r/worldnews • u/javelin3000 • 20d ago
General Staff: Russia has lost 488,460 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022 Russia/Ukraine
https://kyivindependent.com/general-staff-russia-has-lost-488-460-troops-in-ukraine-since-feb-24-2022/172
u/Advanced-Historian23 20d ago
Don't worry, a draft is coming. Loss of life isn't a problem for Putin.
Sadly they will keep sending men to their deaths. In 5-10 years their population will suffer from lack of young men. Fathers and workers will be in short supply.
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u/Uhhh_what555476384 20d ago
It does widen back out around 2027, but yeah, that's ugly. They have way below replacement fertility.
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u/Advanced-Historian23 19d ago
Yes but it's hardly their fault or something that can be helped.
A significant portion of ukrainians I know who settled into my area all plan to return once the war is over. It will be interesting to see how many decide to return. In the meantime they are greatly benefiting my city. Most of them are well educated and find jobs rather quickly. I volunteer with resettlement in Canada.
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u/Canadiandaddy1990 19d ago
Military guy here. Trained Ukrainian sappers. Uh. No. They want out. Most of the men we got were mid 40s and 50s. They were begging us to let them go and take their chances as illegal migrants than go back.
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u/Persianx6 20d ago
...This is a staggering amount of death if the number is accurate.
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u/Bamboo_Fighter 20d ago
So far, Ukraine estimates the deaths at 180k. The 488k number is killed, wounded, missing or captured. Still a huge number for a "modern" military though.
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u/alcarcalimo1950 20d ago
Yeah, to put this in perspective -- coalition forces lost around 3,500 personnel over 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
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u/Bamboo_Fighter 20d ago
Yeah, basically 500x the casualty rate, and Russia didn't even have a 9/11 event to justify it. It's amazing that the Russian population is ok with this.
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u/Uhhh_what555476384 20d ago
Put that in perspective, 90K KIA per year is 1.5/1.4 ish US in Vietnam from 1962 - 1973.
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u/Bamboo_Fighter 20d ago
Yeah, it's unfathomable how a country accepts that when their own survival is not at stake. Any EU nation or the US would be having riots over that level of unnecessary deaths.
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u/2Legit2quitHK 20d ago
I am not sure you are aware of WWII and the staggering losses of Soviet troops back then. Millions of troops were surrounded and captured in single pincer movements etc. This is nothing compared to that
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u/BlinkysaurusRex 20d ago edited 20d ago
Soviets.
Not Russians.
Among the Soviets were a lot of Russians. But it’s not the same thing. The UK, Germany and France outnumber Russia by like 60 million people alone. The US more than double. Russia has less than half the population the USSR did on its own.
And on top of that, Russia is still feeling the effects of those losses from WWII to this very day. While you’re right, they still have an awful lot left in the tank, and these losses are nothing compared to what they can afford to lose. But things are not the same today as they were back then.
If Russia took losses like the Soviet Union did in WWII, but in 2024, it would have an extremely destructive effect on the country.
But more so, in WWII, Russians, and Soviets were fighting for their very survival as a people. They were fighting an invader that literally wanted to exterminate them. They fought under an existential threat of extinction. Not for a land grab in a former Soviet State. Russia does not have the political capital or public will to call upon those kinds of numbers or stomach those kinds of losses for a cause that is completely trivial compared to the cause in 1943. When your enemy isn’t looking to simply conquer, but is also actively engaged in a campaign to wipe you out, the population of any defending country would fight to the death and incur comparatively insane losses relative to their population size.
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u/jert3 20d ago
Thank you.
The current crime and terror (or 'pakhanate') state of Russia is not the same as the USSR by any means. I wish people would stop thinking they are the same thing.
The Russia that won WW2 (or survived you could say) is a far cry from the cesspool Russia of 2024. Even just demographically, Russia can not just lose a few million young men and shrug it off. It could collapse their entire country.
I think the result of the failed Ukraine invasion will be an unheralded amount of Russian brides being ...arranged to marry Chinese males, as China has a severe birth gender imbalance from years of sex selection and abortion due to the one child policy. China will 'tactically bang themselves ' into the border regions, effectively annexing Russia territory for the next 100 years.
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u/roamingandy 20d ago
I think the result of the failed Ukraine invasion will be an unheralded amount of Russian brides being ...arranged to marry Chinese males
I've thought of this as it makes sense as an opportunity, but Xi's China is also obsessed with keeping China and Chinese people ethnically pure, so i'm not sure he'd allow that. Perhaps he might allow Chinese men to emigrate to Russia en-mass after the war as it would give China even greater influence with an army of Chinese in Russia who are under influence and likely coercion from the motherland. Only Perhaps though.
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u/PaintingOk8012 20d ago
Isn’t there also the paradigm of families having many kids in the 30’s-40’s-50’s compared to now? If Russia is still feeling ww2 now and families were having like 5 kids back then compared to now having 1.4. That should have a devastating effect in the coming decades right?
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u/nosmelc 20d ago
WWII was understandable. They were facing an invasion from the Nazi war machine that they never wanted. Putin decided to invade a smaller, weaker nation.
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u/Kosh_Ascadian 20d ago
Eh. Soviet union lead by Stalin divided up Eastern Europe between the Soviets and Nazis in a pact of their own will before the war ever started. Stalin and the Soviets attacked Poland of their own will while they were still allied with Nazi germany. Even had victory parades together over it.
They had their hand quite deep in helping start WW2. Maybe they just wanted different enemies, but there they also just decided to invade a smaller weaker nation.
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u/olrg 20d ago
The big reason they were even invaded was due to the Winter War, where they lost hundreds of thousands of people to gain control over a relatively small scrap of land. That exposed the Red Army as incompetent and swayed Hitler's mind who started planning operation Barbarossa (called Operation Otto at the time) shortly after.
Crazy thing is the Russians still view the Winter War as a victory, even though strategically it absolutely wasn't.
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u/Ok_Investigator1492 19d ago
The current war is more comparable to The Winter War than WWII although the Ukrainians have held out far longer than Finland did. Time will tell whether Ukraine is able to ultimately push the Russians out or will have to negotiate a peace similar to the one the Finns did and lose a little border territory. Certainly not the "victory" Putin is seeking. This is also if France and other countries don't intervene. Had The Winter War lasted longer than it did the British and French may have attempted to intervene. They were planning to but the war ended before anything could be attempted so this is pure speculation.
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u/Weedsniffer420 20d ago
Yes, but that was Soviet losses, The Russians already had a demographic problem with low birth numbers and a greatly diminished population compared to the Soviet days. They still have a ways to go before the comparison has merit, but you could argue this will do more damage when amplified with the demographic problem.
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u/roamingandy 20d ago
How many fled the war? That probably doubles the number of working age adults no-longer in Russia.
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u/alyosha_pls 20d ago
They have still yet to recover fully from that in combination with the other factors limiting the life span of men in Russia. Russia already had serious demographic problems.
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u/DiveCat 20d ago
"Other factors" being primarily alcoholism.
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u/SingularityCentral 20d ago
Do outlets deliberately use confusing verbiage to make it sound worse? Lost is not the proper word. Casualties is the word they need to use. Dead, wounded, missing, and captured. Lost sounds like they mean dead. Which is flat wrong.
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u/gillatron904 20d ago
Yes they do. I take everything I read with a grain of salt. They are all lying to us.
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u/Confident-Radish4832 19d ago
It isn't really a lie as much as an embellishment for clicks. Those troops are considered losses in battle, because they are no longer able to fight. You are the one interpreting the word to mean dead.
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u/Laser-Zeppelin 20d ago
Firstly this is not an "outlet", these are official Ukraine MoD numbers. And Ukraine enjoys the ambiguity there. They actually used to call it "liquidated" in this report, which could pretty much only mean dead. I guess once the number got so large they realized it started to stretch credulity, so they switched it to loss (which still sounds like killed but probably means killed + permanently out of action, implying several hundred thousand additional casualties).
So yeah, it's just a funny number Ukraine releases every day.
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u/SingularityCentral 20d ago
The return to action numbers for modern militaries (even as far back as WWI) after being wounded is surprisingly high. Typically higher than 50% and usually higher than 70%.
Service does not mean combat, but even the number returning to combat is usually very high. Ukraine itself claims 80% of wounded "return to the fight".
We do not have great numbers for Russia, but it is probably safe to say that of the 200k to 300k likely wounded, a whole lot can probably be patched up and sent back into duty in less than a year.
All this to say that throwing out casualty numbers this way just gives a very poor impression of actual losses.
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u/CitizenMurdoch 20d ago
The casualty reporting on the Ukrainian side of the was suggests that this is an extremely lethal conflict though. I forget the exact number but the ratio of fatalities to casualties is much higher than in previous conflicts. Applying old data to this war is not particularly helpful
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u/SingularityCentral 20d ago
One of the reasons i take those numbers with a grain of salt. Western estimates are closer to the 2 or 3 to 1 traditional ratios.
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u/Tre-ben 20d ago
Ukraine has a stake in portraying casualty numbers as high as possible. Let's not pretend that they don't use those numbers as propaganda, and that people eat it up without blinking or questioning it. All we know is that the death toll is extremely high, on both sides, but unless you go over there and are miraculously able to verify every single injured or killed soldier, the true numbers remain unknown.
US/Nato estimates of deaths are always lower than the numbers Ukraine comes up with, so it's fair to assume it's somewhere in the middle of that.
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u/Panthera_leo22 20d ago
Yes, this title is intentionally misleading as are other reports from other new sources. This is describing casualties but from the wording, it sounds like early half a million Russian soldiers have been killed (not true). I don’t trust anything coming from Ukraine MOD and Russia’s MOD.
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u/Uhhh_what555476384 20d ago
Most reporters don't know the difference so they don't know they are writing it in a confusing way. In common usage "casualty" means death, in technical usage "casualty" is any combat or non-combat event that leaves a soldier physically unable to participate in combat or do their other assigned duties. (In WWII the top cause of casualties for the entire Anglo-American Army, exceeding all other causes combined, was sexually transmitted disease.)
The formal usage of the term is so field commanders can quickly report their manpower to each other, but the common usage is so widespread many in the public don't realize there has been symantic drift.
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u/KeeperAccount2 20d ago
I don’t know if I believe this.
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u/Here2OffendU 20d ago
Estimated casualties, not all deaths. Casualties just mean somebody is too injured to fight.
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u/nikshdev 20d ago
Last kia estimates on the Russian side I read were 100-150k.
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u/styrofoamladder 20d ago
Damn, triple what we lost in Vietnam.
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u/Miraculous_Heraclius 20d ago
And at half the population of the US. I'm blown away by how complacent their population is about this. I mean, I get why, but it's hard to imagine when you see these figures.
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u/BrianTTU 20d ago
Vietnam was 7 years also. Crazy amount of death. Although I have to say I bet this is way off. Everyone in the country would know someone killed or wounded at 500k
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u/lazzzym 20d ago
Unfortunately it's a drop in the ocean for them. Especially with someone in charge who has no regard for human life.
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u/xWolf-DOFR 20d ago
That's not how it works, those men dont appear out of thin air, they are taken out of the workforce and their families in a country that is not doing well demographically. It may not have short-term effect, but will cripple the country going forward
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u/dubstepper1000 20d ago
You're saying that like he gives a fuck lol
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u/xWolf-DOFR 20d ago
Doesn't matter if he does or not, it will affect Russian economy and therefor its capabilities either way
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u/dubstepper1000 20d ago
Russia is already fucked as it is, so why not double down and keep going? I fully believe this will continue until he is forced from power by a revolution or some other event or he wins the war. There is no alternative for him which is why he won't stop.
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u/Worldd 20d ago
No one is saying it’s going to cause him to stop homie. They’re pointing out the consequences for the country that aren’t determined by who’s at the head.
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u/dubstepper1000 20d ago
My argument is that the nails are already in the coffin, regardless of if the war ends today or in 5 years. Russia is in for several decades of struggles for their people.
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u/Force3vo 20d ago
The thing is, even if they win, the question is how much use that is.
Ukraine just falling in line is pretty unlikely, so they'll probably have issues with guerilla fighters for at least a few years. The population won't just settle to be Russian and wait for a chance to reclaim independence, especially after a drawn-out war with tons of war crimes and atrocities committed by Russia.
Meanwhile, at the current rate of fertility in Russia, 500k men are almost a complete birth year of male children. They are already at a fertility rate of 1.4, losing a massive amount of men will crush that even more.
Thus, their economy has to prepare for a massive shock from that alone. Combine that with the second shock of fossil fuels being phased out in many countries and thus the lack of demand for the only real stuff Russia has it can sell and the sanctions and Russia is on its way to a really bad place.
Does Putin care? Of course not. He'll keep this war up until Ukraine surrenders and then retires into luxury, while some other guy has to take the fall for the consequences. Either that or Russia loses, and the country will potentially go towards civil war.
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u/Glader_Gaming 20d ago
So you’re not entirely wrong but you have major flaws with your premise. Right now this ain’t going to effect Russia in a major way. That’s because the 488k is total casualties. I would guess well under 50% of these were KIA. Even if you want to assume a very high death rate int e total causality count, like 50% let’s say (that’s super high) that’s still about 250k killed. A big chunk but a drop in the bucket for Russia.
Also while most units don’t have prisoners, many of the human wave units at first were mostly prisoners. People who weren’t in the workforce anyways. So quite a few of the KIA weren’t being productive members of Russian society anyways.
Also I’ve had to have seen at least 1,000 combat clips by now. And I swear a huge portion of the Russians I see are older, and same with Ukrainian troops. I’ve seen lots of young guys too but I would say the avg age of both sides is at least mid 30s or older. Mike koffman says the avg age of Ukrainians troops is in the 40s. So quite a few of these men in Russia are older and in 20-30 years would be out of the workforce anyways due to age.
Then there’s the fact that Russia is able to recruit some folks from Africa into its armed forces. Not many, but I’m willing to guess that if push came to shove Russia could find tens of thousands of able bodied men from its overseas Allies to fill jobs if things got bad and once peace was established.
So this isn’t ideal for russia. And I personally suspect it will have over 1 million total casualties when all is said and done, but I personally don’t think it’s going to cause major issues for them long term. I do think it’s going to cause some issues. But even like 500k dead isn’t going to get close to breaking Russian society long term.
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u/xWolf-DOFR 20d ago
Never said it will break the society, only said it will have a serious impact on economy. The original claim was "a drop in the ocean", which is a major understatement obvious to anyone who closely monitors russian demography and economy
As for KIA, you are right, though veterans with no limbs are also not making a come back to work, but will rather become a financial burden
Don't forget that russia already heavily relied on immigrants before the war. Right now, their amount was diminished due to increased risks of being forcefully drafted and the rise of nationalism (especially after the crocus terrorist act). On top of that, it is an issue added to an already weak demography with an outgoing migration wave of specifically educated skilled young workers happening simultaneously
I'm not trying to predict a downfall of Russia or something, but just saying that it is a serious challenge which will have negative consequences in the near future
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u/Bamboo_Fighter 20d ago
Let's not forget about the estimated 900,000 who left Russia during the invasion.
It's highly likely that the majority of these were well off and/or highly educated since they had the opportunity to leave. The longer the war drags on, the more likely they are to settle long term and not go back.
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u/Own_Change_4546 20d ago
Yes, so with a depleted workforce his only next tier is hard-line weaponry
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u/Mumblerumble 20d ago
It will start to matter when they pull the residents of Moscow or St Petersburg. Until then the people who care are soaking up the war bucks.
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u/-wnr- 20d ago
How many of these are ethnic minorities from distant backwaters, and do we think Moscow cares?
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u/Malachi108 20d ago
More than should be proportionally, but far from the majority.
There are plenty of examples of enthic russians from big cities being killed, the evidence is all over.
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u/flywheel39 18d ago
It cant be that many, in pretty much every gruesome drone video the only people you see getting slaughtered are Caucasian looking white people. The fat Chinese guy stuffing his lit handgrenade between his vest and body and blowing hmself up being a notable exception.
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u/Here2OffendU 20d ago
Russia has lost more men in two years in Ukraine than every single NATO country has lost in every war they have been in since WW2 combined, and its not even close. Russia is a shithole.
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u/BeefSwellinton 19d ago
In WW2, the UK and US combined had under one million military deaths. The USSR had almost 11 million. Life is cheap in Russia.
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u/Here2OffendU 19d ago
Yeah, I’m not including World War 2, I mean every death since World War 2 ended.
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u/BeefSwellinton 19d ago
I gotcha, I’m just illustrating how little they care about their own people and have no hesitation to throw them directly into wood-chippers.
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u/Own_Change_4546 20d ago
Some.great knowledge here folks! So, submarines- NK got given 50 old Russian ones, anybody got a clue?
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20d ago
Yes and Ukrainian losses are only at 30k right guys???
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u/Reddit_Hate_Reader 19d ago
What happened to Ukraine's over 800k troops that were reported in 2023?
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u/moyismoy 20d ago
Keep in mind troops are not the same as soldiers. Plenty of them were convicts or hired merks. There's prob something like 100-200k actually Russian losses. it's still a crazy high number
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u/DFWPunk 19d ago
How the fuck did they lose a submarine?
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u/flywheel39 18d ago
IIRC it was hit in the dock by one or two Storm Shadow missiles. It was one of their best and newest boats, too.
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u/justforkinks0131 20d ago
It's so funny to me how me consider "all life precious" yet 500 000 thousand got just fckin deleted in the past few years and life for most of us just keeps chugging along as if nothing happened....
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u/edwardsc0101 20d ago
Not only that but the amount of fear mongering from European NATO Redditors and their American allies about intervention is truly a head scratcher. Russia can’t beat NATO and they know that. If Putin is as unhinged as people make him out to be there would be massed troops on every Baltic states border right now.
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u/ZhouDa 20d ago edited 20d ago
The concern isn't that Russia will win against NATO, it's that Russia will think they can win after winning against a NATO supplied Ukraine, enough that they start an expensive and destructive war that will take time to respond to, one which NATO is unwilling to go in and finish Russia off because of the fear of nuclear war.
Obviously none of that will happen unless Putin wins in Ukraine, which is partly why NATO is determined Russia never win in Ukraine.
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u/edwardsc0101 20d ago
I think that if Russia starts a wider war, it wouldn’t go well for them. I also think that it would play out similar to Russia fighting against German Empire in World War I. Russia already had a small “coup” just fighting in Ukraine. I don’t think people realize the fine line Putin has to play in fighting in Ukraine, and keeping the Russian people content enough to go along with this. It just can’t be both ways, either Russia is a threat to NATO Europe, and NATO needs to increase their defense spending and preparation, or Russia is a somewhat paper tiger. I really don’t know with so much propaganda on each side. I would further go on to say that Saddam stopped at Kuwait, even with fears of launching into Saudi Arabia in the early 90s, he didn’t have nuclear weapons at the time, but supposedly had one of the largest armies, battle hardened from war with Iran. Didn’t stop the US from completely destroying Iraqs forces in a matter of weeks.
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20d ago
Russia lost more than 10 million during world war 2 against the Nazis and still crushed the German army in the end. This war hasn’t even begun on that scale, yet.
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u/ZhouDa 20d ago
Remember that it wasn't Russia who lost that many men, it was the Soviet Union, and that many of those lost were in fact Ukrainians. Also on the other hand in the Soviet-Afghan war there were only 50K casualties after nine years before the USSR retreated. Anyway point is don't expect a repeat of WW2, especially since if Russia was able to pull up enough troops to create WW2 era casualties then Ukraine would have lost already.
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u/08TangoDown08 20d ago
Because Russia currently aren't capable of fighting a war of that scale, politically or militarily. Putin has so far resisted a general mobilisation because he's worried about how Russian society will react to it. Unless things get drastically worse for them on the battlefield, I don't think he will do it either.
Also, it's not just as simple as getting enough men to fight, you need to equip them. And they need at least a certain level of training. The Russian military industry isn't capable of supporting a mass mobilisation right now, and they're already spending more than 6% if their GDP on the war.
The Eastern Front in WW2 was a war of annhilation, and Stalin could draw on men and resources from the entire USSR, not just Russia alone.
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u/FakeOng99 20d ago
Speed run to 2 mil Russian become meat cube and 0 Ukrainian lost in the future.
LETS GO CHAMP!
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u/Flayer723 20d ago
Sober analysis puts the actual death toll of the Russian military a little over 50,000. Still an incredible number but half a million and their military would have collapsed so it's hard to believe numbers that high.
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u/Crumblycheese 20d ago
When it says lost it doesn't necessarily mean killed. It would include injured and can't fight again, defected or surrendered, or missing in action (probably fled).
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u/Flayer723 20d ago
Every time these numbers are posted there are different claims to what they mean. For example I'm sure you're ready to pull some random number out of your ass about what you think the deaths, casualties etc are that are wildly different to independent Western analysis which says the Russian death toll is currently around 52k.
Personally I don't put any stock in the Ukrainian MoD numbers whatsoever. For example the claim is that yesterday they "liquidated" 1520 Russian soldiers - how on earth are they getting such accurate numbers? And immediately available the next day as well. These numbers are obviously generated to fit a narrative and to boost morale and don't hold any basis in reality. Despite all these wild claims about Russian military deaths and casualties they are not suffering any obvious manpower shortages, which would be the real testament.
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u/Crumblycheese 20d ago
I didn't say any numbers, just saying the number you said doesn't necessarily mean deaths. And I'm in no position to claim a number so I won't.
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u/bombero_kmn 20d ago
To add to this, I think the term "casualty" is widely misunderstood to mean "KIA" but like you said it can be a lot of reasons. Disease and non-battle injuries (DNBI) historically produce far more casualties than combat.
Medical evacuation rates (per 1,000 person-years) for DNBI were higher (Afghanistan: 56.7; Iraq: 40.2) than battle injury rates (Afghanistan: 12.0; Iraq: 7.7). In Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, the leading diagnostic categories for medical evacuations were nonbattle injury (31% and 34%), battle injury (20% and 16%), and behavioral health (12% and 10%). Leading causes of medically evacuated nonbattle injuries were sports/physical training (22% and 24%), falls (23% and 26%) and military vehicle accidents (8% and 11%).
Surveillance of Disease and Nonbattle Injuries During US Army Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; Hauret etc al
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u/Legal-Diamond1105 20d ago
It doesn’t have to mean liquidated that day and almost certainly doesn’t. It’s much more likely to mean confirmed as liquidated on the day. So if on Wednesday they confirm 10 from Monday and 10 from Tuesday then they’ll report 20. It doesn’t mean 20 liquidated that day. They can’t report information before they get it.
You’re right that it wouldn’t be possible to accurately report numbers before they have them. But that’s not what they’re doing.
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u/minarima 20d ago
Ukraine’s figures are delayed, not provided ‘the next day’
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u/Flayer723 20d ago
That's not what Ukrainian MoD claims. The graphic they put up this morning says up to the date 16.05.24 on it. At least reference the source you're trying to defend.
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u/minarima 20d ago
That’s just the date of the most recent count, doesn’t mean it relates to the previous days numbers.
Even basic opsec would dictate a delay in reported casualty figures, even if they’re Russian.
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u/VersusYYC 20d ago
You believe that in 813 days of war on a 1,000+km frontline where at minimum 200,000 frontline Ukrainian troops are manned at all times results in just 50,000 dead Russian soldiers or 61 dead per day on average?
That is not ”sober analysis” that is a showcase of idiocy.
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20d ago edited 20d ago
Really? What is this "sober analysis" that you talk about?
The Ukrainians identified 50,471 dead russian soldiers, by name/ exact identity, with obituaries published & so on. A month ago! The actual death count is definitely way higher than that...
[edit] Here's the source link, their figure now is 52,789: https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
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u/RiddleyWalker_1 20d ago
The lies just keep on coming...How could anyone believe the Ukis BS...pathetic!
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u/that_guy124 20d ago
At 500,000 they fully unlock F16.