Russian casualties?

This is a follow-up post to my post from Tuesday morning: So, have 9,861 Russians really been killed in Ukraine? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

We currently have four casualty reports coming out claiming extremely high casualties for the Russian Army in Ukraine. They are:

  1. The briefing posting on 22 March in Komsomolskaya Pravda that stated: “According to the Russian Defense Ministry, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9,861 people killed and 16,153 wounded.”
    1. This is a 1.64-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio, which is at least half of what you would expect to see.
    2. I do have a book, War by Numbers, that discusses wounded-to-killed ratios in Chapter 15.
  2. Then there is the U.S. estimate from 18 March which reported 3,000 to 10,000 soldiers killed.
  3. Then there was a NATO report from yesterday that reports 7,000 to 15,000 soldiers killed, up to 40,000 casualties total.
  4. Then there is the Ukrainian army claim of 15,800 Russians killed as of 24 March.
    1. They also claim 530 tanks and 108 planes, which also seems high.

What also gets my attention is that Ukrainian Army losses are reported to be:

  1. 1,300 killed on 12 March as reported by Ukraine.
  2. 2,000 – 4,000 killed as of 9 March as estimated by U.S. DOD.

Now, it is not unheard of for an army to achieve a three-to-one kill ratio during a campaign. This happened at lot on the Russian Front in World War II (1941-1945) between Germany and Russia, with Germany usually getting the better of this exchange. It happened at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, with Germany getting the better of this exchange, even though the Russians were on the defensive, well rested, and in prepared positions (I have a couple of books on this). Even higher exchange ratios  happened in the two Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, with the Israeli’s getting the better of this exchange. So, it is possible. 

On the other hand, the Russians, with superior firepower and air superiority, are losing at potentially an exchange of over seven-to-one if we use the higher estimates of Russian losses. This is a hard sale.  

Added to that, these estimates are indicating total losses of 40,000 or greater out of a force of 150,000 (more than 25% losses). Assuming a more reasonable three-to-one wounded to killed ratio (and maybe five-to-one might be even more reasonable), then the figure of 9,861 points to 40,000 losses. The NATO figure estimates 15,000 killed and up to 40,000 casualties. This is a 1.67-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio. If we go with a more reasonable estimate of 3-to-1 wounded-to-killed, this would mean 60,000 casualties, or 40% of the invading Russian Army. This is hard to believe.

I do not know what Russian losses are. On the other hand, I am having a hard time accepting some of these higher estimates. If Ukrainian losses were closer to 10,000 soldiers, then I could believe the higher Russian estimates, but I gather Ukrainian losses are nowhere near 10,000 soldiers.

 

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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17 Comments

  2. So if we say there are 150,000 Russians deployed
    https://en.as.com/en/2022/02/24/latest_news/1645729870_894320.html

    That’s 3/10ths of 1% based on the Dupuy chart here
    https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/06/09/attrition-in-future-land-combat/

    Which is 450 per day for 13,500 on day 30. With roughly 20% being dead. This presumes of course a lot.

    I can see low Ukrainian casualties in so far as the Russians bombing of relatively pointless civilian targets implies they are having a hard time finding military units that are bombable. The Ukrainians are either staying hidden, or in the siege zones are hugging too close. Since this would also limit artillery, the big battlefield killer, and a main Russian advantage.

    I do have your book War By Numbers, but not with me, thus my using online resources.

    In case, my crude methodology pretty much agrees with your assessment of Russian deaths. It also comes up with overall casualties of less than 10% of overall force; which seems more plausible for a war the doesn’t seem to involve much brigade+ sized artillery battles.

  4. The high killed to wounded ratio could be due to a large percentage being armoured vehicle crews… When a tank or APC brews up catastrophically there aren’t many wounded…

    • Probably not. 200 – 500 tanks destroyed. This does not get me to 10,000 killed. APCs are a different subject, and of course, it depends on whether they were occupied or not when they were hit. It is very hard to get down to a 1.64-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio (I have never seen one so low for an entire force), which I why I immediately questioned the briefly published claims.

  5. A couple of comments on your very informative recent posts on Russian casualties in Ukraine and their believability.

    1) Althougy often portrayed in the media as the number of Russians killed, it’s not clear to me whether the Russian casualties estimated by Ukraine are total casualties or deaths. The translated Ukrainian General Staff Facebook posts, https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/279494771030275, that are, I believe, the source of those numbers calls the estimated losses reported there “total combat losses,” which would include KIA, WIA, and captured. If it is total combat losses, it would make the estimated Ukranian kill ratio much more plausible. Do you have any insights as to whether the Ukranians are reporting estimated Russian deaths or total casualties?

    2) Although still extraordinarily low, the ratio of wounded to killed in the accidently released, or hacked, Russian newspaper report is somewhat more consistent with U.S. historical numbers if the deaths include those who have died of wounds . For example, in your October 27, 2016, post, the ratio of surviving wounded to battle deaths and died of wounds is given as 2.77 for the U.S. Army in WW II, excluding the USAAF, as compared to 4.25 for the wounded in battle to deaths in battle ratio. It seems that one way that a lower that expected wounded to killed ratio could happen is if the Russians are having trouble evacuating their wounded.

    I have found all your posts that I have read very informative–I just ordered your book.

    Thanks.

    Steven Moore

    • Thanks for the book order. Have fun.

      I have not examined the Ukraine wording of their estimates in depth, but it has been consistently reported as killed, and apparently the U.S. and NATO upper ranges of their estimates have been increased to match the Ukrainian and they are saying killed (see my post on Russian casualties on 24 March).

      As for getting down to a 1.64-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio, that is pretty hard to do. Even medieval and ancient combat did better than that. This is what immediately tipped me off that there was something wrong with the posted report.

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