2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[Monash]

Would not surprise me if a decent-sized chunk of the numbers being circulated for Russian KIA are from DPR/LPR and other "auxiliary" forces (Chechens, Wagner, etc.). Thus not from BTGs or the Russian Army. According to even sources on the Russian side (milbloggers etc.), DPR/LPR conscripts are being used like cannon fodder, and dying in large numbers.

As of 30 Jun, the official site for the DPR Ombudsman claims 2247 KIA and 9453 WIA for DPR forces so far this year. A pro-Kremlin newspaper briefly published a figure of 13414 Russian "irretrievable losses" on Apr 22 (57 days into the war, 84 days ago), which included 7000 "missing". The term "irretrievable losses" is generally understood to include KIA, missing, and POW.

I don't think figures of 20k Russian/separatist KIA is inaccurate.

Perun put up a pretty good video on Russian manpower a month ago. Among other things he says the Russians are scraping the barrel to keep BTG numbers up, for example, raiding training battalions back in Russia to fill out losses in BTGs.

Of course, Russian casualty figures and military deaths are considered a state secret, even in peacetime. Any sort of earnest reporting and attempts to document these things in Russia is illegal.

I guess my key point is how does Russia expect to 'hide' Russian Army casualty figures even in the medium term let alone the longer term. I mean there are thousands of Russian parents out there who are gong to notice when 'Igor' doesn't come home or call. Sure they can label casualty figures as State secrets but really? At some point its got to turn around and bite them in the arse. Russia's civilian population will do the maths - and the result won't be good for Putin if he's seen to have consistently lied about how well the war is going.

[Officer of Engineers]

I don't think figures of 20k Russian/separatist KIA is inaccurate.

Again, I don't see it on the battlefield. Russian BTGs are still combat effective and there is zero stoppage in the logistics chain, meaning the Russians still have plenty of manpower to equip those combat effective BTGs. At 20K KIA, that means 60K WIA. That's 80,000 men combat ineffective. Even going 40K WIA bare minimun if 20K KIA is taken at true, that's 60K men combat ineffective. The battle field formations ain't anywhere close to reflecting that ... and no, the Russians could not call up that many men without us knowing it and there is zero intel that they called up 60K reserves.

Perun put up a pretty good video on Russian manpower a month ago. Among other things he says the Russians are scraping the barrel to keep BTG numbers up, for example, raiding training battalions back in Russia to fill out losses in BTGs.

Speculation. At best, that's 6 BTGs. It offers zero explaination on where the Russians can get these big numbers.

[Chunder]

Russia's civilian population will do the maths - and the result won't be good for Putin if he's seen to have consistently lied about how well the war is going.

*shrugs* 'whatcha gonna do?' Maybe his poll numbers will slump to 75%.

[Ironduke]

Again, I don't see it on the battlefield. Russian BTGs are still combat effective and there is zero stoppage in the logistics chain, meaning the Russians still have plenty of manpower to equip those combat effective BTGs. At 20K KIA, that means 60K WIA. That's 80,000 men combat ineffective. Even going 40K WIA bare minimun if 20K KIA is taken at true, that's 60K men combat ineffective. The battle field formations ain't anywhere close to reflecting that ... and no, the Russians could not call up that many men without us knowing it and there is zero intel that they called up 60K reserves.

Speculation. At best, that's 6 BTGs. It offers zero explaination on where the Russians can get these big numbers.

This is what I stumbled across from May 28:

According to recent mobilization order, which some analysts claim to have seen, the Kremlin plans to raid its training base. It’s a risky move.

Every brigade and regiment in the Russian army forms at least two BTGs for combat, both with professional contract soldiers. A so-called “third battalion” oversees a brigade or regiment’s conscripts—who, by law, aren’t supposed to deploy to a combat zone—and handles training and constabulary tasks.

The mobilization order requires the higher units to strip their third battalions of all legally deployable manpower in order to form an extra BTG. The open-source analysts at Conflict Intelligence Team believe the army can squeeze another 30 or 40 BTGs from the existing third battalions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=3ad0d5c9a98f

I believe this article is largely sourced from a report by the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian group formerly based in Moscow, now in Tblisi who claim to have seen the mobilization document:
https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

The DPR admits 3k KIA, 10k WIA this year so far. LPR has a similar population, and I don't think assuming they've suffered similar casualties would be that far off the mark.

So that would be 6k KIA, 20k WIA from the DPR/LPR. With those sorts of numbers, another 14k KIA or more from the regular Russian Army doesn't seem so implausible.

[Officer of Engineers]

The entire invasion force is 179K. I have seen zero intel that says another 30-40K troops have moved across the border.

[Ironduke]

The entire invasion force is 179K. I have seen zero intel that says another 30-40K troops have moved across the border.

There have been troop movements in and out of Ukraine in numbers greater than that.

They withdrew back into Belarus and Russia after the failures in Kharkhiv and Kiev, re-deployed to and reconstituted at staging areas in southwestern Russia, before moving into the Donbas.

[Albany Rifles]

given that the US was actively considering sending HIMARS since March, that the Russian diplomats were threatening the US over this since April, that the US announced they were sending HIMARS at the end of May, and that Ukraine has been using them since mid/late-June, and -very- actively using them in the last two weeks, to include 14 ammo dumps blown to hell....

that the military leadership would be clumping up in HQs within HIMARS range in mid-July tells me that they aren't exactly what I call very flexible.

in theory I agree that yeah, the Ukrainians could have achieved more concrete operational surprise had they waited til their counteroffensive to roll this out. but, politically, they had to demonstrate to the Americans that they could be trusted to use HIMARS both effectively and without targeting Russian soil prior to more HIMARS getting sent. that's why they're getting sent in batches.

so is the operational surprise worth not having an additional 4 HIMARS by end of July? maybe...maybe not.

as it is, the HIMARS probably played a key role in slowing down the Russian offensive in Donbas, and if nothing else will decrease combat efficiency in the south when the long-promised offensive gets going.

All excellent points. You don't have to destroy every artillery piece if you are taking out their ammunition and fuel. Also rail lines and more importantly bridges, are being hit. Command post after command post is getting nailed.

If you defeat the ability of an army to sustain itself and lead itself you don't have to attack them head on.

Keep in mind the US bombing of Germany in 1944 didn't stop German production...some of the highest months for industrial production were in the last half of 1944. It was the severing of the transportation networks and hitting the synthetic petroleum production which hurt the Germans the most because they couldn't move the new weapons and supplies sufficiently forward. And when they got there if they did they didn't have the fuel to operate effectively. And if they did get there they became easy meat for the 2 ATAF/9th Air Force fighter bombers.

[Officer of Engineers]

There have been troop movements in and out of Ukraine in numbers greater than that.

They withdrew back into Belarus and Russia after the failures in Kharkhiv and Kiev, re-deployed to and reconstituted at staging areas in southwestern Russia, before moving into the Donbas.

You can't hide 30K-40K new troops moving from interior Russia and yet, we have zero intel of such large troop movements.

[astralis]

reconstitution doesn't need to be wholesale.

we know the Russians have reconstituted some of their combat power by pooling together savaged BTGs, getting individual replacements, pulling in enormous numbers of mercs, doing mass conscription in Luhansk/Donetsk, and covert mobilization elsewhere. we've seen enormous equipment movement from places as far as freakin' Sakhalin, and emptied-out Russian bases have been reported on open media. they're not hiding the recent "volunteer brigades" that each oblast now needs to contribute out of their own pocket.

finally, the Russian six/seven prong offensive is now down to one lethargic prong. so they don't need the original invasion force reconstituted, they just need enough to support their current offensive, present a credible defense elsewhere, and if they have any extra, form a reserve.

anyways, the debate over the true casualty number is a bit superfluous now, because the casualty range has shrunken over time and because the Russians have demonstrated resiliency in the context of a far smaller set of operational objectives.

[Ironduke]

You can't hide 30K-40K new troops moving from interior Russia and yet, we have zero intel of such large troop movements.

We do have intel that the Russians are moving troops from interior Russia to reinforce their units in Ukraine.



As for numbers, nothing concrete has been published, but the Russians are in fact replacing their losses by cannibalizing units of previously undeployed troops, sending them piecemeal to replace their losses. Maybe the Russians aren't moving personnel in the manner you might expect, but they are moving them.

The Russians are estimated to have invaded with 190k. For the sake of argument, it is within the realm of plausibility for them to have lost a hypothetical 30-40k, and yet still be at a nominal 190k even if they had zero reinforcements from Russia proper. By withdrawing depleted units from Kiev, Sumy, and Kharkhiv, re-deploying them to the Donbas, and attaching DPR/LRP troops to these units, the Russians would be more or less at the same nominal strength they were on February 24.

A pro-Kremlin paper published figures of 13k+ "irretrievably lost" on Apr 22. DPR itself officially reports 3k KIA / 10k WIA for 2022 operations as of 30 Jun, and I have no doubt LPR (who have yet to publish any figures) has seen similar losses.

I do not see a floor of 20k Russian/proxy KIA as implausible. Such a figure is supported by their own (sometimes accidentally) reported statistics.

[Officer of Engineers]

Again, at 20K KIA, we're looking at 60K to 80K combat ineffective, and it would be a colossal intel failure if we can't even spot a 30K to 40K build up, even for transport. I look at the Russian Army in the field and the lack of intel on a 30-40K build up. My only conclusioin is that the casualty figures are way, way, way out of whack. There are way too many Russians still shooting at the Ukrainians.

Also, I've seen no reports of Donbass troops being attached to Russian BTGs. Two very different bunch of soldiers. One is mechanized infantry who can and do retreat. The other are basically Penal Battalions. Support forces are completely different for the two.

[Officer of Engineers]

anyways, the debate over the true casualty number is a bit superfluous now, because the casualty range has shrunken over time and because the Russians have demonstrated resiliency in the context of a far smaller set of operational objectives.

Why this is important is that our supposed ally is either lying to us or is too incompetent to determine the actual damage they did to the Russians. It makes it damned hard to trust their battle evals.

[Ironduke]

Russian sources themselves indicate a figure of 20k KIA is plausible. Not Ukrainian sources, not pro-Ukrainian sources, Russian sources.

British and other intelligence have indicated that Russians have mobilized and deployed reserve and previously undeployed troops to and near Ukraine, and have been reporting such for some time. So it doesn't look like what you expect it to look like. So what?

The Russians are doing it piecemeal and ad hoc. I don't expect they are conforming to your notion of what a mass, orderly, formal mobilization of units numbering 30-40k would look like. They're scraping the barrel and cobbling shit together. They are doing it their (fucked up) way. Lots of the ways of the Russians have done things have not conformed to your previous notions of how you expect they would do it, time and again, dating back to Feb 24.

They don't do things the way NATO does, or even the Soviets would have. The way they reinforce their depleted BTGs is no different.

DPR/LPR are being used as cannon fodder and dismounts AFAIK. Their own numbers indicate a mobilization of 50k when the war began. Low quality troops, but largely unused until Russia pivoted their forces from north/NE Ukraine to the Donbas.

[Officer of Engineers]

Russian sources themselves indicate a figure of 20k KIA is plausible. Not Ukrainian sources, not pro-Ukrainian sources, Russian sources.

Again, the only metric that counts is the number of Russians still shooting at the Ukrainians. I don't trust Russian numbers anymore I trust Ukrainians.

British and other intelligence have indicated that Russians have mobilized and deployed reserve and previously undeployed troops to and near Ukraine, and have been reporting such for some time. So it doesn't look like what you expect it to look like. So what?

1000s, not 10s of 1000s. The first is very doable under current logistics. The 2nd is not. Do you have enough food and water for 30K troops that you did not expect?

The Russians are doing it piecemeal and ad hoc. I don't expect they are conforming to your notion of what a mass, orderly, formal mobilization of units numbering 30-40k would look like. They're scraping the barrel and cobbling shit together. They are doing it their (fucked up) way. Lots of the ways of the Russians have done things have not conformed to your previous notions of how you expect they would do it, time and again, dating back to Feb 24.

Sorry, that is even more fucked up and make a bigger delay if you're doing 30K piecemeal. You're competing for limited train spots with equipment. There's a reason why we North Americans fly our troops over to Europe while our equipment travel by sea. We can deliver an assembled force much faster that way. Way damned better to collect a 5K man force and transport them all at once. Force assembley tells me that the Russians did not shipped 30K to 40K troops piecemeal to the front. It's way too fast for that. The priority has been given to equipment and ammo.

They don't do things the way NATO does, or even the Soviets would have. The way they reinforce their depleted BTGs is no different.

DPR/LPR are being used as cannon fodder and dismounts AFAIK. Their own numbers indicate a mobilization of 50k when the war began. Low quality troops, but largely unused until Russia pivoted their forces from north/NE Ukraine to the Donbas.

I don't even want to imagine a bunch of low trained troops with M-N bolt action rifles intermixed with AK74 armed troops and I expect Russian Captains and Majors to be the same. The Donbass troops will get Russian troops killed.

BTW, it's not my intel assesement that 30K to 40K troops have not been transported to the front. It's NATO's which includes American. Nowhere has it been reported that 30K to 40K replacement troops have been rushed forward. It's not that I didn't see it, it's NATO didn't see it.

[Ironduke]

I don't think the Russians have necessarily moved 30-40k troops from Russia proper into Ukraine in the last couple months either. But they have scraped their training battalions and undeployed regular forces to try to fill their BTGs back out. And they have utilized ~50k mobilized DPR/LPR troops as fodder and dismounts after redeploying to Donbass. Supposedly even just getting them killed, to reveal Ukrainian positions for artillery strikes.

The crux of your argument seems to be:

1) Most/all Russian BTGs continue to be combat effective
2) Because they continue to be combat effective, they could not have suffered 20k KIA
3) They would have had to move 30/40k troops from Russia to Ukraine to reconstitute them to combat effectiveness, if 20k KIA were true
4) You haven't seen evidence of 30/40k troops being moved, and if most/all Russian BTGs are combat effective, ergo, 20k KIA cannot be true

I would argue that the notion that most/all Russian BTGs continue to be effective is untrue, that while some have been reconstituted to some degree, many have not, the Russians are supplementing with proxy forces, while partially backfilling their BTGs piecemeal with undeployed troops scraped from the barrel, and 20k KIA is plausible.