fist to be destroyed with minimal casualties on the Russian side. The Ukrainians will never be able to - either because of time to stage or logistics - stage enough forces to present a significant impediment to the Russian advance.
This is likely to look a lot more like the "blitzkrieg" everyone expected at the start of the war. This is when the real capability of the Russian army will be on display as the Ukrainian military is utterly annihilated, with tens of thousands of prisoners taken. That's when Ukrainian morale will be destroyed and the end of the war will be clear to everyone.
So the point is that combat effectiveness is what matters. And Ukraine is near or at the point where that is no longer available to them. Right now it's a failure to penetrate Russian defenses, later it will be a failure to halt the Russian advance.
Thanks for your comment.
There are a number of studies on wounded etc and though these tend to reinforce the metrics this does depend on how different militaries classify and count things. The one I have to hand is Krivosheev on Red Army losses. For WW2 he quotes:
Total wounded 14.7M of whom 71.7% returned to duty, 7.5% died and 20.8% either discharged or sent on sick leave (long term convalesence?). This is really where I get my metrics from - of the wounded c 1/4 to 1/3 will be permenant losses and 2/3 to 3/4 will be able to return to the fight, but after a delay. The Red Army had over a million soldiers in hospital as the war ended.
He also notes 6.6M sick of whom 86.7% returned to duty, the rest died or discharged. I know I have tended not to count sick when looking at strengths but conditions look similar to WW2 so both armies must have a large number of sick at any time.
But with losses, sick and troops on leave it is no wonder that many units are now under strength for both sides, particularly in the PBI where over 80% of casualties occur.
The ratio of KIA to WIA is as you say normally in the 3 or 4 to 1 ratio depending on type of fighting and the effectiveness of medical services. However like you I think this is not where the UAF is at the moment, partly because they are sufferring from artillery fire which does more damage to the human body , but more so because of the reports of their medical services which appear overwhelmed.
Interesting info on the percentages of sick and wounded and return to duty. I'll tuck that away for future calculations. Thanks.
The reason that the war was so slow was that the Russian leadership grossly miscalculated the amount of force that would be required to force the regime to collapse, and they miscalculated the bad faith of the West and their willingness to fight to the last Ukrainian.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have used soldiers on six month contracts, and they would have used SEAD loadouts on their aircraft. For that matter, they wouldn't have withdrawn from territory taken at a great price in men, as a token of good faith during negotiations.
By the way, I see that Milites has responded to your post at MoA in a similar manner:
"Possibly, but if Russia is given, or works toward gaining, an opportunity for corps level manoeuvre, then Ukraine’s weakness at such operations could expose not only their entire frontline but all those prematurely predicting the death of big arrow warfare. Russia has resurrected the division, as the armies core structure, for a reason and I doubt it’s simply because it allows a more unified and coherent defensive scheme to be designed and implemented. I think we are close to the ‘all at once stage’ and if/when the collapse is triggered some will be surprised at how quickly it occurs....A classic Russian echeloned attack that moves quickly, using EW to paralyse C3, maximising it’s air and artillery dominance, and only reinforces success against a relatively weak sector, could considerably accelerate the timetable for Ukraines collapse. "
I haven't been following the Russian operations in the North, but apparently they are having significant success lately. This tends to support my view that the Russians, when they do go on the offensive, are going to clean up the contact line from both ends to shorten it, so they can consolidate their forces into an invulnerable mobile force rather than a stretched-out "front."
Stay tuned.
I appear to be getting a bit of stick about my views on this. Oh well. The view you express may well be correct, and I share it by and large except for timing. My judgement is that there is more blood letting that needs to occur before any sort of sudden change in the UAFs morale and fighting power, and they need to suffer some tangible defeats not just losses. However it is really a matter of degree. Clearly the UAF is unable to make headway but it still has over 100 brigade sized formations, albeit most of them pretty cut up by now.
You should see the stick I get in the 1945 site when I post that the UAF is losing!!!!
I'd be interested in where you get the 100 brigades info. I know there are people who claim to know where every single unit is, at least on the Ukrainian side (I'm sure they don't on the Russian side), but I have my doubts on some of these Telegram and Youtube channels. If you have a reliable source that has actual evidence for their claims, I can tuck that away for future reference in calculations. This sort of thing is usually very classified and I suspect people relying on "combat journalism" in terms of being precise.
A brigade is 3-5,000 troops, so 100 would be 300-500,000. 500,000 would in my view be the absolute maximum Ukraine could muster at this point IF they actually had one million men in total at one point - and even 300,000 is likely to be too much based on the calculations that they have lost probably 400-500,000, even with some returned to duty, if many of those are in the rear protecting the major cities.
As an example, allegedly Kiev has 20,000 troops up near the Belarus border. That's 4-9 brigades right there out of the fight, or 3-10 percent. Then there's Odessa, likely to have several brigades. You see how the total available for the front starts to dwindle. And how many of those are strictly support troops - truck drivers, supply depot workers, even if they're impressing civilians to help with those jobs? Actual combat available forces are probably close to 50 brigades or 150-250,000 men, which is pretty much what I estimated in my article. I estimated no more than 268,000 based on a maximum mobilization of 700,000 and 568,000 if one million.
If my calculations of current rate of losses - 700-800 per day KIA, and 1.67-2 that many WIA, or 2,000+ per day. or 60,000/month, we're looking at 432,000 - 857,000 Ukrainian troops total losses out of that hypothetical million - and I still see no real evidence that they ever had one million men rather than say, 700-750,000 or so - then they run out of men as I calculated in 4-9 months.
60,000/month is 12-20 brigades a month. 100 brigades (again, actually less in actual combat) divided by 12 to 20 is 5-8 months - pretty much close to my 3-6 months.
But the real issue as I stressed in the article is when do they run out of combat and operational effectiveness. And that will occur well before they run out of men. Despite having a lot of brigades available, we have to remember that those brigades are as stretched out across the contact line as the Russians are, many are not available on the front line, many are under-strength, are operating with a 10:1 disadvantage in artillery, no air power, and are facing Russian defenses as much or more formidable as the Ukrainians own.
So we probably should take half or 2-3rds of that 5-9 or 5-8 months - and that gives us 2-3 months. I've been generous with my 3-6 months. The collapse could come sooner.
Apparently there is something happening up north around Karmazyanivka. Defense Politics Asia and Alexander Mercouris have both mentioned a "collapse" of the Ukrainian lines there with Russia making advances. This may be an indication of what lies ahead for the rest of the Ukrainian lines.
A breakthrough by the Russians either in the south or the north could result in a major flanking of Ukrainian forces which would either force the Ukrainians to commit more their reserves to those locations - and thus run into the usual "ground and pound" - or worse the Russians could begin rolling up the contact line from the ends, as I believe they will do once the Ukraine lines collapse sufficiently.
As for 1945, I can imagine! I wouldn't bother posting at any site where the majority didn't already assume Russia is going to win this handily. I've even given up over at Antiwar.com where this idiot Thomas Knapp likes to troll people every time they post reality or give any credit to the Russians.
People tend to forget the military balance. As I said at MoA repeatedly, given the military balance at the start of the war, and regardless of Ukrainian mobilization or NATO support, it is a physical impossibility - short of the use of nuclear weapons - for Russia to lose this war. It may be a psychological possibility - i.e., that Russia loses its nerve, which appears to be what the West is counting on - but it's a physical impossibility. Russia at the start had 4 times the men, 10 times the reserves, 10 times the artillery, armor and air power Ukraine had. And Russia has only expanded that difference in the last 18 months while Ukraine has lost almost everything it had.
Ukraine is doomed in the next 3-6 months. Or NATO will have to find a way to intervene directly with something better than the Poles and Lithuania.
I once posted the details of the UAF OOB at Simplicus (and did not save it), but really did a very back of the envelope from Wiki re the 2022 UAF, adjusted for some new and maybe disbanded units. I can't recall exactly but think it was something like in 2022 35 to 38 Mech/Mountain bdes, 5 Armour bdes, 3 Marine, 2-3 special forces, 9-11 air mobile and upwards of 28 territorial infantry. Also 6 artillery, and a lot of AD units - plus intelligence and signals etc. An awful lot of independent battalions - mainly territorial plus the various Azov thugs and mercs etc, but some armour, artillery etc. There is a large armed Police and Border Guard Force. Since 2022 9 to 12 new bdes have been formed. Most Bdes consisted of 4 to 5 manoeuvre bns, an artillery bn and recce, AD, sniper, engineer, transport and logistic companies attached. Most Brigades added a further infantry bn when mobilised. This was a very very big army (according to wiki (???) and it was never going to evaporate if it decided to fight. Which it did.
It could easily have mobilised at TOE 500,000 men plus another 250,000 in LOC and training formations. My guess is that nearly a million souls have passed through its ranks by now, half of whom are dead or permenantly out of action. If correct that might suggest a field army still of 200,000 to 250,000, the same in LOC and maybe 100,000 in hospital. Order of magnitude stuff. Simplicus has some numbers on his post today. Done a different way.
You might like to set up a post here listing the OOBs for both sides? I doubt it will be so very accurate (location, real strength, TOE etc) but as a live document would be helpful in informing the debate. I am a bit of a geek when it comes to OOB but decided early on to not attempt to track units in this conflict as both sides would likely seek to mislead. For obvious reasons. However a collaborative effort might work.
I'm guessing that most UAF mobile units are now in a pretty parlous state and nowhere near full strength in numbers, and given my suggested scale of losses, have lost much of their orginal combat effectiveness. They are increasingly short of ammo and equipment. They will crumble at some point. You may well be correct in assessing this at 3-6 months or shorter. I think Russia needs to up the tempo of operations if this timescale is to be proven correct, but that may again occur.
I agree, Russia was never going to lose this war on numbers alone and indeed I think the plan was for the west not to win a war but to collapse the Russian economy and regime via sanctions supported by the Twitter War in information space. The plan then appeared to change to try to really win the war as sanctions failed and Russia has thus far proven robust. But the west seem to believe their own BS and it does seem that the expectation was that the RF would flee when the UAF attacked in July. Well the west believed Russia was a paper tiger ripe for looting, but it appears to have now encouraged the formation a real one, armed to the teeth and with a seasoned, honed and expanded military, backed by popular support and a revitalised MIC. Hubris then Nemesis.
I probably won't bother with an OOB. Since Russia can't lose this war I don't concern myself with the "tactical minutia" - as Andrei Martyanov calls it. I don't bother following the tactical back-and-forth in territory gains and losses, either.
The only thing I care about is the overall progress of the war and why it's going the way it is at any given time. Thus the interest in casualty rates as it directly affects combat and operational effectiveness.
I agree the West's initial plan was to crash the Russian economy and get Putin overthrown. I don't think the current plan is to actually win the war, but merely to drag it out hoping that the initial plan will become viable at some point, i.e., that the Russian public will become tired of the war like the American public does and then Putin will be overthrown. It won't happen, of course, if for no other reason than Putin and his team won't allow it to.
There are many other reasons. First, if I'm correct, the war won't last much longer. Second, as many, many people have pointed out, the Russian people remember their history better than the US public does and they understand more or less why this war is being fought and what has to be done to win it.
I'm sure some people in charge in the West believe their own propaganda and the crap intel they get from politicized organizations like the CIA and Mi6. Mostly it seems in the US at least that the upcoming election is governing their behavior. That and Biden's corruption scandal in Ukraine appears to be driving Biden's decisions. The neocon cult are locked in to their own ideological blindness which will never change no matter what happens.
My methodology is: always ask the next question based on imagination. So in this scenario, where Russia defeats Ukraine militarily by end of the year, give or take some months of this and that, what happens next?
Clearly there is an effort to get Poland (and perhaps the Baltic states) into the war. Poland wants to grab western Ukraine territory for their own reasons and the West wants to use that to get some semblance of Ukraine intact to use against Russia.
Most observers - even Andrei Martyanov - believe Russia may hand over western Ukraine to Poland. I am on record (as Andrei likes to say every two sentences) that I don't believe that. Karl has quoted Putin as saying "we will not interfere with that" - which I don't believe means Russia will ultimately accept that even if they don't immediately react.
I look at it from the point of view of the military options. If Poland enters western Ukraine, Russia can certainly rain down missiles and perhaps some air power on them. But depending on Polish determination and air defense level, Russia can't stop Poland from taking western Ukraine without committing large ground forces with Belarus' help. So why should Russia bother splitting its forces when it can deal with Poland later once the Ukrainian army is destroyed?
If Poland tries to invade Belarus, that would be another matter, as Putin has said. But I view that as unlikely precisely for that reason.
So I view it as likely that Poland will try to seize western Ukraine, Russia will "allow it" (as the saying goes), and then once the Kiev regime is destroyed, push Poland back out. As I've said since April, 2022, Russia intends to put a Military District in western Ukraine to counter the NATO Aegis Ashore installations in Poland. This is an overriding concern for Russia and I believe is the primary reason for the Ukraine war, so Russia has little choice but to follow through.
Of course, if Russia gets to fight Poland, perhaps those installations will end up being "accidentally" destroyed in the process. But Russia still needs a Military District in western Ukraine to link up with the Russian efforts in Belarus to integrate Belarus' defenses with Russia's as well as the efforts further north to counter Sweden and Finland. My concept is that Russia is building a new "Iron Curtain" to shut out the West from ever being able to threaten Russia with a land war again.
So I believe this is where the war will go between now and sometime in 2024: Ukraine is defeated decisively, Poland enters the war at least in taking western Ukraine for itself and is eventually pushed out.
Then the next question which I have no answer to at the moment: What does the West do next? Tuck its tail between its legs and slink away like Afghanistan - or send NATO into Ukraine? NATO can't beat Russia either without major US direct involvement, so that leads to the next question: Will the US commit major forces to the conflict or not? Will China become more important than Ukraine and Russia?
You roll the dice and you make your choices. I don't roll dice, so I don't make choices like that. We'll just see.
Appreciate the effort, and I hope your conclusion comes true.
r.e. casualties?
10:1, 7:1 ... Shoigu acknowledged 40k odd Rus KIA earlier in the year, a lot of fighting has went done since..... ?
I reckon 1+ million Ukros taken out of normal life (incl. WIA), with between 300-500k KIA? I appreciate that doesn't fit standard casualty proportions, but it is just an observation. It is incremental slaughter. terrible.
I am not of the troll element at all, but over at that Bar, there seems to be a lot of pretending hardly any Russians get killed.....
Shoigu said that (above) around Bakhmut end?? so, since, 50-60k KIA Russians is not absurd.
Maybe this was the wrong article i was reading. . .??
Carry on ye old fiend, I don't always agree, nor often entirely disagree... just stop that demented blocking!
Slanjz
Shoigu never said 40,000. That was a calculation done by Russian opposition media, i.e., it's likely bullshit.
After the first three or four weeks of the war in March, 2022, on March 25, Russia claimed 1,351 KIA. That was when they were getting ambushed and other problems in their initial rapid advance. That was I believe mostly regular army.
Since then they've been conducting offensive operations using the Donbass militias, the Volunteer Battalions, the Rosqvardia (which includes the Chechens) which are NOT regular army, and Wagner. So most of the ground fighting has been done by units that are not regular army, supported by Russian special forces, and with Russian regular army providing armor, artillery and air support as well as logistical support.
So the rate of Russian regular army losses has been minimal since they stopped their initial advance, mostly the result of hits on rear areas, artillery units and armor with probably some regular and special forces units casualties.
On September 21, 2022, Shoigu said 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start of the conflict.
My own estimate is based on the initial March report. I assume 1,300 Russian regular army killed per month. This closely tracks with Shoigu's statements.
In March, 2023, the BBC attempted an estimate by analyzing open source Russian death reports and came up with a figure of 16,071. Divided by 13 months, this comes to 1,236 per month - which almost exactly tracks my estimate.
Further the BBC article says:
"Throughout 2022, Russian sources typically reported about 250–300 deaths each week, doubling in January and continuing to grow again in February."
This also tracks.
As the intensity of the conflict has intensified since last fall when Ukraine conducted its limited offensives and since Bakhmut (again Wagner is not counted as they are not regular army, but reportedly they lost some 20,000 troops) and now with the Ukraine summer offensive, we can expect the Russian toll to increase somewhat.
As for the KIA:WIA ratio, we have no way of telling. However in June, after a three-day battle, Russia revealed that it lost 71 KIA and 210 WIA. This almost exactly tracks the usual 3:1 ratio most analysts use to estimate this ratio. On the Ukraine side, I've been using 1.67 which is a ratio established by the Ukraine International Institute of Sociology poll.
Based on that, we can believe that Russia has lost since the start of the war the following:
KIA = 1,300/month x 17 months = 22,100
WIA = 3 x KIA = 66,300
Total KIA and WIA = 88,400
Compare this to my estimate of a minimum of 432,000 to a maximum of 857,000 Ukrainian total losses. At the low end, this is five times more Ukrainian casualties than Russian. At the high end this is almost ten times more Ukrainian casualties than Russian. Since this is mostly an artillery and stand-off weapon war, and the Russians have ten times more stand-off weapons than Ukraine, the higher figure is more likely.
right RSH, you have trawled the data more than me, granted, acknowledged.
take me back to the non-regular russian forces..
Is Rosgvardia not like OMON? or is it a distinct unit/force? yeah, these took a drubbing in the Russki rapid recon early on, for sure. ambushed to fuck we might suggest.
LNR DNR? they always were the spirited indigenes, I have no doubt they've taken a heavy brunt, a significant dunt. The Real Heroes.
All the volunteer units? Wagner? 16.....K + 20k = ? aye aye, spare me.
Yes they are all just numbers too, are we there..?
My point, is excluding non official R army units, ruining your point?
And yes, I know you have addressed this , very well,
nonetheless i still see too much copium at large.. 20k russian dead 18 months into the grandest peer war since Korea?? come on man, . . . you declare 800,000 possible Ukrop dead, but say less than I suggest rus dead.. 16K+ ? come on. It is not chess on the battlefield.
Stop pretending the russians don't get frequent kickings too, if not on the same scale as the ukrops. I see many more ukrop fails, but that is my bias, if i went on u-toob i'd think russia was at tannenberg.
keep posting ye old eejit, : )
SAOR DONBASS, from them all,
remember Mozgovoi.
Keep in mind that, as far as the West is concerned, Ukraine has no reason for existence other than to act as a counterweight to Russia, and the West is willing literally to fight to the last Ukrainian and to subsidize the entire Ukrainian economy in the process.
Hell, take away Russia and Ukraine would be a pariah state.
At the same time, the median age in Ukraine was over 40, and that statistic came from before the war started. So whatever meat Kiev throws at the front will increasingly be old people and whatever children can be scraped up. Yesterday, I saw a weepy article about some conscripted old man bidding farewell to his family as he was sent off to be sacrificed, with much gushing Twitter commentary about how heroic he was and We Must Do More, rather than asking uncomfortable questions such as why some old man was being conscripted to participate in a meat wave.
Of course, if the NATO plan is to use Ukrainians to soak up as many munitions as possible before charging in, that would make sense in light of US strategy in WWI and WWII.
The numbers are frightening