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Ukraine Is Lying About Casualty Ratios To Justify Holding Of Bakhmut
I follow and like Adam Tooze. His Chartbooks have always good materials. This recent one on the Silicon Valley Bank crash is also fine.
But I was somewhat disturbed by a recent tweet of his:
Adam Tooze @adam_tooze – 20:11 UTC · Mar 9, 2023
"Some experts worry Ukraine may be expending high-quality troops and equipment to kill mere Russian prison recruits as “cannon fodder”." Wow the language around the attritional battle at Bakhmut is getting grotesque! 7:1 ratio not good enough for you?
Link: ft.com Military briefing: Ukraine’s battle of diminishing returns for Bakhmut
Was that satire?
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA – 20:14 UTC Mar 9, 2023
Replying to @adam_tooze
7:1 to whose advantage?
He did not respond. But no, it was not satire. The linked Financial Times piece, reprinted in the Irish Times, actually quotes the Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov as saying that the kill ratio was one to seven in Ukraine's favor.
The whole passage is nuts:
US and European officials estimate 200,000 Russian troops have been killed or seriously injured since February last year, and Ukraine about half that.
One western official said Russia had suffered “between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties over the past six months”, adding that most of them were mercenaries fighting for the Wagner private military company. Wagner’s operations have been largely focused on Bakhmut.
Nato officials estimate one Ukrainian had been killed or injured for every five Russians. Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov last week estimated the ratio was “one to seven in our favour”.
This makes no sense. Had 200,000 Russian's be killed or seriously wounded in the war while 20,000 to 30,000 of those were killed or wounded in the past six month then the first six month of the war would have cost the Russian side 175,000 losses. That's more than the total numbers that were, until the recent mobilization, involved in the whole campaign. Those numbers must have been pulled from hot air.
Danilov casualty ratio is likewise obvious nonsense.
The Medical Department of the U.S. Army has a book about CAUSATIVE AGENTS OF BATTLE CASUALTIES IN WORLD WAR II. It is quoted here:
A report on the causative agents of battle casualties in World War II showed the comparative incidence of casualties from different types of weapons for several theaters. Compilers of the report believed that, while the more detailed subdivisions within their three major classes were open to question, their findings on the percent of total casualties due to small arms, artillery and mortars, and “miscellaneous” were reasonably accurate. From these they drew the following conclusions:
1. Small arms fire accounted for between 14 and 31 percent of the total casualties, depending upon the theater of action: The Mediterranean theater, 14.0 percent; the European theater, 23.4 percent; and the Pacific theaters, 30.7 percent.
2. Artillery and mortar fire together accounted for 65 percent of the total casualties in the European and Mediterranean theaters, 64.0 and 69.1, respectively. In the Pacific, they accounted for 47.0 percent.
The Encyclopedia Britannica likewise notes for World War I:
The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms, and then by poison gas.
When I was in officer school the number estimated for a big war in Europe was 75% of casualties due to artillery and aerial bombing.
Data from the European Commission, quoted by El Pais, says that Russia has a 10:1 advantage in artillery:
According to data from the European Commission to which EL PAÍS has had access, Russia fires between 40,000 and 50,000 artillery shells per day, compared to 5,000-6,000 Ukrainian forces expend. The Estonian government, which has been one of largest contributors to Kyiv’s war effort, puts the average use of artillery at between 20,000 and 60,000 Russian shells per day, and 2,000 to 7,000 Ukrainian rounds, according to a document sent to EU Member States by Tallinn, to which this newspaper has had access.
The Russian forces fire ten times the number of shells the Ukrainians can fire. In a modern war artillery fire causes 65+% of all casualties. It is thus impossible that Ukraine is losing less soldiers than the Russians.
The total ratio may well be 7 to 1 but it will certainly be to the advantage of the Russian forces side.
But minimizing the losses Ukraine has in Bakhmut seems to be a current propaganda scheme. A recent Newsweek piece quotes similar nonsense.
This propaganda seems to be designed to justify the Ukrainian decision to hang on to the city as long as possible:
Moscow's troops are on the cusp of taking the city in the eastern Donetsk region fought over for months, of which they reportedly control half. Amid rumors of a Ukrainian retreat Western officials suggested would do Kyiv no harm, President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted his troops would stay to prevent Russian forces from moving on "to other towns."
Already in January the U.S. was pressing the Ukraine to forget about Bakhmut and to move to a more mobile campaign:
In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, said the US wants to help Ukraine shift away from the sort of pitched battle of attrition playing out in Bakhmut and focus instead on a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia, sources familiar with their discussion said.
The hundreds of armored vehicles the US and European countries have provided to Ukraine in recent weeks, including 14 British tanks, are meant to help Ukraine make that shift, officials said.
In his latest summary Dima of the Military Summary Channel reported that the Ukrainian side will soon try a counterattack to cut the Russian ring around Bakhmut and to draw the Russian side into a decisive general battle.
I see, like Dima, little chance that such an attempt could be successful. The force ratio to achieve something like that is simply not there.
But if the Ukraine wants to do that, against 'western' advice, it needs some justifications. The lies about casualty ratios in favor of Ukraine seem designed to give those.
Simplicius has a very long Substack post up in which he does a Q&A with his pledgers. The post is available to free subscribers like me. This is a long and very informative post and a must-read for everyone here in my less-than-humble opinion.
Saturday Reader’s Mailbag Extravaganza – (3/11/23) – Answers
Paid subscribers’ questions are answered in long form.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/saturday-readers-mailbag-extravaganza
He starts by describing his journey from ignorance to knowledge about the Western government lies starting with 9/11.
Then he discusses whether and how the US elections will affect the war. This contains the following prediction about the progress of the war:
Firstly, let me say that I do believe the war will continue for at least roughly that time span. I wrote in the last report how thus far two months is the average time it takes to capture a medium-sized city, and that doesn’t include the several months of lead time usually in between, that constitutes the shaping of the battlefield and the ‘approach’ toward said city. So if you do the simple math of that, there is a long way to go.
I believe that the remainder of 2023 can revolve simply around capturing the Slavyansk/Kramatorsk agglomerate, and I’m not even sure that can be achieved by the end of 2023, much less capturing the remainder of the regions east of the Dnieper. And yes, I still am expecting a much larger Russian military incursion which we thought might happen weeks ago. However, even with that it doesn’t mean things will go fast because Ukraine has by now mobilized many new reserve brigades they can call up to defend a potential new Russian offensive. Not that they’ll succeed, but it means the offensive won’t be a blitzkrieg that tears through the country unstoppably.
I’m not sure I agree with that – or at least, that it’s necessarily true. I suspect that once Donbass is cleared things will move much faster regardless of how many alleged “new brigades” the Ukrainians can realistically come up with, in the absence of weapons, vehicles, air defense and everything else the Russians have demolished over the past 12 months and which the West has been unable to keep up with.
He then discusses the Eurasian unification progress and the US antipathy to it.
He then answers the question, “Where are the Chechens?” Basically he thinks they’re still there (and gives examples), but lower profile since the main fight is Bahkmut and Wagner is in control of that.
He then discusses the question of what kind of end of the war will be acceptable to either side. He concludes that by saying:
My own personal views is the only ‘reasonable’ solution is for Russia to complete the full mandate of the SMO—total unconditional surrender of the AFU by way of complete demilitarization/destruction of their armed forces, followed by total occupation of the country and regime change to a non-NATO-installed puppet. This is because at this point, now that NATO/West’s designs are clear, Russia cannot risk the existential threat of having such a rabid, racist, armed Nazi state right on its borders any longer.
It may sound harsh, but that’s realpolitik.
With which I agree completely.
He then discusses how the Russian reconstruction in the liberated areas is progressing.
He then discusses this favorite information sources in social media, then mentions the Nordstream bombing and then the Russian deployment of glide bombs.
He then further discusses Russian “end goals”, stating:
Apart from this, and although this infuriates even many pro-Russian supporters because they so badly want things to be clear cut and easy to understand, Russia is playing its cards ‘close to its chest’ for the reasons I mentioned earlier. It wants to remain flexible in order to respond to NATO’s moves. If Russia telegraphed all of its exact plans and objectives, it would give the West opportunities to try to countervail them. This way, Russia can keep them guessing.
But ideally, of course, certainly Russia wants the total surrender of the AFU and regime change in Kiev to a non-Western puppet leader who will oversee years of demilitarization of the AFU and have strong links to Moscow to make sure Ukraine stays demilitarized. A sort of ‘occupation’ can also be in the cards, where a certain contingent of Russian peacekeeping forces stay in country to make sure there are no covert attempts at militarization. After all, this is no different to how US does it—it continues to have military bases in almost all of its formerly conquered countries, from Germany, to Japan, etc. The purpose of these is really to keep a boot on the neck of these countries, making sure they never militarize too much.
In short, Russia’s chief goal and worry is to keep from being thrown off-balance by the variety of tricks and trump-cards that NATO has in store for the region; like the various destabilizing provocations they can ignite at any time—i.e. Transnistria, etc.
He then discusses Russian artillery technology, followed by a brief mention of the SA-Iran rapprochement.
He then discusses the possibility of a “Korean” ending to the war. He considers it “possible” but he hopes it won’t happen and believes it probably won’t.
He then discusses the Prigozhin-Putin relationship. He points out what I’ve also said:
With that said, it must be understood that Prigozhin is not a ‘commander’ and does not make the battle plans for his soldiers, other than ostensibly. He has no real military experience or knowledge. That means Wagner is in fact commanded by Russian military and falls under their command structure and purview. They aren’t some independent ‘lone wolf’ group that just does what they want laissez-faire style.
He also points out something I’ve said repeatedly here:
However, at the end of the day it’s a simple undeniable fact that Wagner to a large extent is also there for 1. plausible deniability 2. to keep excess losses off the nominal Russian ‘books’ and stat sheets.
This is the harsh reality, but is standard operations. Yes, it’s greatly in Russia’s interest to have lower official casualties for obvious reasons. Wagner provides the opportunity for Russia to utilize a trained shock force in city battles which typically produce a lot of casualties, and basically have all those casualties ‘off the books’.
Finally he discusses what are the US objectives in this war, closing with this aphorism:
The famous Anglo-Saxon axiom goes:
Keep Russians out, Germans down, and Americans in. – Nato’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, when explaining the aims behind the new military alliance
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:26 utc | 88
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