What’s absolutely hilarious is that BBC and Mediazona are actually tracking Russian casualties using publicly available data such as obituaries, and they’ve only managed to come up with 37k so far. So, a western funded organization is providing plausible numbers that western media simply ignores in favor of making up these insane casualty figures
Any estimate using a methodology like that of Mediazona (assuming they are not cheating and fudging the numbers or introducing some serious systemic errors) is bound to fall short of the actual number, probably by something in the ballpark of 15-30% since publicly available information will always only be a subset of the whole (not every death gets an obituary for instance). That still means that you end up somewhere in the vicinity of 50-60k at most with perhaps again as many wounded. This coincides with estimates from analysts on the Russian side as well which means this is more or less the best estimate that can be reasonably made at the moment with publicly available data.
The more interesting question here is: what would a study using the same methodology for Ukrainian losses reveal? Bearing in mind that the Ukrainian side has the unfortunate habit of not reporting its KIAs as such for months and months, often marking them as simply MIA in order to not have to pay out benefits to the families, and frequently leaving the bodies unrecovered. Meaning that the disparity between reality and the number that an obituary based methodology would output would be significantly larger in the Ukrainian case. According to estimates i’ve seen from the sources who follow the fighting closely i wouldn’t be surprised to find once we include desertions and captures that we are looking at an easy 500k, with again as many injured, maybe more.
Here the baseline for comparison would be the cumulative numbers that the Russian MOD has put out so far, as they have generally tended to be more or less confirmed by independent observers in the case of equipment losses at least. In fact i even suspect that they are lowballing the manpower casualties on the Ukrainian side since there are always bound to be a certain number of losses which happen but can’t be visually or otherwise confirmed and thus the MOD can’t count them. So i would take this number as a minimal floor. I’m sure someone out there has taken the time to tally up all the MOD reports but i’m too lazy to look for it.
Exactly, it’s pretty telling that they’re doing this analysis for Russia and not Ukraine. Given that Ukraine continues to have to do forced mobilization, and that they’ve expanded the age now, and are conscripting women, are all indicators of very significant losses.
It’s also worth pointing out that even if losses were equal, even though all evidence suggests not being the case, Russia is still in a better position because Russia has a much bigger population. In order to win a war of attrition Ukraine would have to inflict proportionally more significant casualties on Russia, which they cannot do.
Hm…i don’t think i agree with the second part though. If casualties were equal i think Ukraine would be effectively winning because its mobilization potential is bigger than Russia’s. This sounds counter-intuitive since it obviously has a much smaller population especially now having lost millions of people who fled the country or live in territories annexed by Russia, but the amount of people you can mobilize is not always proportional to population size.
Some societies can mobilize a much higher percentage of their population than others, and in this regard fascist states like Ukraine do have an advantage (as do communist states due to central planning and being better able to ideologically motivate people as opposed to liberal democracies like today’s Russia). Russia firstly has not spent a decade or more indoctrinating its people with ultra-nationalist ideas and absolute hatred for the other side, and secondly they can’t implement the same kind of total war policies that Ukraine is and start dragging people off the streets.
Ukraine also does not need to reserve people for its civilian industries, or in fact for its economy at all, it does not need an economy since it is wholly financially propped up by the West, and it also does not need its people to work in the military industries since it doesn’t have any anymore - it gets all its supplies from the West. It’s not quite on the level of being a militarized garrison state like the neocolony in Palestine but it is getting there. Russia on the other hand is trying (and succeeding so far) to maintain a sense of normalcy and not have to put its entire society on a war footing. Because of these factors i do think that Russia needs to continue to preserve its manpower resources much more than Ukraine.
To be fair though, a major factor counter-acting Ukraine’s advantages is the endemic corruption in Ukraine which is a constant wrench in their mobilization machine. And the other good news is that i don’t see anything that can change the current balance of forces, and in fact the longer that Russia keeps cautiously degrading and attriting Ukraine’s capabilities the more the disparity in casualties will increase, as untrained and unwilling Ukrainian conscripts are simply not going to make for very good soldiers. Also the material aid from the West has likely plateaued and they will only be able to keep a barebones trickle of ammunition and equipment flowing.
Where Russia can afford to absorb higher losses is in equipment and munitions since it has now kicked its military industrial complex into high gear and by all accounts is outproducing the West. For them it makes sense to heavily expend one-time-use weapons like drones, glide bombs and cruise missiles because they can replace them. They can also saturate the battlefield with reconnaissance drones and artillery fire in volumes that Ukraine simply cannot match.
And i believe this explains perfectly the way we have seen Russia approach this conflict: very conservative of manpower and playing to their strengths in artillery and long range fires. Retreating out of unfavorable situations and managing time and time again to let the Ukrainians get themselves into fire bags and cauldrons where Russia can maximize its advantages, meanwhile straining Ukrainian logistics by keeping the front close to the Russian border.
I’d argue that western reaction to the war made it clear to most Russians that this is an existential war for them. Russians realize that this isn’t a war between Russia and Ukraine, but one between Russia and a proxy of NATO. We’re seeing that Russian army has no trouble doing recruitment right now without even a need for mobilization. So, the population difference is already playing a role here.
I disagree regarding Ukraine not needing industry. The reality is that the amount of material support the west is able to provide is quite limited. Simply throwing money at Ukraine isn’t actually solving any problems that Ukraine has. For example, EU pledged to deliver a million shells to Ukraine. However, EU lacks the industrial capacity to do this and now they’ve admitted that they can only deliver around a third of that. Meanwhile, all they managed to do was to raise the price of shells:
US isn’t doing much better in this regard either. US steel production is comparable to Russia’s, and despite all the talk the actual increase in shell production has been meagre so far.
The other huge risk for Ukraine being entirely reliant on western support is that it’s not going to be indefinite. Western economies are going into a recession, and public support for continuing to dump money into Ukraine is fizzling now. Given that Ukraine has reorganized its economy around western support, this rug getting pulled out from under them will be catastrophic.
I do agree with your assessment of Russian approach. They’re being very conservative, and are basically relying on attrition to deplete Ukrainian army. Mearsheimer makes an important point that most casualties are caused by artillery, and Russia has something like 10:1 advantage in artillery in Ukraine. So, as you note, the strategy has largely been to force Ukraine into artillery battles where Russia has a huge advantage.
What’s absolutely hilarious is that BBC and Mediazona are actually tracking Russian casualties using publicly available data such as obituaries, and they’ve only managed to come up with 37k so far. So, a western funded organization is providing plausible numbers that western media simply ignores in favor of making up these insane casualty figures
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
Any estimate using a methodology like that of Mediazona (assuming they are not cheating and fudging the numbers or introducing some serious systemic errors) is bound to fall short of the actual number, probably by something in the ballpark of 15-30% since publicly available information will always only be a subset of the whole (not every death gets an obituary for instance). That still means that you end up somewhere in the vicinity of 50-60k at most with perhaps again as many wounded. This coincides with estimates from analysts on the Russian side as well which means this is more or less the best estimate that can be reasonably made at the moment with publicly available data.
The more interesting question here is: what would a study using the same methodology for Ukrainian losses reveal? Bearing in mind that the Ukrainian side has the unfortunate habit of not reporting its KIAs as such for months and months, often marking them as simply MIA in order to not have to pay out benefits to the families, and frequently leaving the bodies unrecovered. Meaning that the disparity between reality and the number that an obituary based methodology would output would be significantly larger in the Ukrainian case. According to estimates i’ve seen from the sources who follow the fighting closely i wouldn’t be surprised to find once we include desertions and captures that we are looking at an easy 500k, with again as many injured, maybe more.
Here the baseline for comparison would be the cumulative numbers that the Russian MOD has put out so far, as they have generally tended to be more or less confirmed by independent observers in the case of equipment losses at least. In fact i even suspect that they are lowballing the manpower casualties on the Ukrainian side since there are always bound to be a certain number of losses which happen but can’t be visually or otherwise confirmed and thus the MOD can’t count them. So i would take this number as a minimal floor. I’m sure someone out there has taken the time to tally up all the MOD reports but i’m too lazy to look for it.
Exactly, it’s pretty telling that they’re doing this analysis for Russia and not Ukraine. Given that Ukraine continues to have to do forced mobilization, and that they’ve expanded the age now, and are conscripting women, are all indicators of very significant losses.
It’s also worth pointing out that even if losses were equal, even though all evidence suggests not being the case, Russia is still in a better position because Russia has a much bigger population. In order to win a war of attrition Ukraine would have to inflict proportionally more significant casualties on Russia, which they cannot do.
Hm…i don’t think i agree with the second part though. If casualties were equal i think Ukraine would be effectively winning because its mobilization potential is bigger than Russia’s. This sounds counter-intuitive since it obviously has a much smaller population especially now having lost millions of people who fled the country or live in territories annexed by Russia, but the amount of people you can mobilize is not always proportional to population size.
Some societies can mobilize a much higher percentage of their population than others, and in this regard fascist states like Ukraine do have an advantage (as do communist states due to central planning and being better able to ideologically motivate people as opposed to liberal democracies like today’s Russia). Russia firstly has not spent a decade or more indoctrinating its people with ultra-nationalist ideas and absolute hatred for the other side, and secondly they can’t implement the same kind of total war policies that Ukraine is and start dragging people off the streets.
Ukraine also does not need to reserve people for its civilian industries, or in fact for its economy at all, it does not need an economy since it is wholly financially propped up by the West, and it also does not need its people to work in the military industries since it doesn’t have any anymore - it gets all its supplies from the West. It’s not quite on the level of being a militarized garrison state like the neocolony in Palestine but it is getting there. Russia on the other hand is trying (and succeeding so far) to maintain a sense of normalcy and not have to put its entire society on a war footing. Because of these factors i do think that Russia needs to continue to preserve its manpower resources much more than Ukraine.
To be fair though, a major factor counter-acting Ukraine’s advantages is the endemic corruption in Ukraine which is a constant wrench in their mobilization machine. And the other good news is that i don’t see anything that can change the current balance of forces, and in fact the longer that Russia keeps cautiously degrading and attriting Ukraine’s capabilities the more the disparity in casualties will increase, as untrained and unwilling Ukrainian conscripts are simply not going to make for very good soldiers. Also the material aid from the West has likely plateaued and they will only be able to keep a barebones trickle of ammunition and equipment flowing.
Where Russia can afford to absorb higher losses is in equipment and munitions since it has now kicked its military industrial complex into high gear and by all accounts is outproducing the West. For them it makes sense to heavily expend one-time-use weapons like drones, glide bombs and cruise missiles because they can replace them. They can also saturate the battlefield with reconnaissance drones and artillery fire in volumes that Ukraine simply cannot match.
And i believe this explains perfectly the way we have seen Russia approach this conflict: very conservative of manpower and playing to their strengths in artillery and long range fires. Retreating out of unfavorable situations and managing time and time again to let the Ukrainians get themselves into fire bags and cauldrons where Russia can maximize its advantages, meanwhile straining Ukrainian logistics by keeping the front close to the Russian border.
I’d argue that western reaction to the war made it clear to most Russians that this is an existential war for them. Russians realize that this isn’t a war between Russia and Ukraine, but one between Russia and a proxy of NATO. We’re seeing that Russian army has no trouble doing recruitment right now without even a need for mobilization. So, the population difference is already playing a role here.
I disagree regarding Ukraine not needing industry. The reality is that the amount of material support the west is able to provide is quite limited. Simply throwing money at Ukraine isn’t actually solving any problems that Ukraine has. For example, EU pledged to deliver a million shells to Ukraine. However, EU lacks the industrial capacity to do this and now they’ve admitted that they can only deliver around a third of that. Meanwhile, all they managed to do was to raise the price of shells:
US isn’t doing much better in this regard either. US steel production is comparable to Russia’s, and despite all the talk the actual increase in shell production has been meagre so far.
The other huge risk for Ukraine being entirely reliant on western support is that it’s not going to be indefinite. Western economies are going into a recession, and public support for continuing to dump money into Ukraine is fizzling now. Given that Ukraine has reorganized its economy around western support, this rug getting pulled out from under them will be catastrophic.
I do agree with your assessment of Russian approach. They’re being very conservative, and are basically relying on attrition to deplete Ukrainian army. Mearsheimer makes an important point that most casualties are caused by artillery, and Russia has something like 10:1 advantage in artillery in Ukraine. So, as you note, the strategy has largely been to force Ukraine into artillery battles where Russia has a huge advantage.