Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Admiral Yi]

How big of an operation is Liga/Vagner? 4K in mercenaries seems quite large

I imagine they folded all the Chechens and Syrians into Wagner.

[PDH]

Apparently some intercepts are pointing to more than this in casualties.  A ploy with fake reporting to get the enemy overconfident?  I am not sure, seeing as how the Russian generals were talking on unsecured lines and were geolocated and killed by artillery strikes.  This just seems to be a level of incompetence that we were not ready for.

It is strange when the Ukrainian numbers that have always seemed high...might be too low.  We shall see.

[celedhring]

How big of an operation is Liga/Vagner? 4K in mercenaries seems quite large

I imagine they folded all the Chechens and Syrians into Wagner.

Chechen units are part of their National Guard IIRC.

[mongers]

If true, that's one in eight lost out of the initial forces. Not quite Stalingrad, but still incredible high for a mere month.

Actually, IIRC, losses at Stalingrad were about 1/6 of the troops on the eastern front, so pretty close to Stalingrad.

That POW number is awesome and would corroborate all the POW interviews the Ukrainians have been releasing.  Though I do wonder why Ukraine hasn't realized an official Russian POW number.  You'd think that would be relatively easy to tally.

It's also nice that the KIA number synchs up with the US estimate for orders of magnitude.

The did a few days ago, can't find a link but it was something like 490, 590 or 795, so not massive as in whole units giving up, but certainly enough to suggest that Russians aren't fighting to the last man for Putin's greater glorification.

Edit:
I may have been to total of the details they've shared with the ICRC as per the rules of war.

[Admiral Yi]

Chechen units are part of their National Guard IIRC.

Gotcha.

[DGuller]

Wagner is a private force in name only.  In reality it's GRU's army, separated just enough from GRU to give Russia plausible deniability (plausible by Russian standards, meaning that it relies on the willingness of the West to find it plausible).  The figure of 4,000 killed does seem rather high, though, unless they went through a huge recruitment drive recently, or if the known size of the group is much larger than believed.

[Jacob]

I thought the Wagner group strength was reported at about 25,000? Though I don't know how many are in theatre.

[HVC]

Looking it up, That's more then then some european countries active military personnel. I take dgullers point about how much they're truly a mercenary force, but still I'm shocked by that number.

[The Brain]

They seem to be just as competent as regular Russian forces.

[Legbiter]

Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, reportedly"leaked" Russian MOD casualty figures, 9,861 KIA, 16,153 WIA

https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1505976094691934218

If true, that's one in eight lost out of the initial forces. Not quite Stalingrad, but still incredible high for a mere month.

Finns:

[jimmy olsen]

Anyone see this? This was posted on a pro-government newspaper in Russia. It was eventually taken down, but it seems plausible.

EDIT: Beaten by Zanza

https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1505989708429541393

The Russian Defense Ministry has just reported the staggering figure of 9861 Russians killed & 16,153 injured  in Ukraine. That's 379 dying every day, 1000 a day being taken off the battlefield - or between 1/4-1/3 of their committed combat forces 1/3

The ministry said it was refuting the number of 15,000 Russians killed claimed by Ukraine. But it's higher than Western intelligence estimates. The website has since taken the numbers down but it's archived here. https://archive.ph/f0A2Y 2/3

This adds further weight to the argument that Russia's offensive will soon become unsustainable, reaching the point where they lack enough troops & also supplies to advance any further. Our story on this from yesterday

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/russia-ukraine-military-offensive/

[Jacob]

I think there are basically two different "this is going to happen" predictions currently in play:

1) The Russian offensive is culminating - it is about to longer be sustainable.

2) The Russians are going to step up their indiscriminate artillery and missile bombardment of population centres, in the hopes of breaking Ukrainian will.

Unfortunately, I'm under the impression that both things can be true at the same time. If true, then we'll see fewer or no territorial gains, but increasing civilian casualties in the coming days

[Jacob]

Have any of you seen any good analysis of to what degree (if any) the various sanctions are going to impact Russia's ability to wage war, and over what sort of timescale we can expect it to play out?

[mongers]

Anyone see this? This was posted on a pro-government newspaper in Russia. It was eventually taken down, but it seems plausible.

EDIT: Beaten by Zanza

https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1505989708429541393

The Russian Defense Ministry has just reported the staggering figure of 9861 Russians killed & 16,153 injured  in Ukraine. That's 379 dying every day, 1000 a day being taken off the battlefield - or between 1/4-1/3 of their committed combat forces 1/3

The ministry said it was refuting the number of 15,000 Russians killed claimed by Ukraine. But it's higher than Western intelligence estimates. The website has since taken the numbers down but it's archived here. https://archive.ph/f0A2Y 2/3

This adds further weight to the argument that Russia's offensive will soon become unsustainable, reaching the point where they lack enough troops & also supplies to advance any further. Our story on this from yesterday

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/russia-ukraine-military-offensive/

They've said it's as result of the website being hacked; maybe the hackers found these 'real' figures and published them or maybe they just invented some for counter-propaganda purposes?

[PDH]

Have any of you seen any good analysis of to what degree (if any) the various sanctions are going to impact Russia's ability to wage war, and over what sort of timescale we can expect it to play out?

There are statements from the Ukraine that two armor manufacturing/repair plants have had to shut down due to lack of parts.  If true, it is up to the current Russian standards of supply chain management.