It’s time for a quick talk about the losses on both sides.
Back in November I cited War Tears, an online project that estimated 106,000 Ukrainian fatalities at the time. Their numbers, as extraordinary as they seem, have consistently matched up with other estimates throughout the conflict, including official Russian MoD figures and the Mossad.
As of today, the War Tears estimate for Ukrainian killed is more than 264,000.
If we assume a casualty ratio of 1:5 in Russia’s favor, that would suggest a figure of about 53,000 Russian fatalities. This isn’t far off from the BBC’s running estimate of at least 45,000.
However, there are some important points to keep in mind about this.
Firstly, Ukrainians seem to still be surrendering at incredibly low rates, which suggests that they are not anywhere close to being broken and still have a huge amount of tenacity. Though, in fairness, Ukrainian forces are rarely surrounded to the point of being unable to escape. There could also be a high desertion rate that is difficult to tally. But most likely, Ukrainian morale remains high and I see no compelling evidence to the contrary.
Here’s another video I shared to my channel to give an idea of what a “real” war is like. A Russian mechanized infantry company of 50 men with tank and vehicle support attack fortifications occupied by roughly the same number of Ukrainian troops.
Apparently, in this operation, the Russian company lost one tank crewman and 3 infantry soldiers (the 3 infantry aren’t mentioned in the video, I saw this reference elsewhere). This is excellent work, but, as one could imagine, such losses add up. If this company of 50 men were to continue suffering four fatalities a week, that would be 10-12 a month, or 20% losses, and 100% after less than 6 months. Now you can understand how units in WWII frequently suffered 150% or even 200% losses throughout the course of the war.
Like I said already, there aren’t any publically apparent signs of Ukrainian morale and “will to fight” deteriorating, and enormous losses aren’t a reason for Ukraine’s western masters to lose interest in the war either. From Prof. Martin van Creveld in a recent blog post:
Should the war turn into guerrilla and terrorism, as it very likely will, it may very well open the door to the death of perhaps fifty Ukrainians for every soldier the Russians lose (in Vietnam the ratio was about 75 to one). Even so Putin will still be unable to end the war, which he can do only by setting up a new collaborationist Ukrainian government.
From the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Right now, it is likely that roughly 5 Ukrainian troops are dying for every one Russian. If the war effort deteriorates into guerrilla actions, in which guerrillas don’t have the benefits and protections of a conventional force like air defense, casualties will become many times more lopsided. It also, by definition, becomes much more difficult to distinguish enemy combatants from civilians so the rate of collateral damage also goes way up. Creveld’s suggestion of 50-75 Ukrainian deaths for every one Russian sounds plausible. To Creveld, and presumably, Pentagon planners, the loss of hundreds of thousands or millions of Ukrainians is a necessary sacrifice. Or, maybe, an unexpected benefit. The “best case scenario” for the west would be for two untermenschen nations to be wiped out, but they might settle for just one.
Ian Kummer
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Well, that’s what I said months ago, there will be no Ukrainians when this ends. We will manage, but them…I don’t think so. To many just fled the country and will not return.
Kind of hard to see how the steppes of Ukraine are going to support any kind of large scale insurgency, especially if Russia leaves the West Ukraine Banderastani heartland unoccupied. Occasional terrorist attacks, sure. An insurgency? No.
One reason few Ukrainians are surrendering is that few of them are getting the opportunity to. Hard to surrender when you’re getting pulverised by artillery from 30 kilometres away. And if you do try to surrender, chances are nazi minders will shoot you in the back for your trouble.
Also interviews will captured Ukrainians seem to have a common theme: they’re terrified of surrendering because they think Russia is going to murder them afterwards.
“Also interviews will captured Ukrainians seem to have a common theme: they’re terrified of surrendering because they think Russia is going to murder them afterwards”
This is rarely mentioned, Ukrainians are brainwashed; just like Western audiences are.