When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process. Stefan Zweig
Russia will be forced to announce a second wave of mobilisation, as its army is running low on soldiers
Russia’s lack of modern equipment is one part of the equation, their lack of manpower due to their heavy losses will soon be a prevalent problem again
The war in Ukraine drags on into its second year and with no end in sight. Although the cracks start to show, attrition doesn’t just wear down machinery. It also wears down those that fight this war. Russia has historically not been known to tap out of a war quickly. In fact, I am only aware of two ways how they lose a war. Either by facing an economic and political collapse or by taking casualty rates north of 500.000 soldiers dead and at least twice that number wounded.
Depending on whom to believe, we can assume that Russia currently loses (KIA, WIA POW) on average of 1500 men every day
That is the middle number, Ukraine doubles it, and Western analysts have caculated with roughly 500 men every day since the start of the war. Given the way this war went since September for Russia. Given their brutal human waves tactics. 1500 seems to be a decent middle ground. I provided some context in an article a while back on the matter of Russian losses.
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.” — Sun Tzu
This begs the question: Is Russia once again running low on manpower?
Let’s paint the war so far in broad strokes first regarding the Russian force structure. We can assume that the war had three distinct phases thus far.
Phase 1: February 2022 until September 2022
In this phase, the Russian soldiers were mostly contract soldiers and those who voluntarily joined as contract soldiers. Contract soldiers doesn’t necessarily mean professional soldiers, just men who were willing to sign a contract with the Russian government. But it was their best force. Because the best always die first in war.
That goes for both sides, of course
Russia then ran into major troubles with their personnel. The BTGs had fewer men from the start than they were supposed to have. Kofman analysed that Russia had 600 instead of 1000 men in their “Battle Battallion Groups” (BTGs)
Overall, we can call that phase the “surplus in equipment, artillery firepower” but shortage in manpower phase. Even though with the arrival of HIMARS also gradually, Russia suffered shortages in ammunition, and their supply lines became more and more strained.
Phase 2: Late September 2022 until mid-April 2022
Russia’s first wave of mobilisation gave them access to roughly 300.000 additional men. Which puts the total at roughly 520.000. Additionally, Russia also force conscripted men in the Donbas and Luhansk region for their LNR and DPR forces. Wagner PMC took roughly 50.000 prisoners, and most of them died attacking Bakhmut in horrendous WW1 style “human wave attacks.”
The losses among those prisoners may total something around 40.000 or more by now
Also, the LNR and DPR forces are depleted by now. That is an euphemism, I should say Putin forced them to the front and may wipe out most of the male population of the occupied territory in that region. Overall, we can assume that the men fighting for Russia, including some mercenaries from Syria and other places, may total at around 800.000 so far.
This mobilisation round was actually quite successful
At least from a strategic point of view. Russia could stabilise the frontline, refill depleted units, and make their winter offensive possible. Ukraine still had the momentum, but bad weather, mud season, and generally the winter season made major advancements very difficult. The ground never froze solid, quite unusual, but that was the situation during the winter months. Ukrainian mud can be several meters deep, so no major armored thrust is possible under these conditions.
Of course, these troops were badly led, badly equipped, badly trained, and demoralised. The casualty rates have been horrendously high. According to the CSIS institute, Russia lost more men in Ukraine than it has lost in all its other wars since 1945 combined.
That was an extremely high level of attrition, both in manpower and in materiel
Russia lost over 10.000 vehicles in this war so far and remains Ukraine’s biggest arms supplier. 2827 pieces of Russian equipment have been captured by Ukraine, confirmed by Oryx. The actual number is likely 50 percent higher for their vehicle losses. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the “wear and tear” on that equipment after almost 14 months of fighting.
We can call that phase the “surplus in infantry and shortage of equipment phase”.
Phase 3: General mobilisation or finally packing up and going home
Putin has not launched another wave of mobilisation. There is no steady stream of fresh recruits as losses are mounting
As Puck Nielsen rightly so assesses, numbers in war are hard to come by, so we don’t know exactly how bad those losses were. The Ukrainian General staff reports something in between 500 and 1000 dead Russian soldiers along the frontline since September. The Ukrainians are counting everything, also Wagner mercenaries.
I find this way of counting more honest, as the West counts only dead Russian soldiers, but these mercenaries are also soldiers of Russia
They should count as well. According to their very own estimates, the Ukrainians calculate that 180.000 Russians are dead, 3646 tanks, 7050 armored vehicles, and 2777 pieces of artillery are destroyed or captured by Ukraine.
The Ukrainians have a formula based on field reports from their commanders, e.g., a BTM carries 8-10 soldiers, so the half that number counts 4 dead for every BTM. Tanks, maybe a couple, etc. Infantry deaths are most likely the most accurate body count.
There is a lot of uncertainty in these numbers
I am not going to get into the discussion of numbers. This is a war, and counting is an inexact science. I accept Ukraine’s own count as the upper ceiling. There are many problems with these numbers. Methodically, it is problematic to count losses, as artillery strikes could kill 10 or 20 men and wound twice that number. But there is no way to check. So, I suspect, when Ukraine thinks they killed 10 to 20 men.
Well then, you likely go with twenty
So the highest possible number of daily KIA, WIA, and POW is roughly 500 to 1000 Russian soldiers killed every day. The Russian Finance ministry once leaked a document by accident in late August. That showed 48,759 dead soldiers. I am certain Russia knows the real number, but they won’t tell us that, of course.
The lowest ceiling is provided by Media Zona
Media Zona is one of the last independent news outlets in Russia. They work with the BBC and only count verified burials. That is the safe number. Which is why the ones who published the leak also photoshopped it into their document, even though they know that below this number, they simply can’t go without making their fake too obvious. Media Zona goes by name confirmation, the Wagnerites, the LNR, and DPR are not part of this count.
Also, anyone who is “absent without leave” AWOL is not part of this count. Any “prisoner of war” POW is not part of this count. Anyone killed but not returned to Russia is not part of this count. They update these numbers every 2 weeks. On April 7th, they counted 1667 new cases. That is a hefty increase and puts the number up from 17500 to almost 20.000.
The Soviet Union (260. million population) lost 15.000 men in Afghanistan in the 80s in 10 years, on a population almost twice as big as that of the Russian Federation
The West lies somewhere in between with its own estimates. But we can’t just count the dead. We must count the wounded as well. The numbers will be a bit off overall, but that doesn’t matter for the point I am trying to make.
For every dead soldier, Russia has 2-3 wounded soldiers. Puck Nielsen
If we count 500, they have killed every day since September, which is a conservative estimate. Then we are countin 2 wounded per soldiers per day, that gives us a rough decrase of the Russian fighting force of 1500 soldiers per day. That means the “fresh” 300.000 mobilised soldiers are “consumed” within 200 days. Now, of course, the original force was not fully spent, but it was almost spent at this point. So let’s extend that to 250 days. We are now on day 210 since the mobilisation was announced.
Russia must announce a fresh wave of mobilisation in the next 60 days. Or they will run low on manpower again
I am not saying they will run out. I am saying they will run low. Just as Russia ran low last year in July and August. That would give Ukraine once again a window of opportunity for a “thunder-run” against half empty Russian ranks. We can call that phase 3
Shortage of infantry Shortage of equipment Shortage of ammunition
At this point, I have to mention that Ukrainian losses have also been significant. I think they may hover way above the official number of 13.700 soldiers KIA. There is new recent Reuters article, that puts the total casualties for both sides at 354.000. Even that is on the lower end I think.
But, Ukraine has a much better force generation than Russia. However, that is not the point that we are making here. The point is that those 300.000 soldiers are gone within days now at current attrition rates. Some of them are surely still there, but Ukraine has replenished their force. It has replaced the losses. Ukraine is fully mobilised with a manpower pool of roughly 10 million men in total. They won’t run into manpower shortages, as they have an army over 1 million men strong.
Ukraine can mobilise from its general population for a long time
There are also those 70.000 Ukrainians that have returned home from abroad and roughly 20.000 fighters from foreign legion. Russia on the has also lost over 2000 officers. Russia lost over 70 pilots as well. According to Peter Zeihan, Russia lost over 2300 tactical miliary trucks. Russia had 3000 of them when the invasion began.
Quick Summary and conclusion
The war is a military and socio-economic disaster for Russia.
Russia has lost this war on a startegic level. The people who make the decisions in the Kremlin, don’t make them because of economic considerations or logic. Putin tries to stay in power, and Ukraine is a domestic security policy issue for Kremlin. They think they are fighting for their very survival. So, they won’t stop at anything unless the West actively forces them to stop this madness.
The only way for Putin to stay in power is for this war to continue the only way to continue the war is to announce a general mobilisation
Those inside Russia that would have opposed the continuation of the war for economic reasons have already left. They have been silenced. Russia introduced a new law recently. The law will make it possible to be drafted electronically. That’s a clear sign for me that the mobilisation is coming very soon.
War is the new normal in Russia. To end the war means to end the Russian imperial dream
In order to end that dream, the counter-offensive must be successful. The offensive will begin between the first of May and the end of May. I would personally find it interesting if it began 3 days before the victory parade. We don’t know when exactly, but right now the soil is muddy, the weather is still bad, it won’t begin this month. To end this war, Ukraine must lay siege to Crimea and cut off access to Crimea.
The Kerch bridge has to go, and then Ukraine must siege Crimea
Ukraine isn’t there yet though. The next 5 months will decide the outcome of this war. Experts suggest that at current attrition rates, Russia will likely run out of serviceable equipment by October. Peter Zeihan explains what it will likely take get Russia to stop this invastion. To finally get this army to retreat to their own borders.
Historically, Russia must face either a socio-economic collapse or a mass casualty event north of 500k dead soldiers to make them lose a war Peter Zeihan
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Sources
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/how-open-source-data-got-the-russia-ukraine-war-right/
https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1579938469857886208
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-casualties-ukraine-reaching-tipping-point
