While pursuing Mediazona counts of Russian war dead, I discovered that I am quoted in a number of recent articles. This includes:
25 Jan: What’s the truth about casualty numbers in Ukraine? – The Post (unherd.com)
1 Feb: Ukraine war: casualty counts from either side can be potent weapons and shouldn’t always be believed (yahoo.com)
2 Feb: Ukraine war: Casualty counts from either side can be potent weapons and shouldn’t always be believed (phys.org)
2 Feb: Ukraine: casualty count lies as a fog of war – Asia Times
I did exchange emails with James Billot on 23 Jan (see first article).
Getting back to Mediazona, their count as of 9 December was 10,002 Russian service members killed. See: BBC and Mediazona confirm 10,000 Russian soldiers dead in Ukraine — Meduza
To quote from that article: “BBC notes that, by the most conservative estimates, the real number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine may exceed 20,000, and the total number of irretrievable losses could be as high as 90,000.”
Not sure of the basis for the irretrievable loss estimate. Seems very high. More than most estimates of total wounded if there were 20,000 killed.
Mediazona‘s count of Russian service members killed as of 3 February was 13,030. See: A quarter of the dead are yesterday’s civilians: what is known about Russia’s losses in Ukraine by February – BBC News Russian service
The article also states:
“Consequently, according to the most conservative estimate, during the invasion of Ukraine, Russia could lose more than 26 thousand people dead.”
“Russia’s total irretrievable losses (i.e., the number of those out of action due to injury, death or missing) could be at least 117,000.”
“This figure is based on the observations of the Center for Naval Analysis of the United States, according to which for every dead Russian soldier during the war in Ukraine, there are an average of about three and a half wounded.”
Not sure of the basis for the 3.5-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio.
Anyhow, 26K x 5 (as I favor a four-to-one wounded to killed ratio) = 130,000 casualties (killed and wounded).
This is assuming that actual Russian killed are twice what Mediazona is counting, which appears to be what they are assuming.
