Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Tamas]

What I mean of course is they never attempted terror tactics. They probably would have failed if they did, but they never tried. They also clearly failed.

Bait and switch? 

Saddam Hussein agrees with you about the clear US failure, though.

[viper37]

I suppose if you lose 10% of your force a week the number of real casualties will decline each week...

As Grumbler pointed out 5000 a week is WW2 levels of casualties.  You need full mobilization and a war economy to replace that.

Yes.  It is a failure. The entire operation is a failure.  But not enough of a failure to convince Russia to back off.

I am uncertain as to how Russia can replace the material losses.  I'm not an expert, but modern equipement requires a lot of electronics, and with the sanctions, these will be hard to come by.  In WW2, to build a tank or an artillery piece, you needed the iron to produce it, and Allied supplies helped the Russian to maintain their production lines.

Now Russia is truly alone.  They can't even count on all of Eastern Europe's resources to deliver the supplies they need, like they did during the Cold War; they can pretty much only rely on China who has a decent manufacturing capacity and can deliver supplies to Russia.

Small arms and humans to fill the rank & file is another matter.  I don't think public opinion against Putin would shift so dramatically as to instill a full blown revolution if he decided to go with the conscription option to fight the "Ukrainian Nazis".

It really depends on what kind of equipment they have in their reserves.  If they have ample tanks and artillery pieces that aren't deployed, they can sustain a lot of losses before being grounded to a halt.

Historically, I don't think Russia and the USSR were overly concerned by human and material losses in their conflicts.

[viper37]

As grumbler pointed out too, it's not just the KIA (which the DIA said could be 2,000-4,000, so let's not assume 4000 is inherently correct), it's what a KIA number at that level suggests. It suggests many more casualties--in military terms the difference between a killed soldier and a wounded soldier who can no longer fight is minimal. Obviously, it's all the difference in the world for their families back home, but from a military realism perspective, a unit of manpower is gone either way. If we're really looking at 2-4k dead in week one, there are many more very likely who are going home grievously injured. War wounded are visible and undeniable back home.

Note there has also been a high loss of equipment, particularly vehicles--those are in some ways even more troublesome to replace than a conscript on a forced four-month contract, particularly when your country may soon be in an industrial crisis.

I agree that Russia is likely to adapt and improve and such terrible results for them won't be the weekly norm, but it's not a good sign for week one.

Looking at both Chechen wars, Russian casualties, we're talking 10 000 dead + 52 000 wounded.

We're looking at 4000-5000 casualties here, but they might not be all from the Russia army.  Many may come from pro-Russian separatist militias participating in the conflict.

[DGuller]

Again of course Shoigu's a very accomplished political operator who can't realistically replace Putin himself which I think makes him key.

I'm not sure that he can't.  I may be many years out of date on Russian internal politics, but my recollection is that Shoigu was the only politician other than Putin who had a cult of personality built around him.  He was for a very long time heading the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and this agency was constantly hyped up as the unusually hyper-competent and non-corrupt part of the government.  That said, maybe the reason he was chosen to build a cult of personality around was precisely because he was judged to be a non-starter for the top position.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As grumbler pointed out too, it's not just the KIA (which the DIA said could be 2,000-4,000, so let's not assume 4000 is inherently correct), it's what a KIA number at that level suggests. It suggests many more casualties--in military terms the difference between a killed soldier and a wounded soldier who can no longer fight is minimal. Obviously, it's all the difference in the world for their families back home, but from a military realism perspective, a unit of manpower is gone either way. If we're really looking at 2-4k dead in week one, there are many more very likely who are going home grievously injured. War wounded are visible and undeniable back home.

Note there has also been a high loss of equipment, particularly vehicles--those are in some ways even more troublesome to replace than a conscript on a forced four-month contract, particularly when your country may soon be in an industrial crisis.

I agree that Russia is likely to adapt and improve and such terrible results for them won't be the weekly norm, but it's not a good sign for week one.

Looking at both Chechen wars, Russian casualties, we're talking 10 000 dead + 52 000 wounded.

We're looking at 4000-5000 casualties here, but they might not be all from the Russia army.  Many may come from pro-Russian separatist militias participating in the conflict.

Again--which compares very badly to Ukraine. The First Chechen War was around 1.5 years and ~5500 dead Russian soldiers, the Second Chechen War was 9 months and ~3500 soldiers killed. We're talking 4000 dead in a week.

[alfred russel]

The comparisons to WW2 as a way of saying Russian losses are not bad is far afield of the mark. WW2 invasions in Europe involved many more men than we had here, and they also represented a much simpler deployment of material and equipment. The total logistical burden to support WW2 divisions (the standard operating unit in the war) vs equivalent numbers of Russian troops (Russians organize on the tactical battalion level, which is much much smaller) was obviously much higher than Russia faces for invading Ukraine just because of the huge numbers of infantrymen--the food and water and etc requirements of humans hasn't changed really since WW2 and all that stuff requires logistics to move around.

However WW2 armies were much less mechanized than modern armies and much less reliant on equipment aside from standard infantry kit, relative to the total number of troops i.e. a U.S. Army Infantry Divisions was made up of 3 Infantry Regiments, division artillery divided into 4 battalions of field artillery, a tank battalion, 2 anti-tank battalions, and an anti-air battalion, then a number of support, recon, signal and medical battalions/detachments. All told a WW2 Infantry Division in the U.S. Army was around 14,000 men with around 9000 infantrymen in the division infantry regiments. So around 65% of the strength of the division was pure infantry. A Russian Battalion Tactical Group is 600-800 men with only around 200 as infantry, the rest are attached to the hundreds of vehicles that the BTGs use to move around and the artillery and MLRS that are attached at the battalion level in the Russian Army (in the U.S. our standard tactical operations unit is the Brigade Combat Team or BCT--around 4000-5000 men, divided into a number of battalions. There are reasons, most of them related to poor manpower and lower defense spending, that Russia's military is geared around smaller battalion oriented tactical units.)

The modern Russian military is nothing like a WW2 military--those military forces were backed by mass mobilization and true war economies. The United States for example didn't manufacture a single car for the civilian market for like 4 years, almost all rubber was reserved for military use, families had to use ration cards for common goods, children were employed collecting scrap metal, women were brought into the workforce in large numbers to work factories etc etc. Russia is not operating a war economy or mass mobilization. Within the context of how the modern Russian military is structured, its losses thus far are nothing other than a disaster.

The idea that Russia may just be in a WW2 era battle and thus the numbers aren't bad is not a good idea because if Russia was coming to a WW2 style battle it brought about 10x too few men.

I mean can you explain why you would expect them to be taking less losses than Germany's invasion of Poland? Like why are they not in a WW2 style battle?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Well they aren't in a WW2 style battle for one, but the point is they don't have the army setup to fight a WW2 style war, so taking WW2 style casualties is bad. Is it your argument that since the battle is bigger than Russia expected that somehow means the casualty rate isn't a problem for the Russians? I find little reason to believe that is true.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure that he can't.  I may be many years out of date on Russian internal politics, but my recollection is that Shoigu was the only politician other than Putin who had a cult of personality built around him.  He was for a very long time heading the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and this agency was constantly hyped up as the unusually hyper-competent and non-corrupt part of the government.  That said, maybe the reason he was chosen to build a cult of personality around was precisely because he was judged to be a non-starter for the top position.

To be honest my thought was simply that I can't see a replacement in Putin's Russia being ethnically Tuvan.

I think that might make him safe to others though - as will, from my understanding, the perception that he's not really attached to one faction or another. Add that to the political nous to survive at the top level of politics for 32 years and I think he's a really important operator in this - and I'd be astonished if he hadn't used that political skill to build up goodwill within the armed forces too. I could be wrong but I feel that any plotting will run through him and the chances of it will increase the more exposed he is, which is already a lot if it's the failure of a war and he's Defence Minister.

If I was Putin I would be concerned that he is the person most likely to get shafted if they go down a "good Tsar, bad boyars" route. In this scenario you'd almost want the Defence Minister to basically be entirely dependent on one of the factions (so you can buy them off) or on Putin (for example someone who was deliberately impolitic to clean the place up a bit - or the opposite). They're easy to blame and get rid of, with a little cost - someone who's politically skilled, not a direct risk and not really beholden to anyone is more difficult. I am just going off stuff I've read and heard and it could not be the case.

[grumbler]

[grumbler]

Looking at both Chechen wars, Russian casualties, we're talking 10 000 dead + 52 000 wounded.

We're looking at 4000-5000 casualties here, but they might not be all from the Russia army.  Many may come from pro-Russian separatist militias participating in the conflict.

If you are arguing that the Russians have suffered only 4000-5000 casualties (i.e. 750-1000 KIA/DOW) that's an entirely different argument. 

[Jacob]

I mean can you explain why you would expect them to be taking less losses than Germany's invasion of Poland? Like why are they not in a WW2 style battle?

They went in expecting a surgical decapitation strike resulting in a quick collapse and regime change. The fact that you're even considering comparisons to Germany's invasion of Poland is an indication of the magnitude of the failure.

[Sheilbh]

You are headed towards a world of hurt when the civilians in a city you occupy move towards the sound of gunfire.

Yeah I agree - and just on this, it's worth noting again that it Kherson. A regional capital of about 300,000 people - it's not even in the top 10 biggest Ukrainian cities. Right now, even aside from Kyiv, from what I can see Russia are trying to take a number of cities that are even bigger - Chernihiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and potentially an assault on Odessa.

[Jacob]

Yeah I agree - and just on this, it's worth noting again that it Kherson. A regional capital of about 300,000 people - it's not even in the top 10 biggest Ukrainian cities. Right now, even aside from Kyiv, from what I can see Russia are trying to take a number of cities that are even bigger - Chernihiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and potentially an assault on Odessa.

I guess that's Putin's potetnial off ramp - if Russians manage to take some key cities and negotiates something along the lines they've proposed but otherwise leave Ukraine intact - before the city-fighting becomes too intense - that could potentially be declared a victory?

[Tamas]

Yeah I agree - and just on this, it's worth noting again that it Kherson. A regional capital of about 300,000 people - it's not even in the top 10 biggest Ukrainian cities. Right now, even aside from Kyiv, from what I can see Russia are trying to take a number of cities that are even bigger - Chernihiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and potentially an assault on Odessa.

I guess that's Putin's potetnial off ramp - if Russians manage to take some key cities and negotiates something along the lines they've proposed but otherwise leave Ukraine intact - before the city-fighting becomes too intense - that could potentially be declared a victory?

I think he needs at the very least Ukraine to cede Crimea and the two breakaway regions plus promise not to join NATO. Anything less than this is a defeat. But I can't see Ukraine yielding those now. Any Ukrainian leader signing that equals signing their own death warrants.

[viper37]

So I wake up to the news that the IAEA has lost contact with Chernobyl.

This mess just keeps on giving.

there was a report on CBC this morning about forced Ukrainian workers at Chernobyl.  Russia is controlling the place and the people around it.