Russia has lost 315,000 casualties so far in this war.
My question is Are those fallen soldiers “pure” Russians ?
Or are they mostly other ethnic groups?
Russia’s population contains a half dozen ethnic groups, which Putin doesn’t care about at all; People from the “stans”, and the remote areas, who speak Russian only as a second language, who are often Muslim. But Putin only cares about the “pure” ethnic Russians…
As I understand it, the ethnic Russians are the elite, who mostly live in Moscow and the other big cities, and have not been affected by the war at all…Their sons are not being drafted, their jobs are secure, their comfortable lifestyle has not changed… So they wholly support Putin in his patriotic war to defend Russia from the nazis in NATO.
And so it seems that the war can continue for a long,long time, as long as Putin never drafts residents of Moscow and forces them to join the rest of the canon fodder.
True, there was recently a
demonstration by a few mothers opposed to the war, but they seem to have very little influence. so far.
Also–what is the ethnic makeup of those who fled?
A year ago, a draft was announced and a quarter million men fled from Russia to neighboring countries. I assume that these were mostly the well-off, educated ethnic Russians from the big cities .Am I right? And if so, after a year now, has their absence had any effect on Russian society? As Russian families celebrate Christmas, are they worried about their sons who cannot join the family gathering at home?
Russia draws a lot of troops from the Russian Federation with many,of them coming from central Asia and the caucuses.
These numbers are from pre-invasion and before the emptying of prisons to the front:
He argued that the official data he has examined shows that five years ago, 53 percent of the officers in the Russian Army were ethnic Ukrainians; 19 percent were other non-Russians; and only 28 percent were ethnic Russians. Among sergeants, this ethnic disproportion is even greater: 64 percent are members of Caucasus nationalities; 17 percent are other non-Russians; and only 19 percent are ethnic Russians. If one takes into account the number of officers and sergeants who come from mixed-nationality families, the non-Russian components in these two groups is larger still. Belousov stated that the share of Ukrainians in these two groups has likely declined slightly over the last few years, but the general pattern still holds, he contended.
The military term “casualty” refers to someone injured or killed. Not just killed. Fall off a truck 100 miles from the enemy and break your leg? You’re a casualty. It heals up great and you go back to the war? You’re not a casualty now, but you are part of the aggregate totals.
It smells like the OP has confused “casualties” with “deaths” or with killed-in-action.
Further there are lots of ethnic Russians in the countryside and more minor towns and cities who are ethnic Russian but are very far from capital city elite. some decent fraction of which are doing the Russian’s fighting too.
Just like in the USA. The children of US federal government high rollers, Wall Street fatcats, and even corporate middle management in Chicago aren’t doing the fighting. But the white folks from small town ruralia and the south were and are well represented in US front line military and in the killed and wounded statistics.
You’re right that Putin is preferentially drafting and deploying the powerless. Who generally are more non-white, non-big city urban, and non-wealthy than the folks being spared.
My point is there is a giant middle that you excluded between family of important Muskovites, and random Muslin Central Asians press-ganged into de facto suicide battalions.
Objection; assumes facts not in evidence. He’s had no problems sending them to their deaths up to this point.
Again, assumes facts not in evidence. Sure, if you’ve got the connections, you can avoid being conscripted but there is absolutely no evidence that the entirety of Moscow is being exempted from conscription.
Prior to the announcement of partial mobilization, a large part of the contract soldiers (volunteers who had signed a contract to be part of the military as opposed to conscripts, Russia has always had conscription but in theory before the partial mobilization they couldn’t be sent to fight in foreign territory, something that the sham ‘referendums’ annexing 4 Ukrainian Oblasts into Russia around the same time partial mobilization was announced also solved) came from the poorest parts of Russia, which are located in the Russian Far East and Siberia because the pay was significantly better than any other options available to them.
700,000 Russians fled the country when partial mobilization was announced. It was those who could afford to and wanted to flee. Being well off certainly helped, but it was by no means a requirement. The three most common destinations were Georgia, Kazakstan and Azerbaijan, because Russians don’t need a visa to enter those countries.
As I mentioned, the ethnic composition of Russian forces is a mix of the more than160 ethnic groups that make up the Russian Federation. As others have noted, most of the troops come from the lower classes and wealthier Russian families are able to avoid the draft.
Ethnic Ukrainians have always held a lot of positions in Russia’s security services, including the Army and police. I don’t know how this war might have changed that.
Public opinion about the war is difficult to gauge, as Russia is an authoritarian state where opposition to the war can get one committed to an asylum, but there is evidence that the popularity of the war is waning. Remember, that there was a bizarre coup attempt earlier this year and some Russians appeared to be cheering them on.
ETA: ethnic minorities do seem to be over represented in recent troop call ups, as mentioned in the Foreigh Policy story in my first post.
I don’t.think this is the case. The Russian federation is 71% ethnically Russian. So even if (as seems to be the case) the non-Russian minorities are disproportionately represented on the front line, they are likely still a minority, just a larger one than 29% (and even if they are a majority then Russians are probably still the largest ethnic group, even if they are less than 50%)
For the moment, Russia’s disproportionate deployment and mobilization of its minority populations to carry out the war in Ukraine has not met significant resistance. Some sporadic protests in local town centers or videos of aggrieved family members have accomplished nothing, and there is no indication this policy will change. For Russia’s Ministry of Defense to begin large-scale mobilization of its Slavic populations, particularly in population centers like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, would mean that the state of the conflict would be in truly dire circumstances.
I think the dead and wounded numbers reported on both sides are exaggerated. It is very common in an active war. Each side has incentive to do so. It can also get down to specifics, in order to stir up discontent on each side. Your folks are being used as cannon fodder. So do not involve yourselves in the war. Better yet, revolt against those sending you to slaughter. It is standard procedure in war.
Except these figures aren’t coming from reports on a side in the conflict. It’s coming from
A declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, or nearly 90% of the personnel it had when the conflict began, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Tuesday.
Which also matches closely with prior US estimates, UK estimates, NATO estimates, BBC News Russia estimates. BBC News Russia even has confirmed 40,010 dead by names out of their estimate of 80,000 Russian dead, not including the forces of the LPR, DPR, or Wagner. Of Which Wagner itself says it suffered 22,000 dead, and not that there’s any reason to doubt Wagner’s own admitted figures, but BBC Russia has confirmed 10,193 of those by name. Add in the 23,000+ LPR and DPR that BBC Russia estimates, and you have 125,000 dead on the Russian side. Which again, is very close to prior US assessments, the recently declassified assessment, the UKs estimates and NATOs estimates.
I’m sure those figures must contradict the Kremlin approved figures though comrade.
Muscovites have been less affected by the war. Ethnic Russians are not IDd as elite in Russia. In fact, children filling out forms are encouraged to pick Russian as their identity, as part of the broader assimilation strategy.
More on the relation between the center (Moscow) and the periphery:
Moscow is not an “economic” or “cultural” centre. It’s what Max Weber would call a “Fürstenstadt”: city built around a princely court and living off expenses of a prince, his officials and courtiers. Its modern prosperity is a function of its central status in the imperial system.
That’s why the economic effect of the war is so little visible in Moscow. The prince would make every possible expense and put every effort for maintaining the quality of life and the business as usual mindset in his Fürstenstadt. The rest of the empire can go fuck themselves.
That also explains the destitution of much of the Russian empire. That’s Arkhangelsk, the capital of Pomorye which had historically been the richest part of the country. All the resources are sucked from the region to feed the Fürstenstadt of enormous size and appetites.
Russia is so poor because its Fürstenstadt is just too expensive to maintain. Moscow is a geographic anomaly among the cities of its size, being located so:
far north
deep inland and far from (used) navigable waterways
in a non-farming region
It’s too expensive to feed.
Giving precedence to Moscow has a long tradition in Russian politics; already during Soviet times (and probbaly even before that, during the Tsarist period - Petersburg was the political capital, but Moscow remained dominant in other respects), the city would always have the best hospitals, restaurants, transport facilities - the best in pretty much everything. That’s why, under the “propiska” system, Soviet citizens born outside Moscow needed a permission to move there. But it’s far from an ethnically homogenous city; it has communities of every ethnicity of today’s Russia and the former Soviet Union, not just ethnic Russians.
In one of his discussions about his visit to the USSR (1960?), Robert Heinlein discussed that Moscow “did not seem to be like a city of a million people” despite Soviet claims. He wondered if the stated population was boastful propaganda (i.e, a lie).
This site -
suggests that of a population of 144M maybe 5.2% are males between 20-30. That’s about 7.5M. Losing 350,000 is about 5% of that population cohort. Now, likely they take anyone 18-50 into the army by now, but still that’s got to be a huge dent in a fragile population - not even taking into account those departing Russia to avoid the draft. (say, 700,000 of Russia’s best and brightest, those mobile enough or educated enough to get a job outside - even allowing half are spouses etc.).
Putin was quoted recently as saying Russian women need to do their part to help the population by having more children, mentioning that before the Russian Revolution women would have 5 to 8 children. The population decline is accelerating in Russia and I suspect this war is not helping.
By comparison, I find 58,000 dead and 300,000 injured US forces from a country population of 200M over many years. Yet that created a massive anti-war movement.
Moscow and St Petersburg are first worldish islands extracting from a third worldish countryside. There’s a lot of grinding poverty in the hinterlands: the local factory might be run by a manager whose family lives in either Moscow or western Europe. The workers are deeply in debt, while the company builds itself a local ice palace: Moscow likes public works in the provinces more than wages above subsistence.
The war in Chechnya killed far fewer Russian Federation citizens yet created far more protests. Why?
Presumably Putin has tighter controls now. That’s the stick. But carrots matter too: with so-called “Coffin money”, parents can buy a new car in memory of their fallen.
Sorry, in case my post wasn’t clear, these are the numbers I find for US involvement in Vietnam.
I guess the other question is to what extent the injured from the 350,000 Russian casualties are permanently disabled or otherwise no longer as productive in civilian society as they could be?
An interesting WaPo article linked by DrugeReport about the wives of soldiers trying to confront Putin, and their “Bring Papa Home” campaign…
In this highly charged atmosphere, the Kremlin is determined to stifle any dissent, but there is no easy answer to women furious that their sons and husbands are being forced to fight on until the end of the war.
Russian authorities have sent agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, to question soldiers whose wives are involved, according to an increasingly strident Telegram group, “The Way Home,” which is leading the campaign to bring men home. Military officers have threatened to send soldiers into front-line assault operations, unless they silence their wives, it reports.