“Where are the rations?”
“Currently selling for 5 US dollars in Volgograd. I made a tidy profit!”
Wow, I didn’t realize a bunch of Indian nationals were volunteering. Nearly 3%?!? That’s kind of amazing, considering India’s stance on this, and some of the things I’ve seen on India’s social media about this invasion.
I’m not talking about concern for his troops or his people back home. I’m talking in a purely pragmatic view.
If we assume a relatively conservative estimate of say… 3 casualties for every soldier killed, we’re looking at 750 wounded per day as well. So 1000 out of combat per day.
That’s not sustainable in an army the size of the Russian army. And when you consider that the bulk of the casualties are suffered in the actual fighting units- rifle companies, tanks, etc… and not in the logistical tail that supports them, it’s an even more grim statistic.
I’m starting to doubt that they have the manpower to keep that level of casualties up. And interestingly, if you assume US-style battlefield medicine, that actually gets worse, as the wounded to killed ratio in Iraq was more like 7:1.
Not really surprising, unfortunately. A lot of militaries have rampant corruption. China’s military is much the same, in fact…the corruption runs from top to bottom and is systemic in the system.
Are you sure the 250 per day killed is accurate though? Or is it more like 250 total killed AND wounded?
I agree that if the numbers are accurate, Russia cannot keep this up. The effect on morale alone will be devastating.
3% of 20,000 is not a large percentage of the Indian population. But I think there are mixed views about the war amongst Indians.
If he does that, what will he use to declare and enforce martial law?
It’s the autocrat’s dilemma — when a primary function of your military is to project strength throughout your country in order to maintain stability, you are limited in how you can mobilize those forces and deploy them elsewhere.
(To be clear, I don’t think the Russian people are on the verge of an uprising or anything. I believe Putin could redeploy a lot of men without any real risk. But autocrats are paranoid about any risk, and fear can distort rational analysis. My suspicion is that Putin is reluctant to significantly dilute his internal military presence for basically this reason.)
31% of the 20k isn’t a large percentage of the US population either. It was just surprising to me that Indians had volunteered to go and fight in Ukraine. Most of the other countries on that chart make sense, but India? Hell, even the Israeli volunteers make a bit more sense (though that’s another head-scratcher) than Indian volunteers.
My sense of the Indian social media is that even those who are against the invasion are mainly all for keeping India neutral…this isn’t their fight (the narrative goes), and Russia has always been a friend while the west…hasn’t. Plus, it’s not in their neck of the woods, and they should be focused on stuff happening in their area, not a European conflict they have nothing to do with.
The estimates are all over the map, with US sources estimating between 3500 and 6000, depending on who they talk to and when they ask. The Ukrainians are saying over 13000, but I think that’s just BS.
The Pentagon apparently said 2000-4000 a week ago, which if you split the difference is 3000 in 13 days, so something like 4600 by that estimate by now. I just picked 5000 as a nice round number that fits within the estimates I’ve seen.
Pentagon estimates 2,000 to 4,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine (france24.com)
Up to 6,000 Russians may have been killed in Ukraine so far, U.S. official estimates - CBS News
Up to 4,000 Russian soldiers likely have died in Ukraine, U.S. general says - The Washington Post
But even on the low end, 3000 killed + 9000 wounded in 3 weeks is pretty significant for an army of about 325,000 (Russian Ground Forces + Russian Airborne Forces). It’s about 3.7% of the entire army… in two weeks, and likely concentrated in the actual rifle companies and tank companies.
That can’t be sustainable, and even if they amped up their conscription, that wouldn’t get them troops all that fast- it still takes months to train a recruit.
Fingers crossed. And somehow transporting a bunch of Syrian fighters in with no logistical support is not going to turn the tide either.
Either that or “it’s bullshit” are probably the right answer.
But – not having known – I checked: Russia also has a National Guard:
Now, not knowing whether all of its 340,000 members are de facto members of the military, too, it’s hard to know what force this gives him to “keep order” (ie, stifle dissent and indiscriminately kill war-protesters) at home while pursuing his little hobby war over there.
This section points to at least some National Guard acting in Ukraine, but …
The article further says:
At home, the Rosgvardyia [Ed: ‘Federal Service of the Troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation’] helped to repress the anti-war protests, dispersing rallies and arresting protestors.
I think the casualties are probably sustainable, depending on how long this goes on. What I’m less sure about is equipment loss. I mean, presumably, of all the old Soviet-era crap they had that was still working, most of it has got to be committed to this or is needed for other security and border defense. I know they only started with like 4000 fuel bowsers, which is an insanely low number of the things, and they have got to have lost at least a hundred of them so far, if not more. This, along with other logistics trucks are what the Ukrainians are, rightfully, keying on, and that’s what Russia can least afford to lose.
Not all of these volunteers are driven by politics, ideology, or altruism. India has a lot of well trained military veterans living in relative poverty compared to the rest of the world. Whatever tiny stipend they get out of “volunteering” may be a financial windfall for some of them.
Latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War:
Does anybody have any idea how many Russian military assets will be tied up keeping an eye on the Norwegian border during NATO exercises?
I don’t know for certain, but I would suspect few if any. I do know that Putin consciously split the military bureaucracy into multiple independent branches, with different mission statements and supervision, specifically to prevent any one of them from becoming a center of political gravity that could threaten his authority. Hence I’d expect little or no overlap in staff.
12 days old, but …
[large grain of salt graciously offered]
Those are the exercises I was referring to but don’t nearby countries generally beef up their defenses when their adversaries conduct military exercises just in case they aren’t really exercises? The Russians aren’t going to leave the protection of that area to border patrol police while 30,000 armed NATO troops are messing around in Norway, right?
IANA military strategist, but I just looked at a map and I can’t believe that area’s strategic for anything. NATO invading there would be ten times as stupid as anything Russia is doing. So, no, I wouldn’t divert a single man to guard it.
Why wouldn’t they? It’s obvious that NATO isn’t going to go to war over Ukraine just yet. And even if they were, what would the forces involved in the exercise do, exactly? March on Moscow? From Norway?
Beefing up your border forces is for non-nuclear, smaller countries who think their troops need some exercise as well.