Mystics & Statistics

A blog on quantitative historical analysis hosted by The Dupuy Institute

Carded-for-Record in WWII

In our report: “C-1 Combat Mortality: Why is Marine Combat Mortality Less than That of the Army (JCS) (March 1998),” volume 2, Figure 145 is the following table. It was part of the presentation done by Col. (Dr.) Ron Bellamy. 

From Table 1, page 4, Medical Statistics in WWII, Office of the Surgeon General, US Army, 1975

                                            The Adjutant              The Surgeon

Type of Casualty                General’s Report       General’s Report

Wounded in Action            592,170                       723,560

    Carded for record only           —                        123,836

    Wounded admissions             —                        599,724

Total Deaths                        216,005                      213,030

    Killed in action                189,696                      192,220

    Died of wounds                 26,309                        20,810

    Other battle deaths           18,869                        16,793

Total killed and wounded   808,175                      936,590

Ratio, Wounded/Deaths           2.74                            3.40

Percent Deaths                         0.27                            0.23

 

If I calculate the wounded-to-killed ratios based upon KIA + DOW/WIA (wounded admissions) it comes out to 2.74 (as shown above) and 2.82-to-1 (vice 3.40).

Anyhow, the carded for record discussion for Vietnam is a little more complex. Maybe later.

Return-to-Duty (RTDs)

I have never really done any work on RTDs. I have an entire chapter on Casualties (Chapter 15) in War by Numbers, but nothing really on RTDS.

Anyhow, more than one person has asked me about this, so let me outline what I/we know:

1). The rule of thumb Trevor Dupuy developed on RTDs was in his “Handbook on Ground Forces Attrition in Modern Warfare,” September 1986, page 90. It says:

“Finally, there is a general rule of thumb for estimating returns to duty from casualties. For each 100 personnel casualties (battle casualty, disease, or injury) 75 will be returned to duty at the end of 20 days at a rate of five per day between the 6th and 20th days after admission, and 25 will never be returned to duty as a result of death, evacuation to the Zone of the Interior, or discharge. This will vary widely from situation to situation, depending in large part upon the theater evacuation policy.”

It is also in his book Attrition, pages 53-54, stated the exact same way. We still have copies of Attrition for sale: TDI Books For Sale (dupuyinstitute.org).
 

2). A report done by several people, including Ron Bellamy, who I have worked with, provides the following table:

This chart is from this report: ADA480496.pdf (dtic.mil). I am indebted to Alex Roslin for this research.

Note that RTDs here is those that are returned within 72 hours. So, 752,396 WIA in WWII. Of those, 20% are RTD within 72 hours (and 2.8% are DOW). For Vietnam 235,398 WIA. Of those, 35% are RTD within 72 hours (and 2.1% are DOW). Note that these RTDs within 72 hours are probably all casualties “carded for record only.”

Note that the wounded-to-killed ratio for the WWII data is 4.94-to-1 or 4.22-to-1 if DOW is counted as KIA vice WIA and 3.36-to-1 if DOW is counted as KIA and RTD is not counted as WIA. The wounded-to-killed ratio for Vietnam data is 6.15-to-1 or 5.33-to-1 if DOW is counted as KIA vice WIA or 3.43-to-1 is RTD is not counted.

For the Iraq/Afghanistan data there are 16,235 WIA. Of those, 51% were RTD within 72 hours (and 2.4% are DOW).The wounded-to-killed ratio is 12.82-to-1 or 9.61-to-1 if DOW is counted at KIA vice WIA and 4.58-to-1 is RTD is not counted.

Now, I suspect some of the figures are skewed by how casualties are counted. In World War I and II, you were counted as wounded if you spent the night in a hospital. In Vietnam at one point the U.S. Army counted 96,900 wounded and maybe 104,000 carded-for-record only, meaning over 100,000 soldiers were not counted as wounded, but were allowed to receive the Purple Heart (my father got one that way). I may need to do a blog post about “carded for record” or WIANE (wounded-in-action, not evacuated).

See our report: “C-1 Combat Mortality: Why is Marine Combat Mortality Less than That of the Army (JCS) (March 1998),” page 19. This was done as a joint project with Ron Bellamy. 

3). Now, where the “rule of thumb” that Trevor Dupuy came from is not known. In an attempt to find them, I pulled up three of the old HERO reports 1) 14. Historical Analysis of Wartime Replacement Requirements (26 July 1966), 2) 48. German and Soviet Replacement Systems in World War II (July 1975), and 3) 86. Analytic Survey of Personnel Replacement Systems in Modern War (Apil 1981).

In the second report, page 24 they do have a table “Table 3. German Replacement Army Strength, NCOs and Men, 1 September 1944” which has a total of 2,137,973 with “convalescents” making up 178.456 of that replacement army strength (8%). On 4 December 1944 (page 45) they show for November 1944 342,000 replacements of which 40,000 are convalescents (12%). And then on page 54 there are four tables, three which show convalescents. The most interesting is “Table 20: Losses and Arrivals, German Field Army. From July 1943 to March 1944.” It shows arrivals by month to the Eastern Front as 930,000, of which 421,000 are convalescents, 478,500 are replacements and 30,500 are FTDs (recruits sent to Feild Training Divisions). For “Other Fronts,” the numbers are much smaller: 24,000 convalescents and 50,000 replacements. What is interesting, but not surprising, is that the number of convalescents increase over time. From July through October 1943 it is 34,000 to 46,000 convalescents for each month, by February and March 1944 it is 60,000 convalescents a month. 

For the Russians (page 90), the Germans estimated that 200,000 Russian convalescents were returned monthly to combat as replacements. The Germans estimated (page 91) that in 1942 ten Soviets armies received 764,000 replacements. Of them, new conscripts formed 56.5% of the total, 22.5% were convalescents, 10% were from labor battalions, 9.5% had been non-combat troops, and 1.5% had formerly had occupational deferments. Over 44,000, about 6%, were former convicts, released from prions and concentration camps. 

For 1 January-31 August 1943 for sixteen Soviet armies the Germans estimated that 89% of the replacements were new conscripts, 9% were convalescents, and 2% were former non-combat and survivors of units destroyed. Also of interest is that the Germans estimated that 28% had training of less than 10 days, 49.6% had training of up to one month, and 22.4% had training of over one month. I will avoid the temptation to equate this with the current war in Ukraine.

A third report indicates that in June 1943, 34,384 Soviet replacements reached units (probably the Bryansk Army Group) facing the German Ninth Army as follows: 82% were new conscripts, 7% were convalescents, 11% were former non-combat. Their training was reported as 26% less than 10 days, 49% up to one month, and 11% were former non-combat.  

Now, none of this actually answers my questions on RTD rates, but I still found it pretty damn interesting.

Finally, there is the report “Analytic Survey of Personnel Replacement Systems in Modern War.” This last report was primarily written by C. Curtiss Johnson (in case he is reading this blog). 

It provides a few snippets of useful data. For example (page 48), it states for the 6695 and 6706 Conditional Companies (U.S. Army, Italy) that between 1 July 1944 and 10 June 1945 the two companies process approximately 12,400 patients, of whom nearly 10,400 were rehabilitated sufficiently to return to unit. This is 84% returned-to-duty.

In the case of the Vietnam War, the 90th Replacement battalion from the quarter ending 31 Jan 1969 through 31 October, processed 172,585 replacements and 175,346 returnees. Not sure this tells us much.

 But this does… to quote (starting from page C-2):

Table 20, based on data compile by the Office of the Surgeon, MTOUSA, in December 1944, shows… the sample included 71,378 patients, 29,727 of whom had been injured and 41,651 of whom were battle casualties. Of the injured patients, 26,174 or 88.05% were returned to duty after hospitalization, 799 or 2,69% died, and 2,754 or 9.26% were evacuated to ZI hospitals. Of battle casualty patients (WIA), 29,860 or 71.69% were returned to duty, 1,130 or 2.71% died, and 10,661 or 25.60% were evacuate to ZI hospitals.

Experience during 1943-1944 showed that 86.69% of injury patients who were returned to duty became General Assignment personnel, and the remainder (13.31%) became Limited Assignment. The same figures for battle casualty patients were 83.89% General Assignment personnel and 16.11% Limited Assignment personnel.  

…The General Board, ETO,… finding may be expressed in tabular form as follows:

Percentage of Returns Correlated to Theater Evacuation Policy

Days after Admission     Battle Casualties (2,090)   Non-Battle Cas. (100,000)

  60                                    50.7                                        90.6

  90                                    59.5                                        93.0

120                                    64.8                                        93.4

Of the total returned to duty, 28.6% of the battle casualties and 5.3% of the non-battle casualties were estimated to be Limited Assignment personnel. While no comparison can be made between the injuries surveyed by the Office of the Surgeon, MTOUSA, and the non-battle casualties surveyed by the General Board, ETO, the data for battle casualties in the two reports can be compared. This comparison shows that the MTO return rate (71.69%) much exceeded the greatest rate reported for the ETO (64.8%) and that the percentage of returned who became Limited Duty personnel was greater for the ETO (28.6%) than for the MTO (16.11%). The probable explanation for the disparity in these rates was the size of the populations surveyed: the ETO battle casualty sample was 2,090; the MTO sample was 41,651.

The Report of the Army’s postwar Replacement Board provides qualitative and quantitative assessments of the replacement value of hospitalized casualties. In Volume V, Annex 14, p. 1, Major General Russell B. Reynolds, who was ACS, G-1, SPA, stresses the replacement value of hospital returnees and comments:

When you sustain 10 battle casualties, you’ll bury 3, evacuate 2 to the US, find 4 suitable for return to duty in branch, and have to retrain, either in a training center, or on the job, 1. In the case of non-battle casualties, for each 10 you’ll evacuate about 4/10 of a man, bury 1/10 of a man, and find 8 2/4 suitable for return to duty in branch, and face a retraining job on 3/4 of a man. 

These numbers may be expressed on a percent basis as follows: of surviving battle casualties, 28.6% will be evacuees and 71.4% will be returnees; of surviving non-battle casualties, 4.0% will be evacuees and 96% will be returnees. It is interesting to note that when these figures are compared to the same figures derived from MTO and ETO data, there is a remarkable degree of correlation. 

The World War II data presented above may be compared to data developed from the statistical records of World War I by Colonel Albert G. Love of the US Army’s Medical Corps in 1931. Love found that in any typical group of AEF disease and non-battle injury (DNBI) patients, 3.70% would die, 7.52% would have to be evacuated (total lost 11.22%), and 88.78% would be returned to duty. For AEF battle casualty patients, excluding gas wounds, 8.12% would die, 29.58% would have to be evacuated (total lost 37.70%), and 61.88% would be returned to duty. The return rates for World War I DNBI casualties are very close to those of World War II, while World War I BC return rate is smaller than the smallest World War II BC return rate (ETO, General Board: 64.8%). The small World War I BC return rate undoubtedly reflects the less advanced medical treatment available in the earlier conflict (notice, for example, the greater percentage of BC patients dying in hospital).

Expressed in terms of AEF theater evacuation policies, Love’s data reveals the following:

Percentage of Returns Correlated to Theater Evacuation Policy

                                               Percentage Returned to Duty

Days after Admission          Battle Casualties        DNBI

  30                                        24.88                            67.40

  60                                        46.17                            81.74

  90                                        55.73                            86.38

120                                        59.53                            87.95   

…The best, most recent set of data on the replacement value of hospitalized personnel is the data developed from the Korean conflict by Frank A. Reister… Reister’s Table 13, p. 14, shows the final disposition of 248,946 US Army patients from division units originating in Korea during July 1950 – July 1953. Of this number 72,961 were battle casualties (WIA) and 175,985 were non-battle casualties. The distribution of final disposition for battle casualties originating in division units was as follows: 2.2% (1,574) died of wounds, 87.9% (64,159) returned to duty, 8.5% (6,239) were separated for disability, and 1.4% (989) wee administrative separations. The distribution of final dispositions for division non-battle casualties was as follows: 0.3% (485) died, 98.6% (173,525) returned to duty, 0.9% (1,625) were separated for disability, and 0.2% (35) were administrative separations.  

The return to duty figures developed by Reister may be compared to the same figures from Love’s compilation and the various World War II sets to indicate the relative increase in percentage of returns in the two admission categories since World War I and to underscore the value of hospital returnees as a source of replacements in future wars.

Bolding is mine. I suspect the bolded sentence was the basis of the Trevor Dupuy rule of thumb on RTDs.

In the end, there are over 140 old HERO, TNDA, DMSI and Trevor Dupuy reports. None that I have looked at clearly show where his “rule of thumb” on RTDs comes from, although it appears to have come from the last report referenced. I do have more old Dupuy files than I have time to look through them. 

4) There is probably more material out there of value. If so, please post it to the comments in this blog.

5) Proselytizing note: I really did try a couple of years ago to get a probably study done on wounded-to-killed ratios and weapon lethality over time. Could never quite get the funding. Not sure why. See: Two proposals on Combat Casualties | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

If someone really wants the answers to these types of questions, then someone needs to start funding proper research.

The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 380

Bakhmut still has not fallen. On Monday (6 March), Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, in conjunction with a couple of his generals, said that they are going to hold Bakhmut. So far this week, it appears that almost nothing significant has happened there. The front lines are moving forward incrementally in only a few spots.

There is a gap of only around 4 kilometers between the north and south wings of the Russian advance. One or both sides have taken heavy losses in this battle. I do think this is good article to read, as all the reporting seems to be overly focused on Russian losses: Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut: ‘Our troops are not being protected’ (msn.com)). The weather has warmed up, leaving the ground very muddy, which is certainly slowing and limiting operations. We are almost to the middle of March. After that point, it will pretty much be mud season until the beginning of May.

The Russians finally delivered their first major air strike since February 10. Clearly doing a major air strike once a month is not going to permanently shut down the Ukrainian power grid. This attack was in response to the several attacks that occurred in Russian territory this last week. The Russia Defense Ministry specifically stated that it was a retaliatory strike for the attack on Bryansk region on 2 March. This strike was 81 missiles targeted in 10 regions. Ukraine claimed to have shot down 34 cruise missiles and 8 Shahed drones on Thursday. Russia also used 6 ballistic missiles, which Ukraine does not have the capability to shoot down. At least six people were killed.

There have also been several strikes in Russia this last week. This includes 1) the Russian Volunteer Corps, led by the neo-fascist Denis Kapustin (aka Nikitin), a unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine, making an incursion into the bordering Bryansk district on 2 March with a couple of dozen people (45 according to Kapustin) and killing two, 2) some strikes in the Belgorod region, 3) a failed drone strike against a gas facility on 28 February in the Moscow region, 60 miles from Moscow and 4) on 7 March a Russian Il-76 A-50 (an AWACs plane) was damaged near Minsk, in Belarus. Russia is also claiming today that Kapustin attempted to assassinate a Russian oligarch.

What is interesting over the last month is what has not happened. The weather at the beginning of the month finally chilled enough to freeze the ground. This created a six-week window for offensive operations. We are now almost through that window and neither side has conducted a major offensive. Other things that have not happened include: 1) Bakhmut has not fallen, 2) Russia had not showed up on the battlefield with an extra 200,000 or 500,000 troops and 3) the Ukrainian power grid has not been shut down. In general, this month is notable for what has not happened. Needless to say, some “analysts” were predicting all kinds of things.

The rest of the front is quiet. In the last two weeks there has not been much action to the south of Bakhmut at the village of Vuhledar (pop. 14,144 in 2022). Two Russian naval infantry brigades (the 155th and the 40th) appear to have taken heavy losses in an attack a couple of weeks ago, and nothing has happened since then. There are only minor actions with some limited advances north of Avdeevka and some minor operations around Kreminna and Svatove. There was another Ukrainian strike on two Russian bases in Melitopol, with claims of high Russian casualties.

The Russian losses at Vuhledar appear to include (based upon Orynx): 19 tanks destroyed, 4 abandoned and 1 captured; 31 AFVs destroyed, 9 abandoned, 1 captured; 9 trucks and specialized vehicles destroyed. This covers losses from 26 Jan to 27 Feb.  The much higher loss figures that other people quote appear to be based upon tanks and IFVs “damaged.” Not sure exactly what that means. This is heavy losses. Whether it is enough to gut one or two brigades is harder to determine.

The U.S. and many countries in and around Europe are now providing tanks to Ukraine. This includes 31 Abrams (M1A2) from the U.S., the previously announced 40 AMX-10 light tanks from France, the previously announced 14 Challengers from the UK and 14 new Challengers from the UK, 14 Leopards (2A6) from Germany announced on Jan. 25 plus they are going to provide 14 more later, 14 or so Leopards (2A4?) from Poland, maybe 20 Leopards (2A4) from Spain, but so far only 6 have been confirmed (they are planning to train 55 Ukrainian crew members), no Leopards from Netherlands (previous rumors said 18), Portugal is sending 4 (2A6) out of their 37, 8 (2A4) from Norway out of their 36, and 4 2A4 Leopards from Canada out of their 80. Non-NATO members Finland is providing 3 Leopards and Sweden is providing 6 or 10 A6s. Also, Morocco is providing Ukraine with 173 T-74s EA, 70 are already in Ukraine. It does appear in a number of cases the announcements are lagging behind the actual shipments of tanks. Poland is providing Ukraine with another 60 upgraded T-72s. It has already sent Ukraine some 260 or more tanks. 

Twelve countries in NATO have Leopards. Germany is saying that a total of around 80 will be sent between them all. My count currently shows at least 73 Leopards from eight different countries (two not yet in NATO). It now looks like many of the older 40-45 ton German Leopard Is are being refurbished and will be sent. Germany has 88 of them it could send and Belgium has 50. Between Denmark, Netherlands and Germany, they are putting together a package of 100 1A5s, although the details of the deal keep changing.  It will be a while before most of them arrive. An initial package of 29 is being refurbished and are supposed to arrive in the summer (enough for one more brigade). There are a lot of them out there, with Greece supposedly having 520 (and 392 U.S. M-48s and 100 U.S. M-60s) and Turkey having 355 or 397 (and 750 M-48s and 785 M-60s). Opportunity to replace old stocks. Switzerland has 230 Leopard 2 tanks of which 96 are not in operation (in storage). Germany has asked for them but on 7 March the Swiss Parliament voted not to export tanks.

From a practical point of view, it means that around four or so Ukrainian tank battalions will be armed up with Abrams/Leopard 2/Challengers. Ukraine has over 30 tank battalions. Some should probably be in place for the spring offensives. Some of the Canadian Leopard 2s have already arrived in Poland. At least 14 of the Leopards have arrived in Ukraine. Challengers will be arriving in Ukraine next month (March).

I will put any changes/updates since my last post in italics. A link to a blow up of the map is here: Wikipedia map. It is dated 10 March. The last dated update on the map is Soledar on 16 January.

Map from 13 January 2023 of Bakhmut area is from @War_Mapper:

Map from 6 March 2023 of Bakhmut from @War_Mapper:

Russia currently occupies five cities: Lysychansk (pop. 95,031), Severodonetsk (pop. 101,135), Mariupol (pop. 431,859), Berdyansk (pop. 107,928) and Melitopol (pop. 150,768). Kherson (pop. 283,649) was retaken by Ukraine on 11 November.

 

We have been looking at six major areas of operations. Only the Donbas appears to be active right now. 

1. Kyiv (pop: 2,962,180): It appears that Kyiv is secure.

2. Odesa (pop: 1,015,826): Appears to be secure. Russia has rejoined the grain deal that they withdraw from on 29 October as a result of Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships near Sevastopol, and they have renewed the grain deal for another 120 days. The shipments still continue and the agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey has resulted in over twenty-three million tons of grain shipped by sea. As of 9 March, the amount of grain shipped from Ukrainian ports and across the Black Sea was 23,595,187 metric tonnes carried in 796 ships according to recent posts on twitter by @exit266. There are 10 days left to the agreement. The Russians did hit a Turkish ship in Odesa last month. I am guessing that is an accident, as Turkey is one of the few NATO countries that Russia has any dialogue with

3. Kharkiv (pop: 1,433,886): Kharkiv looks to be secure. Still, it is near the Russian border, so this can change suddenly.

4. The Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (the Donbas): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is reporting as of 16 December that they had 4,133 soldiers killed and 17,379 wounded (4.20-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio). This includes the 13 killed and 50 wounded reported from 01.01.22 to 02.25.22. For the period of 16 – 22 December (overlapping dates on 16 December) they report 43 killed, but do not report the wounded. Through the 16th, this is 108% casualties out of an estimated initial force of 20,000. Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) is reported as of 5 April to have had 500-600 killed out of an estimated force of 14,000. This is 21% casualties, assuming a 4-to-1 killed ratio.

5. Mariupol (pop: 431,859): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Prisoner Exchanges: Russia has claimed that they captured 2,439 prisoners from the siege of Mariupol. Russian claimed on 30 June that they held 6,000 prisoners. Ukraine stated in early July that they had more than 7,000 missing. Now Ukraine is stating as of 30 December that Russian holds 3,400 prisoners and 15,000 Ukrainians are missing.

In 2022 there were 1,447 prisoners of war exchanged, 112 civilians and five foreigners. Of those, at least 427 were from Mariupol/Azovstal and up to 53 others were killed in captivity. Latest prisoner exchange on 8 January was for 50 prisoners. Another prisoner exchange on 4 February of 116. Some of these Ukrainian prisoners had been in captivity for almost a year. Latest prisoner exchange, on 16 February, was for 100 soldiers and one civilian for 101 Russian soldiers. 94 of them were defenders of Mariupol, including 63 soldiers from Azovstal. There was another prisoner exchange on 7 March with 130 Ukrainians exchanged for 90 Russians. This included 87 Mariupol defenders (71 from Azovstal). 35 of them were soldiers captured in Bakhmut and Soledar. Most of the Ukrainian and Russian prisoners were seriously injured.

The Ukrainian Omsbudsman has stated in late January that 800 severely wounded Ukrainians are held as POWs. He also stated that they hold 200 severely wounded Russians.

6. Crimea & Kherson (pop: 283,649): Kherson is now back under Ukrainian control as of 11 November. Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Russia is digging trench lines along the beaches in Crimea. Is there really a threat of amphibious invasion from Ukraine? Meanwhile, there are explosions in Berdyansk.

 

Weather: Kharkiv at 5 PM: It is 40 degrees (4 Celsius) and mostly cloudy. Rain is forecasted for Saturday and Sunday. For the next 10 days, it is rarely freezing at nights and above freezing during all of the days. Sunrise is now at 6:00 and sunset is at 5:32, giving them over eleven hours of daytime to operate it. 

Kherson is 55 degrees (13 Celsius) and sunny. Rain is forecasted for today, Saturday and Sunday. For the next 10 days, it is rarely freezing at nights and above freezing during all of the days. Sunrise at 6:11 and sunset at 5:47. 

The weather in the first half of March appears unusually warm for Ukraine. This is creating a massive mud problem and probably stalling out most major offensive efforts. I suspect serious offensives will not start until Spring. Spring in 1943 meant around 1 May. It was too wet and muddy before then.

Ukrainian Army Build-up: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Do not know the current strength of the deployed Ukrainian Army but am guessing that it is between 200,000 to 300,000 troops. They clearly are going to have to build it up to 400,000 or more in response to Russia’s partial mobilization. There is a Ukrainian Territorial Defense Force of 100,000 to 200,000. Wikipedia was reporting 209,000 in their armed forces and 102,000 paramilitary. They were reporting their ground forces at 198,000 in July 2022. 

Do not have a good estimate of the total number of foreign volunteers now in Ukraine, although it is clearly thousands.

Russian Army Build-up:  

Ukraine is reporting that around 280,000 Russians are deployed in Ukraine. This seems a reasonable estimate. On 4 November Putin stated at 318,000 reservists and “new volunteers” have been mobilized and 49,000 are in combat zones. I assume the Russian army in Ukraine was at about 200,000 at the start of this mobilization.

The U.S. and UK estimate that the Wagner Group had 50,000 people in December 2022. Have no idea if this estimate is accurate. John Kirby (U.S. DOD spokesman) said that Wagner has lost 30,000 people, at a wounded-to-killed ratio of maybe 2-to-1, implying 10,000 deaths. Have no way to confirm or contradict such claims, but I remain guardedly suspicious as always. How did the DOD come to the count of 30,000?

The Russian defense budget for 2023 is $159 billion, up from $111 billion in 2022. This appears to now be around 9% of GDP.

According to one article, which I suspect is a little biased, Russian tank production at Uralvagonzavod is currently over 900 armored vehicles a year, including 35-40 T-90s a month. In contrast, the U.S. is producing two M-1A2 a month in Lima, Ohio. The German Leopard 2 is also still in production. 

Russia is getting some support from China, possibly spare parts and more important, microchips. They are reportedly not currently providing Russia with weapons. This is a source of discussion between the U.S./EU and China.

As of 26 February, Russia has announced that the DPR has raised a new battalion entirely composed of Ukrainian prisoners of war, called the Bohdan Khmelniksky Battalion. It was claimed that the unit consists of 70 Ukrainians. 

Opposing forces: Ukraine had before the war an army (ground forces) of 169,000 in 2016. The Russian army (not armed forces) was 280,000. The current Ukrainian army is now probably over 200,000. The Russian army (ground forces) in and around Ukraine is probably around 150,000 (up to 190,000). Donetsk PR is estimated at 20,000 and Lugansk at 14,000. Russia has added at least 41,000 troops to the front line from their new partial mobilization effort and will be adding more. Potentially up to 300,000. Most likely by the spring next year, both armies will be sporting 400,000 or more troops. It does appear that by next spring, the level of intensity and casualties from this war will be a count twice as high as it currently has been.

General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, said in an interview on 16 December that Russia is preparing 200,000 fresh troops to launch another attack on Kiev in February or March or maybe late January. This is sort of line with my assumption that the Russian Army in Ukraine will be built up to around 400,000 troops by spring. Suspect the same or more for Ukraine. On the other hand, a Ukrainian minister is now saying the Russians recruited 500,000 late last year (instead of 300,000) and so therefore will be employing superior numbers against Ukraine. Not sure this is the case. 

Economics and the Home Fronts:

On 30 December the Prime Minister of Ukraine said that Ukraine managed to harvest 60 million tons of crops. In 2021 according to the Kyiv Independent Ukraine harvested 84 million tons of cereals and legumes, as well as 22.6 million tons of oilseed. This was actually the largest harvest in the recent history of Ukraine (since 1991). This was primarily due to favorable weather conditions (they are being helped by global warming?). In 2021 Ukraine had 42 million hectares of farmland which covers 70% of the country. Large agro-corporations operated 6 million of these hectares, small and medium agro-companies operated on 11 million. In 2020 Ukraine’s agricultural sector made up 9% of their GDP. A 20-year moratorium on land transactions was officially lifted on July 1, 2021.

According to Ukraine’s economic ministry. the Ukrainian economy shrank by 30.4% in 2022. I have seen an estimated for Ukraine of 45% decline in the economy and IMF has estimated a 35% decline (and 8.5% for Russia). Not sure that is the case anymore with $100+ billion in aid coming in (Ukrainian GDP was $181 billion in 2021). According to Ukraine, its GDP has dropped by 30% in the first nine months of this year. 

A recent late January poll said that 87% of Ukrainians support joining the EU while 86% support joining NATO. Don’t know how accurate that poll is, but it sounds about right.

According to the IMF as of 31 January 2023, the Russian GDP shrank by at least 2.2% in 2022 and maybe as much as 3.9% (World Bank/OECD). The IMF is now saying the Russian economy will grow by 0.3% in 2023. Not sure how that happens with declining oil prices (see below). For December 2022, retail sales are down 10.5% and production was down 4.3% compared to December 2021. This sounds like a still declining economy. Meanwhile the U.S. GDP grew by 2.0% in 2022 (latest IMF figures).

Russia has lost professional workers to flight from the country. The Federal State Statistic Service (Rosstat) is reporting 419,00 left Russia in the first half of 2022. They are claiming that 321,000 have returned. These are lower figures than people have previously reported (see paragraph below). See: Rosstat: Since the beginning of the year, 419 thousand people have left russia – DW – 06.09.2022. 

A recent non-governmental survey states that the average age of Russians who left the county after Feb. 24 is 32 years old, while 80% of them have a higher education degree. Between January and May of 2022, the population of the Russian Federation fell by over 430,000 people, 20% of those having left the country according to Rosstat. The long-term impact on Russia of this is significant and it may affect the country for decades. This article is worthwhile: ‘We realized that there’s no way we can return’: Russia’s best and brightest are leaving the country in record numbers. 6 young Russians explain why they left (msn.com). The Central Bank of Russia is reporting that 458 billion rubles (7.46 billion dollars) has been withdrawn from personal accounts since 21 September. The estimated GDP of Russia $2.133 trillion (IMF 2022), or 1.776 trillion (World Bank 2021) or 1.483 trillion (United Nations 2020). So, this is 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP that I am guessing has just migrated out of the country in the last month.

Added to that professional migration, it is estimated by the Gaidar Institute (which is still independent) that 250 to 350,000 people have left because the partial mobilization. See: IGOR YEFREMOV: “RAPID DEPARTURE OF EVEN A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND RUSSIANS OF WORKING AGE CAUSES A VISIBLE BLOW TO THE LABOR MARKET” (The Gaidar Institute) (iep.ru). This is also lower than some previous claims (for example Forbes says 600,000 to 700,000, see above under “Russian Army Build-up”). Still, this adds up to potentially a half-million or more who have left the country because of the war. 

The latest story is that of the 10,500 Russians that have entered Argentina in the last year, over half of them have been pregnant woman that have entered in the list three months (according to the Argentinian National Director of Immigration). I guess these women are voting with their feet. I wish them the best. Meanwhile, Russian birthrate in 2020 was 1.5 children born per woman (replacement rate is @2.1…U.S. birthrate is 1.664 in 2021). We have talked about this before (long before Elon Musk started talking about it):  Demographics of Russia | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Demographics of Russia – part 2 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

A major part of this war is about who is getting hurt the worst economically and how long people can stand the pain. The IMF reports that the Euro Area grew by 3.5% in 2022 and with a 2.0% growth for the U.S. It does appear that Putin’s plan to turn Europe away from supporting Ukraine has failed. From a practical point of view, around half the aid going to Ukraine is the from the U.S., the other half is from the EU. There is some other international support (like Japan). According to the latest IMF estimates (which I do not have complete confidence in), the U.S. economy is going to grow by 1.4% for 2023, the Euro area by 0.7% and Russia by 0.3%. They have the UK economy declining by 0.6% in 2023.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is saying that budget revenue in January 2023 was 35% lower compared to January 2022. Deficit was 1.77 trillion rubles (23.9 billion). Oil and Gas revenue, the backbone of Russia’s budget and economy, was down 46% compared to January 2022. The oil and gas sector accounted for up to 40% of Russia’s budget revenues in 2019. Lower oil prices are clearly having an impact. Would be nice if we could get Saudi Arabia and OPEC to up production by 2 billion barrels. Russia is selling gold to cover the deficit.

The reduction in energy imports already led to a $5.9 billion budget shortfall for Russia in August. They previously were running in the black. The Russian government ended up having to do a 10% across the board cut because of the budget shortfalls. I gather that most energy exports to the west have now ended.

Meanwhile, as of 17 February, European gas prices have dropped to below 50 Euro per megawatt hour. This is an 85% drop from the price peak last year. It just reinforces the narrative that Putin’s attempt to undermine European support has failed.

Price of oil (Brent Crude) is at 81.74 as of 10:45 AM. This lower price does hurt Russia. Saudi Arabia and OPEC decided in October to cut production by 2 billion barrels. This cut clearly helped Russia and may have affected U.S. politics. It is a dangerous political play by Saudi Arabia considering that its leadership is not well loved in the west. Saudi Arabia is now providing $410 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and last week made their first official visit to Ukraine. Saudi currently produces around 10.6 million barrels a day. As I pointed out in an old post below $80 a barrel used to be the point where the Russian government budget would go into the red. Needless to say, low oil prices starve the Russian war machine. The Ruble is down to 75.40 to the dollar, probably because of declining oil prices. The Ukrainian Hryvnia is steady at 36.93 to a dollar.

U.S. inflation rate for 2022 was 8.0% but appears to be declining. Germany was 7.88%, UK was 7.90%, France was 5.22%, Italy was 8.18%. Turkey was 71.98%. Russia was 11.53% for 2022. It is up to 11.8% for Russia in January 2023, inflamed by the declining ruble.

It does appear that Putin has ridden out the political blowback from the partial mobilization. This has included 1) municipal councils in St. Petersburg and Moscow petitioning for his removal; 2) street protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere against the mobilization. According to OVD-Info, so far 16,437 people have been arrested or detained in Russia for anti-war activism since the start of the invasion and at least another 1,300 were detained or arrested around 21 September, 3) famed musician Alla Pugacheva speaking out against the invasion, and 4) mass migration from the country that may be as many as a half-million people. Still, it appears the government is securely in power and are going continue the war for 2023.

Casualties: The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian miliary, Valerii Zaluzhny, on 21 August stated that almost 9,000 Ukrainian military have died in the war. This is a lower estimate than most people have given (although we have leaned towards the lower estimates). Not sure if these figures included militia losses (like Azov Regiment). If Ukraine lost almost 9,000, then hard to believe the Russian losses are that much higher. On 1 December a presidential advisor stated that Ukraine has lost between 10,000 and 13,000 troops killed.

I also note this recent article: Ukraine’s war secret: how many of their troops have died? | News | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk). There is also a discussion on ammunition consumption on both sides at the end of the article.

I did do a briefing on 7 December in Norway that concluded:

Losses in 2022:

Ukrainian Army:

  • 13,500 – 16,500 killed
  • 54,000 – 66,000 wounded
  • 6,000 captured
  • 1,000 missing

Russian Army:

  • 16,028 – 19,028 killed (including LPR and DPR)
  • 64,112 – 76,112 wounded
  • 1,000 captured
  • 1,000? missing

Civilians:

  • 6,655 killed as of 1 December
  • Real figure is probably thousands more

The (slightly edited) full briefing is here (the figures are on slide 46): Some Observations from the War in Ukraine (2)

The Pentagon has just claimed that total Russian losses may exceed 110K. That is in line with my figures. BBC News Russia and an independent Russia media outlet called Mediazona records 10,720 Russians killed in 2022 and have added another 942 deaths for January 1-17 2023. This is a count of casualties by name that is developed by reviewing Russian announcements, obituaries, etc. As such, it certainly undercounts deaths to a degree. 

As of end of November, people were batting around Russian loss figures in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 or more. Now, they seem to be above 200,000. So, nine months to get to the first 100,000 casualties and now over the last two months another 100,000 casualties? This seems odd, especially as there are no major offensives being conducted, it is bad weather and short days. Not sure what is the factual basis for these recent higher casualty estimates. 

The Mediazona count of Russian war dead as of 3 February was 13,030. The actual figures are certainly higher, but how much higher? 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.

Note that the article also says: “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. 

The Russian Defense Minister is now claiming as of 21 September that they have lost 5,937 killed in this war. This is their first update since March. This figure is probably low. A BBC News effort to count Russian casualties by name from open sources has come up with a figure of 6,476 as of 15 September. There are also losses of 3,069 for the DPR and at least 600 for the LPR (and I suspect the figure is higher). So, it appears that Russia and their allied losses are at least 9,606 killed and this probably does not include Chechens or the Wagner Group. He also claimed that almost 90% of the wounded have already returned to service and Ukrainian losses were 61,207 dead and 49,368 wounded. On 21 September, the Ukrainian General Staff put Russian killed at 55,110. On 25 March the Russian Defense Ministry stated that their losses were 1,351 Russians killed and 3,825 wounded (a 2.83-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio).

The BBC Russia count of Russian dead is up to 7,822 Russians reported killed as of 21 October. This includes 41 recent draftees. My general sense is that the Russia army let itself get seriously depleted and should have started partial mobilization sooner. Sending recently mobilized troops to hold the line is not a good use of personnel.

There are rumors in mid-October that Russian has suffered 90,000 irrecoverable losses. Sources are reports from Russian news service Meduza quoting unnamed FSB source (would FSB know Army losses?). An irrecoverable loss is killed, seriously wounded or missing. So maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of those losses are killed, which does produce a figure on the high side in my opinion. I assume Ukraine does know how many Russians it has captured, but I have never seen a figure for that.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian deputy defense minister on 16 October is claiming that they exchanging losses with the Russians at a rate of 1 to 6.5. I do not trust such a claim. 

The UN is reporting as of 5 March at least 8,173 civilians confirmed dead in the war. This is a large leap of almost a thousand killed since the report of 13 February (7,199) and I assume is due to upgrading of the records, as they only reporting 138 civilians killed from 1-28 February. See: Ukraine: civilian casualty update 27 February 2023 | OHCHR vice Ukraine: civilian casualty update 13 February 2023 | OHCHR. Not sure why the reporting has suddenly gotten “squirrelly.”

Of those 3,735 of the deaths are in Ukrainian controlled territory in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk with 627 killed in territory controlled by Russian separatists. One wonders how many of the claimed Mariupol casualties are included in these figures.

From 1-30 November, OHCHR recorded 688 civilian casualties (162 killed). Of those, 153 were killed and 487 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 9 were killed and 39 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.  

From 1-31 December, OHCHR recorded 801 civilian casualties (188 killed). Of those 164 were killed and 584 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 24 were killed and 29 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

From 1-31 January, OHCHR recorded 697 civilian casualties (177 killed). Of those 167 were killed and 495 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 10 were killed and 25 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

They did include this chart in one of their earlier reports:

On 5 December, the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Yevhen Yenin, said that according to National Police over 9,400 civilians have been killed in Russian shelling.

More than 28,000 people have died in this conflict: 5,937 or more (Russian Army) + 9,000 or more (Ukrainian Army) + 8,173 (Civilians) + 4,176 (DPR) + 600 (LPR) = 27,886. It is probably in excess of 38,000 total deaths depending on Ukrainian and Russian military deaths and the real count of civilian losses.

On 14 November a Taiwanese fighter, “Jonathan” Tseng Sheng-Guang, is reported to have died in Ukraine. The first Japanese volunteer fighter, under the name of Dobure, also has been killed in Ukraine. It is reported that at least 16 Belarussians have died fighting for Ukraine. It has been reported that two Azerbaijani volunteers have died fighting for Ukraine. The total number of Americans killed in the war is eight killed in combat and three civilians. Three have been captured of which all three have now been exchanged, as has one detained civilian. On 2 February, an American medic, Pete Reed, was killed. He was a former Marine and 33 years old. On 16 February, Andrew Peters, age 28, from Wisconsin was killed. He was former U.S. Army with experience in Afghanistan.

Ammo: The second and third to last paragraphs in The Times (UK) article referenced above says:

However, Barrons argues that Ukraine needs ammunition even more than it needs soldiers. It fires 90,000 155mm shells a month and sometimes 6,000 shells a day but combined US and European production is less than 30,000 a month. “There is a mathematical mismatch,” he says. The US is tripling its output but “Europe has been too slow”.

Russia, which has been firing 20,000 shells a day and is thought to have used up ten years’ worth of production in 12 months, has the same problem. In recent weeks they have reduced the numbers by 75 per cent.

So 6,000 shells a day vice 20,000 shells a day, have no idea if that is true or what percent of the rounds fire are “smart” versus old style. One would expect the side firing the most rounds would be causing more causalities. On the other hand, if U.S. production is less than 30,000 a month Ukraine will be forced to eventually reduce their expenditures to 1,000 or 2,000 shells a day. If Russia has to reduce their numbers by 75%, then they are firing 5,000 shells a day. Don’t know if any single number in this discussion is close to reality but suspect that both sides will have to reduce their artillery expenditure at least until May. This war could be very quiet for a couple of months.

Anyhow, Ukraine is requesting 250,000 shells a month from the EU.

Air Power: The Pentagon on 12 March is reporting that Russia is flying about 200 sorties a day. The Ukrainian air force has 56 operational jets flying 5 to 10 hours a day. March 22 it was reported by the U.S. that Russia flew more than 300 sorties into Ukraine. March 24 it was reported that more than 250 Russian sorties were flown, mostly around Kiev and Kharkov. On 12 May, the U.S. was claiming that the Russians flew 300 sorties over Ukraine in the last 24 hours. On 14 May they were claiming 250 Russian sorties. It has been pretty consistent reporting of 250-300 sorties a day for quite some time now. For 24 August Ukraine reported 200 Russian sorties over Ukraine. 

On 3 September is it stated that Ukraine did 40 sorties, which is a record. On 18 September they claimed to have launched 20 air strikes, on 22 September launched 25 and on 11 October launched 15 air strikes. This is a fairly low level of air activity.

@Oryx, which is a twitter account worth following, is reporting as of 14 September that since the start of the war 53 Russian aircraft have been destroyed as have 42 Ukrainian aircraft. This is all counted by photo confirmation. On 19 September, U.S. General James Hecker stated that Ukraine has shot down 55 Russian aircraft in the war. He stated that he was pretty sure that all of those losses were due to surface-to-air missiles, SA-10s and SA-11s. This count does not include non-battle losses and accidents (of which there are some). It appears no Russian planes have been shot down in air-to-air combat and maybe only a handful of Ukrainian planes.

The Russians are now reported to be using loitering munitions. Ukraine has been using them since the start of the war. There are also reports of drone-on-drone engagements and have been 9 such cases reported. So drone vs drone combat is now a thing. 

A Ukrainian deputy prime minister is saying on 12 February that Ukraine has already “contracted” 1,765 drones. It has spent more than 85.5 million Euros on the drones and more than 3,500 servicemen have been trained to operate them. 

Missile Defense: In his 5 July video, Denys Davydov states almost 80% of Russian missiles are being intercepted by anti-missile defenses. I have seen this claim repeated elsewhere but have no idea as to its validity. On 10 October, Ukraine intercepted only 43 out of the 84 missiles (51%) fired at it. On 11 October, they intercepted 20 out of 28 (71%). On 16 October there was another wave of missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy structure. The Mayor of Kiev (heavy weight world champion Vitali Klitschko) said that 23 of the 28 drones fired at Kiev were intercepted. Overall, 42 drones were fired at Ukraine and they claimed to have shot down 36 of them. 

The bombardment on 31 October consisted of over 50 Russian missiles/drones, of which 44 were claimed to have been shot down. Ukraine claims to have shot down 73 of the over 100 missiles fired in the bombardment of 15 November. Fragments of one Ukrainian air defense missile landed in Poland killing two. The missile that landed in Poland on 15 November was probably a Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missile, of which most versions have a range of less than 100 miles. Pretty hard for this to be anything other than Ukrainian. On 23 November, there was a large missile attack where Ukraine claimed 51 out of 70 missiles shot down. This attack shut down all the power in Kiev and killed four civilians there. The large attack on 5 December claimed around 60 missiles shot down out of around 70 fired, which is 86% intercepted. This is particularly good. On 16 December, they claimed to have intercepted 60 out of 74, or 81%. 

For the attack on 29 December, Ukraine does report shooting down 54 out of 69 cruise missiles and 11 Iranian drones. This comes out to 81% intercepted except other reports are saying over 120 missiles were fired. So, is the interception rate more like 54%? Anyhow, it does look like the Russians overloaded the Ukrainian missile defense this time. As this is supposedly their tenth such strike (I have not verified the count), then it is about time Russia figured this out. The question is: does Russia have the resources to keep doing this?

This was followed up with an attack on New Year’s Eve of about 20 cruise missiles and further attacks on 1 and 2 January. For the attack on New Year’ Eve it looks like they shot down 12 out of 20 cruise missiles (60%). In the attack of 1 and 2 January by 39 or 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones, Ukraine claims it shot them all down. They have power outages in Kyiv as a result of the attack on 2 January. This strongly indicates that not all the drones were shot down.

There was another missile attack on 14 January of only 38 missiles that was effective. Ukraine only shot down 25 of them (only 65%), so power infrastructure was hit, as was several apartment buildings. On 25 January they shot down 47 out of 55 or 85%, which is better than they have been doing recently. The effectiveness of this missile strike against infrastructure was limited. Russia’s last big aerial bombardment attack was on 10 February using 71 missiles. Ukraine claimed 61 downed (86%).

The U.S., Germany and Holland have agreed to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense missile systems. Should be interesting to see how well they do. Not sure when they are arriving, but it looks like we are set up to ship them and to start training Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr in Germany.

End of the War: It does look like Russia intends to hold onto most of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, the majority of Kherson province (but not the capital) and four-fifths of Zaporizhzhia province. The capital Zaporizhzhia (pop. 722,713) is held by Ukraine. So, parts of four out of Ukraine’s 24 provinces and Crimea.

Populations of partly or completely occupied areas (2019 estimates):

Donetsk: 4,165,901

Lugansk: 2,151,833

Crimea: 2,033,700 (2001 census)

Zaporizhzhia: 1,705,836

Kherson: 1,037,640

Sevastopol: 509,992 (2021 estimate)

 

Population of Ukraine (excluding Crimea), 2022 estimate: 41,167,336

What they are willing to later negotiate away to achieve peace or a ceasefire is unknown. Russia has now annexed Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in addition to Crimea and Sevastopol. This sort of indicates that there is no basis for a negotiated settlement. Zelenskyy did lay out a 10-point peace plan in November. It includes:

5. Restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity

6. Total withdrawal of all Russian troops from all of Ukraine.

7. Punishment for war crimes.

The UN General Assembly did recently pass a resolution supporting reparations from Russia, but this does not appear to be in Zelenskyy’s ten-point plan.

Russia’s current peace position is that Ukraine must be demilitarized and de-nazified (is that a word) and Russia keeps Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia (and I guess must hand over the last two province’s capitals), Crimea and Sevastopol. The Russian foreign minister Lavrov did say on 29 Dec: “Putting forward all sorts of ideas and ‘formulas of peace,’ Zelensky cherishes the illusion of achieving, with the help of the West, the withdrawal of our troops from the Russian territory of Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region, the payment of reparations by Russia, and the surrender of international tribunals and the like. Of course, we will not talk to anyone on such conditions.”

Probably the most significant events over the last couple of months is that 1) Russian did not shut down the Ukrainian energy grid and demoralize the population, 2) Russia did not increase the economic pain in Europe sufficiently to undermine support for Ukraine, and 3) Russian still has only done a partial mobilization and appears not to be extensively mobilizing further. Russia appears to be fighting for a stalemate in 2023.

This looks like an extended war, and I don’t think it will be over before the end of summer 2023. It may continue for years: So How Long is this War Going to Last? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Possible Outcomes of the War? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Atrocities: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

Russia continues their display of Orc-like behavior with a video coming out of the execution of the POW tentatively identified as Matsievskiy Oleksandr Ihorevich of the Territorial Defense Forces. His last words were “Slava Ukraini.”  This execution probably occurred sometime in early February. You would think at some point the Russian senior command would understand that this is working against them politically and is resulting in wide-spread international support for Ukraine, which is resulting in increased shipment of arms and ammunition. It also continues to show a real lack of discipline among the rank and file. In addition to being an inhumane war crime, it is just plain stupid. 

Ukrainian reforms: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Ukranian defense minister appears to be staying.

Other Issues: 

U.S. Support for Ukraine: I sort of hate to get into discussing this as it invariably gets divisively political, but it is a significant issue. Half of the aid to Ukraine comes from the U.S. If the U.S. wavers, then this poses real challenges for Ukraine’s defensive efforts. The latest Gallup poll (3-22 January) says that 65% of Americans support the war in Ukraine. 31% clearly do not. This is pretty much the same figures as in August 2022 (66% vs 31%). Among self-identified Democrats the split was 81% to 16%, among independents it was 59% to 38% and among Republicans it was 53% to 41%. So, according to the Gallup poll, the majority of Republicans support Ukraine. On the other hand, 47% of the Republicans polled said that the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine. Previous polling from Washington Post shows that 52% of Republicans want to reduce aid to Ukraine or “…want their member of congress to opposed additional funding.” Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was in Kyiv last week.

There was a “Rage Against the War Machine Rally” in Washington D.C. on Sunday 19 February. Its attendance was maybe 750-1000 people including Libertarian and former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. It was a pretty odd and controversial collection of speakers.

The United States passed the fiscal year 2023 budget before the new congress was seated. The Democrats/Independents control the Senate 51-49 and the Republicans now control the House 222-213. The U.S. budget is in place through September 2023 and cannot be overturned or cut by the new Republican majority House, if they so desire. I am pretty certain that come October 2023, the United States will be struggling to approve a budget for fiscal year 2024. This is going to complicate things. Eleven Republican members of the House just proposed a resolution (“Ukraine Fatigue Resolution”) to cut aid to Ukraine. There is a clearly a vocal minority that is opposed to supporting Ukraine, as is presidential candidate Donald Trump (whose run has been endorsed by 5 Senators, 17 congressmen and one governor). There does appear to be some public pushback from other Republicans (i.e. Nancy Mace’s “roast” at the Washington Press Club Foundation). 

The “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” is worth a read. It is here: Text – H.Res.113 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Ukraine Fatigue Resolution | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.

Belarus: I still doubt that they will join the war. Belarus has 60,000 troops and now they are trying to recruit another 20,000. This is from a country that the government was almost overthrown two years ago by popular acclaim. Ukraine has an 891-kilometer border (554 miles) with Belarus, so Ukraine must maintain some forces there. Belarus has stated on 16 October that a little less than 9,000 Russian troops will be stationed in Belarus to protect it borders. 

Kaliningrad: On 14 February, in the Russian isolated city next to NATO members Poland and Lithuania, an IL-20M and 2 Su-27s were intercepted by two Dutch F-35s and escort away from the NATO area. Eight Dutch F-35s are stationed in Poland. Kaliningrad is the former Prussian capital of Koenigsberg. It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and its annexation was confirmed in 1990.

EU: Ukraine has been made a candidate member of the European Union as of 23 June. It still means that it will be years before Ukraine becomes part of the EU, but this is a big first step. The Ukraine government applied for EU membership less than week after Russia first invaded them. Moldova was also granted candidate membership. Georgia has not (and it is not on good terms with Russia).

This was the issue that started all the turmoil in 2013. This is the issue that fueled all the conflict over the last nine years, for the Euromaidan revolt occurred when Ukrainian President Yanukovich decided to join Putin’s Eurasian Union vice the EU. The subsequent conflicts included the whole three-month Euromaidan revolt in the dead of winter of 2013-2014 that led to over 100 Ukrainians being killed, many protesters shot in the street by President Yanokovich’s security forces; the seizure of Crimea; the creation of LPR and DPR; the subsequent war; and now this war. Ukraine certainly has paid a much higher cost to join the EU than anyone else ever has. Current polling (Reuters April 5) shows that 91% of the Ukrainians support joining the EU. 

NATO: Finland and Sweden signed the accession protocol to join NATO on 5 July, along with all 30 members of NATO. They officially applied to join NATO on May 18. There was an objection from Turkey, but Sweden and Finland have resolved their issues just before the summit in Madrid in early July. As of 1 October, 28 NATO members have ratified the accession protocol. It does require unanimous consent of all 30 members for them to join NATO. It does add an 810-mile (1300 km) border with Russia, but NATO already abuts Russian and Belarussian territory in the Baltic states and Norway abuts Russia above the arctic circle. Also, Denmark has joined the common EU defense cooperation, something which it has stayed out of for three decades. The United States voted on 4 August to the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO by 95-1. The remaining two states that need to vote for this are Hungary and Turkey.  Hungary is not going to get around to it until early 2023. It appears that Sweden has made all the “reforms” that it is going to make. Specifically, it has rejected the request to extradite four people. The U.S. in the past has made similar refusals. It is now up to Turkey to decide if this is enough. The U.S. is apparently negotiating selling F-16s to Turkey. This may be the quid-pro-quo that makes this happen. In October 2021 Turkey requested to purchase 40 F-16s. Congress has resisted approving the sale, but it appears it will go through if Turkey approves Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Turkish elections are scheduled for 14 May, so this issue may not get resolved until after that. Right now, U.S. Turkish relations have been a little contentious. Turkey was also just hit with a massive earthquake on 6 February near Syria. Around 55,000 dead in Turkey and Syria, around 48,000 of them in Turkey.

Meanwhile, on 30 September, the president of Ukraine formally applied to join NATO. 

Also, the United States will be establishing a permanent troop presence in Poland, maintain a rotational brigade in Romania, and enhance its rotational deployment in the Baltic States, among other expansions. As of December, the United States has a total of 100,000 troops across all of Europe (including Germany and Italy). Canada is leading a NATO battlegroup of Latvia of around 2,000 soldiers, including troops from Canada, Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Germany is to lead a combat brigade in Lithuania of 3,000 – 5,000 soldiers. The command unit of around 100 soldiers arrived on 4 September. A NATO battalion of about 1,500-1,600 has been stationed there since 2017 and is under command of a German officer. There are also NATO battle groups in Estonia and Poland. Germany is also now talking about an armored division for protection of NATO’s eastern border.

Poland has completed on 30 June a steel wall on its border with Belarus to curb the flow of asylum seekers from Belarus. The wall is 115 miles long (186 km), 18 feet tall (5.5 meters) and cost $407 million to build (353M Euros). Poland is also building a fence along its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which has irked Russia. Work began in late February. The Polish border with Belarus is 258 miles long (416 km). Poland also announced around 15 July that it will be increasing its defense budget to be 5% of the GDP and building up its army to 300,000 troops. Poland is currently spending 2.4% of its GDP on defense. It is going to increase it next year to 3%. The U.S. currently spends 3.5% of our GDP on defense.

Lithuania has also completed a barrier between itself and Belarus. It is mostly a 4 meter (13 foot) tall steel wire fence topped by concertina barbed wire. It covers approximately 550 kilometers (342 miles) and costs 152M euros. See twitter @LinasKojala post for 29 August for a picture of the fence.

Finland is now also talking about starting to build a barbed-wire fence along its long border with Russian starting early next year. They are looking at it covering 124 miles of the 832-mile border. Estimated cost is $393 million with a completion date of 2026.

Georgia: Georgia is back in the news with three days of large demonstrations (looks like tens of thousands) in Tbilisi and attempts to suppress them using water cannons. The current government has now withdrawn the Russian-like “foreign agents” bill that they were protesting against. The current government of Georgia has been Russian-leaning since the brief war there in 2008. I gather a significant portion (maybe the majority) of the population do not share their sentiments. We shall see how this develops. In 2003 Georgia dumped out their leadership (Gorbachev’s foreign minister Shevardnadze) with massive protests in what was called the Rose Revolution (and then the Orange Revolution occurred in Ukraine in 2004). If it happened once, it can happen again.

Nagorno-Karabakh: Artillery fire was exchanged on 5 October between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as a result of their continuing conflict that Russia is supposed to be policing. There are also now credible reports and videos of Azerbaijanis executing Armenian prisoners. Significant fighting has erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia on 13 September. There has been a cease-fire as of 15 September. Armenia has said that at least 49 of its soldiers have been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday. They are now saying 105. Azerbaijan has said it has lost 50 troops. Russia is serving as the peacekeeper force with about 2,000 troops. I gather most of the fighting is artillery shelling. There have been large protests the last few days in the capital of Yerevan, Armenia against the prime minister. Meanwhile, U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is in Yerevan as of 18 September. This visit was then followed by protests in Yerevan against the Russian dominated military alliance CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), which Armenia, Russia, Belarus and three other post-Soviet states are members of.

Previous recent fights have resulted in at least 2 Armenians killed and more than a dozen wounded and 1 Azeri killed and 3 wounded. Azerbaijan took the border position. Russia is the Armenian-leaning peacekeepers in this area. One wonders if many of the outlying areas of the Soviet empire are going to turn into disorder over the next few months. The Azerbaijan embassy in London was also seized a few months ago by Muslim fundamentalists. Azerbaijan is a secular state. The Muslim fundamentalists may be supported by Iran. On 14 November, there was another round of shelling reported by Armenia at the border. On 26 November, there was another clash along the border, but no losses and then more firing on 27 November, with two Armenians reported wounded. There was another shelling by Azerbaijan reported on 23 December by Armenia. No casualties reported. It appears that Azerbaijan is trying to cut off the Lachin corridor, which connects Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan has called for parliamentary elections on March 19. We shall see how that goes. Khazakstan was having blackouts, not caused by bombing. The last time they had political demonstrations (January 2022), estimates were that 217 to over 230 people were killed and they called in over 3,000 Russian paratroopers to help them. There were also major protests in 2011 (14 killed), 2016, 2018, several times in 2019, and 2020. So kind of waiting for next big eruption. Meanwhile, Khazastan has set up two “Yurts of Invincibility” in Bucha and Kyiv. These yurts provide food, medical care and shelter to Ukrainians.

European Support: The government of Hungary is the one NATO nation that is not clearly behind Ukraine. Hungary is dealing with economic problems and the EU is withholding recovery funding due to a “rule-of-law dispute.” Prime Minister Viktor Orban on 11 October called for a ceasefire in the war and accused the U.S. of fueling the war. He did state that he was on the side of Ukraine. He also has not yet approved Sweden and Finland’s membership into NATO but he has finally acquiesced to the latest EU aid effort to Ukraine. 

The country that produced the largest peace demonstrations, some 70,000 protesters in Prague on 3 September 2022, has just elected a retired three-star general as its president. He has made it clear that he supports Ukraine. Recent elections in Estonia have reinforced the support for governments that favor supporting Ukraine. It does appear that Putin’s policy of trying to undermine support this winter in Europe for the war in Ukraine is failing. It does appear that European support is solid and broad, with Czechia elections, Germans providing Leopards, Hungary signing off on EU aid packages to Ukraine, Bulgarian parliament overruling their president and providing aid, etc. The political situation is getting simpler, the war is going to continue until at least next fall. It may get resolved on the battlefield this summer. It could continue into 2024.

In 2022 there have been some protests against the pro-western government of Moldova (pop. 2.6 million). The President of Moldova is now claiming that Russia was planning to stage a coup d’état through opposition protests. Zelenskyy made the same claims a week ago. Last June Moldova was granted EU candidate status. Moldovan intelligence intercepted some attempts between October and December of last year. Russia still has 1,500 peacekeeping troops in Transnistria and of course, there is still the breakaway Russian statelet of Transnistria (pop. @360,938) carved out of Moldovan territory. A Russian presence in Moldova is a threat to Odesa.

There was an anti-war protest in Berlin on Saturday, 25 February. It was attended by around 10,000, mostly from the left wing of the political spectrum. Germany has a long history of a pacifistic vocal left-wing since the 1980s (remember the late Petra Kelly and the Green Party). If this is the best that this political wing can produce now, that is very limited. It does appear that most of Europe is solidly behind Ukraine (as is Japan, South Korea, Australia and even New Zealand). Putin has done a good job of politically uniting the west.

Iran: It appears that the large protests in Iran are fizzling out. There are some serious demonstrations going on in Iran since 16 September, supported by labor strikes. It is said that at least nine protesters died in the first five days and Iran is now stating as of 24 September that 41 protesters have been killed. The count is certainly higher than that. An Oslo-based organization called Iran Human Rights is claiming as of 29 November that at least 448 people killed. They previously reported that also 40 security forces were killed. An Iranian general did acknowledge on 27 November that over 300 were dead. There are also an armed group (separatists?) that conducted an attack on 30 September in southeastern Iran (city of Zahedan) that killed 19 people. One wonders if the Iranian government has weathered the storm. Iran has arrested over 20,000 protesters.

Meanwhile, the night of Jan. 28 someone attacked manufacturing facilities in Iran. It was done with at least three drones and a strike was clearly made in Isfahan, a city of 2-4 million right in the middle of Iran. There were four reported large explosions. The mostly likely story is that it was done by Israel operating from Azerbaijan. 

Miscellaneous: Also, corrupt Navy-contractor “Fat Leonard” Francis, 57, was detained last Tuesday by Interpol in Venezuela trying to flee to Russia. He had escaped house arrest in San Diego, fled to Mexico then Cuba and was intercepted at the Venezuelan airport. He was not using an alias and should be extradited back to the U.S. He is currently still in Venezuela.

There were two pipelines that were bombed in international waters. Apparently 165 feet of the pipe is destroyed. Sweden is currently investigating but has not found any clear evidence linking Russia to the bombing. The latest rumor is that a group of six pro-Ukrainian activists, including two divers, using a boat operating from Poland shut down the pipeline. This is actually believable. Whether they were completely independent of the Ukrainian government or not has not been established.

The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 376

Bakhmut is the story except we really don’t know what is actually happening. The Russian push to the north of the city has closed around enough so that there is a gap of only around 4 kilometers between the north and south wings of the Russian advance, except there has been no significant advances for several days. There are rumors that Ukraine has been withdrawing forces from Bakhmut, or that Ukraine is going to counterattack, that the Russian advances have stalled, or that Russia is about to take Bakhmut, and that Russia is taking heavy losses or that Ukraine is taking heavy losses (see: Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut: ‘Our troops are not being protected’ (msn.com)). Pick a rumor. The weather has warmed up, leaving the ground very muddy, which is certainly slowing and limiting operations. It is distinctly possible that Bakhmut could fall any day now… or maybe it won’t.

There have also been several strikes in Russia this last week. This includes 1) the Russian Volunteer Corps, led by the neo-fascist Denis Kapustin (aka Nikitin), a unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine, making an incursion into the bordering Bryansk district on 2 March with a couple of dozen people (45 according to Kapustin) and killing two, 2) some strikes in the Belgorod region, and 3) a failed drone strike against a gas facility on 28 February in the Moscow region, 60 miles from Moscow. Russia is also claiming today that Kapustin attempted to assassinate a Russian oligarch.

What is interesting over the last month is what has not happened. The weather at the beginning of the month finally chilled enough to freeze the ground. This created a six-week window for offensive operations. We are now more than half-way through that window and neither side has conducted a major offensive. Other things that have not happened include: 1) Bakhmut has not fallen, 2) there had not been a major missile strike since 10 February and 3) Russia had not showed up on the battlefield with an extra 200,000 or 500,000 troops. In general, this month is notable for what has not happened. Needless to say, some “analysts” were predicting all kinds of things.

I am guessing at this point, that if nothing has happened in the first four weeks of this six-week weather window, then probably nothing major is not going to happen in the last two weeks. That does not mean that Bakhmut may not fall, but I don’t really consider it militarily significant.

The rest of the front is quiet. In the last two weeks there has not been much action to the south of Bakhmut at the village of Vuhledar (pop. 14,144 in 2022). Two Russian naval infantry brigades (the 155th and the 40th) appear to have taken heavy losses in an attack a couple of weeks ago, and nothing has happened since then. There are only minor actions in and around Kreminna, Svatove, etc. There was another Ukrainian strike on two Russian bases in Melitopol, with claims of high Russian casualties.

The Russian losses at Vuhledar appear to include (based upon Orynx): 19 tanks destroyed, 4 abandoned and 1 captured; 31 AFVs destroyed, 9 abandoned, 1 captured; 9 trucks and specialized vehicles destroyed. This covers losses from 26 Jan to 27 Feb.  The much higher loss figures that other people quote appear to be based upon tanks and IFVs “damaged.” Not sure exactly what that means. This is heavy losses. Whether it is enough to gut one or two brigades is harder to determine.

Russia last big aerial bombardment attack was on 10 February using 71 missiles. Ukraine claimed 61 downed (86%). What is interesting is the long wait since then. If Russia was going to degrade the Ukrainian power system, then they probably need to strike every 7 to 10 days. They are no longer doing that. Is that because they need to preserve resources (drones and rockets) and they attacks are not having their desired effect, either to the electrical grid or to the will of the Ukrainians to continue the war? It appears that this Russian air campaign is a failure.

The U.S. and many countries in and around Europe are now providing tanks to Ukraine. This includes 31 Abrams (M1A2) from the U.S., the previously announced 40 AMX-10 light tanks from France, the previously announced 14 Challengers from the UK and 14 new Challengers from the UK, 14 Leopards (2A6) from Germany announced on Jan. 25 plus they are going to provide 14 more later, 14 or so Leopards (2A4?) from Poland, maybe 20 Leopards (2A4) from Spain, but so far only 6 have been confirmed (they are planning to train 55 Ukrainian crew members), no Leopards from Netherlands (previous rumors said 18), Portugal is sending 4 (2A6) out of their 37, 8 (2A4) from Norway out of their 36, and 4 2A4 Leopards from Canada out of their 80. Non-NATO members Finland is providing 3 Leopards and Sweden is providing 6 or 10 A6s. Also, Morocco is providing Ukraine with 173 T-74s EA, 70 are already in Ukraine. It does appear in a number of cases the announcements are lagging behind the actual shipments of tanks. Poland is providing Ukraine with another 60 upgraded T-72s. It has already sent Ukraine some 260 or more tanks. 

Twelve countries in NATO have Leopards. Germany is saying that a total of around 80 will be sent between them all. My count currently shows at least 73 Leopards from eight different countries (two not yet in NATO). It now looks like many of the older 40-45 ton German Leopard Is are being refurbished and will be sent. Germany has 88 of them it could send and Belgium has 50. Between Denmark, Netherlands and Germany, they are putting together a package of 100 1A5s, although the details of the deal keep changing.  It will be a while before most of them arrive. An initial package of 29 is being refurbished and are supposed to arrive in the summer (enough for one more brigade). There are a lot of them out there, with Greece supposedly having 520 (and 392 U.S. M-48s and 100 U.S. M-60s) and Turkey having 355 or 397 (and 750 M-48s and 785 M-60s). Opportunity to replace old stocks. Switzerland has 230 Leopard 2 tanks of which 96 are not in operation (in storage). Getting neutral Switzerland to release these unused tanks is a challenge. Germany has asked.

From a practical point of view, it means that around four or so Ukrainian tank battalions will be armed up with Abrams/Leopard 2/Challengers. Ukraine has over 30 tank battalions. Some should probably be in place for the spring offensives. Some of the Canadian Leopard 2s have already arrived in Poland. At least 4 of the Leopards have arrived in Ukraine. Challengers will be arriving in Ukraine next month (March).

I will put any changes/updates since my last post in italics. A link to a blow up of the map is here: Wikipedia map. It is dated 6 March. The last dated update on the map is Soledar on 16 January.

Map from 13 January 2023 of Bakhmut area is from @War_Mapper:

Map from 6 March 2023 of Bakhmut from @War_Mapper:

Russia currently occupies five cities: Lysychansk (pop. 95,031), Severodonetsk (pop. 101,135), Mariupol (pop. 431,859), Berdyansk (pop. 107,928) and Melitopol (pop. 150,768). Kherson (pop. 283,649) was retaken by Ukraine on 11 November.

 

We have been looking at six major areas of operations. Only the Donbas appears to be active right now. 

1. Kyiv (pop: 2,962,180): It appears that Kyiv is secure.

2. Odesa (pop: 1,015,826): Appears to be secure. Russia has rejoined the grain deal that they withdraw from on 29 October as a result of Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships near Sevastopol, and they have renewed the grain deal for another 120 days. The shipments still continue and the agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey has resulted in over twenty-three million tons of grain shipped by sea. As of 5 March, the amount of grain shipped from Ukrainian ports and across the Black Sea was 23,149,363 metric tonnes carried in 785 ships according to recent posts on twitter by @exit266. There are 14 days left to the agreement. The Russians did hit a Turkish ship in Odesa last month. I am guessing that is an accident, as Turkey is one of the few NATO countries that Russia has any dialogue with

3. Kharkiv (pop: 1,433,886): Kharkiv looks to be secure. Still, it is near the Russian border, so this can change suddenly.

4. The Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (the Donbas): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is reporting as of 16 December that they had 4,133 soldiers killed and 17,379 wounded (4.20-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio). This includes the 13 killed and 50 wounded reported from 01.01.22 to 02.25.22. For the period of 16 – 22 December (overlapping dates on 16 December) they report 43 killed, but do not report the wounded. Through the 16th, this is 108% casualties out of an estimated initial force of 20,000. Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) is reported as of 5 April to have had 500-600 killed out of an estimated force of 14,000. This is 21% casualties, assuming a 4-to-1 killed ratio.

5. Mariupol (pop: 431,859): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Prisoner Exchanges: Russia has claimed that they captured 2,439 prisoners from the siege of Mariupol. Russian claimed on 30 June that they held 6,000 prisoners. Ukraine stated in early July that they had more than 7,000 missing. Now Ukraine is stating as of 30 December that Russian holds 3,400 prisoners and 15,000 Ukrainians are missing.

In 2022 there were 1,447 prisoners of war exchanged, 112 civilians and five foreigners. Of those, at least 427 were from Mariupol/Azovstal and up to 53 others were killed in captivity. Latest prisoner exchange on 8 January was for 50 prisoners. Another prisoner exchange on 4 February of 116. Some of these Ukrainian prisoners had been in captivity for almost a year. Latest prisoner exchange, on 16 February, was for 100 soldiers and one civilian for 101 Russian soldiers. 94 of them were defenders of Mariupol, including 63 soldiers from Azovstal.

The Ukrainian Omsbudsman has stated in late January that 800 severely wounded Ukrainians are held as POWs. He also stated that they hold 200 severely wounded Russians.

6. Crimea & Kherson (pop: 283,649): Kherson is now back under Ukrainian control as of 11 November. Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Russia is digging trench lines along the beaches in Crimea. Is there really a threat of amphibious invasion from Ukraine?

Weather: Kharkiv at 2 PM: It is 35 degrees (2 Celsius) and cloudy. Snow is forecasted for today and rain is forecasted for tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday through Tuesday. For the next 10 days, it is rarely freezing at nights and above freezing on all days. Sunrise is now at 6:06 and sunset is at 5:24, giving them over eleven hours of daytime to operate it. 

Kherson is 45 degrees (7 Celsius) and mostly cloudy. Rain is forecasted for Tuesday and Friday through Monday. For the next 10 days, it is freezing on only one night and above freezing during all of the days. Sunrise at 6:18 and sunset at 5:41. 

This week appears unusually warm for March in Ukraine. This is creating a massive mud problem and probably stalling out most major offensive efforts. Is this the case for the rest of March? I suspect serious offensives will not start until Spring. Spring in 1943 meant around 1 May. It was too wet and muddy before then.

Ukrainian Army Build-up: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Do not know the current strength of the deployed Ukrainian Army but am guessing that it is between 200,000 to 300,000 troops. They clearly are going to have to build it up to 400,000 or more in response to Russia’s partial mobilization. There is a Ukrainian Territorial Defense Force of 100,000 to 200,000. Wikipedia was reporting 209,000 in their armed forces and 102,000 paramilitary. They were reporting their ground forces at 198,000 in July 2022. 

Do not have a good estimate of the total number of foreign volunteers now in Ukraine, although it is clearly thousands.

Russian Army Build-up:  

Ukraine is reporting that around 280,000 Russians are deployed in Ukraine. This seems a reasonable estimate. On 4 November Putin stated at 318,000 reservists and “new volunteers” have been mobilized and 49,000 are in combat zones. I assume the Russian army in Ukraine was at about 200,000 at the start of this mobilization. Ukrainian press is now reporting that Russia is going to mobilize another 500,000 starting 15 January. Now their minister is saying Russia recruited 500,000 soldiers in their call up of reservists. We shall see if these rumors are correct. Ukraine will have to respond in kind.

The U.S. and UK estimate that the Wagner Group had 50,000 people in December 2022. Have no idea if this estimate is accurate.

The Russian defense budget for 2023 is $159 billion, up from $111 billion in 2022. This appears to now be around 9% of GDP.

According to one article, which I suspect is a little biased, Russian tank production at Uralvagonzavod is currently over 900 armored vehicles a year, including 35-40 T-90s a month. In contrast, the U.S. is producing two M-1A2 a month in Lima, Ohio. The German Leopard 2 is also still in production. 

Russia is getting some support from China, possibly spare parts and more important, microchips. They are reportedly not currently providing Russia with weapons. This is a source of discussion between the U.S./EU and China.

Opposing forces: Ukraine had before the war an army (ground forces) of 169,000 in 2016. The Russian army (not armed forces) was 280,000. The current Ukrainian army is now probably over 200,000. The Russian army (ground forces) in and around Ukraine is probably around 150,000 (up to 190,000). Donetsk PR is estimated at 20,000 and Lugansk at 14,000. Russia has added at least 41,000 troops to the front line from their new partial mobilization effort and will be adding more. Potentially up to 300,000. Most likely by the spring next year, both armies will be sporting 400,000 or more troops. It does appear that by next spring, the level of intensity and casualties from this war will be a count twice as high as it currently has been.

General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, said in an interview on 16 December that Russia is preparing 200,000 fresh troops to launch another attack on Kiev in February or March or maybe late January. This is sort of line with my assumption that the Russian Army in Ukraine will be built up to around 400,000 troops by spring. Suspect the same or more for Ukraine. On the other hand, a Ukrainian minister is now saying the Russians recruited 500,000 late last year (instead of 300,000) and so therefore will be employing superior numbers against Ukraine. Not sure this is the case. 

Economics and the Home Fronts:

On 30 December the Prime Minister of Ukraine said that Ukraine managed to harvest 60 million tons of crops. In 2021 according to the Kyiv Independent Ukraine harvested 84 million tons of cereals and legumes, as well as 22.6 million tons of oilseed. This was actually the largest harvest in the recent history of Ukraine (since 1991). This was primarily due to favorable weather conditions (they are being helped by global warming?). In 2021 Ukraine had 42 million hectares of farmland which covers 70% of the country. Large agro-corporations operated 6 million of these hectares, small and medium agro-companies operated on 11 million. In 2020 Ukraine’s agricultural sector made up 9% of their GDP. A 20-year moratorium on land transactions was officially lifted on July 1, 2021.

According to Ukraine’s economic ministry. the Ukrainian economy shrank by 30.4% in 2022. I have seen an estimated for Ukraine of 45% decline in the economy and IMF has estimated a 35% decline (and 8.5% for Russia). Not sure that is the case anymore with $100+ billion in aid coming in (Ukrainian GDP was $181 billion in 2021). According to Ukraine, its GDP has dropped by 30% in the first nine months of this year. 

A recent late January poll said that 87% of Ukrainians support joining the EU while 86% support joining NATO. Don’t know how accurate that poll is, but it sounds about right.

According to the IMF as of 31 January 2023, the Russian GDP shrank by at least 2.2% in 2022 and maybe as much as 3.9% (World Bank/OECD). The IMF is now saying the Russian economy will grow by 0.3% in 2023. Not sure how that happens with declining oil prices (see below).For December 2022, retail sales are down 10.5% and production was down 4.3% compared to December 2021. This sounds like a still declining economy. Meanwhile the U.S. GDP grew by 2.0% in 2022 (latest IMF figures).

Russia has lost professional workers to flight from the country. The Federal State Statistic Service (Rosstat) is reporting 419,00 left Russia in the first half of 2022. They are claiming that 321,000 have returned. These are lower figures than people have previously reported (see paragraph below). See: Rosstat: Since the beginning of the year, 419 thousand people have left russia – DW – 06.09.2022. 

A recent non-governmental survey states that the average age of Russians who left the county after Feb. 24 is 32 years old, while 80% of them have a higher education degree. Between January and May of 2022, the population of the Russian Federation fell by over 430,000 people, 20% of those having left the country according to Rosstat. The long-term impact on Russia of this is significant and it may affect the country for decades. This article is worthwhile: ‘We realized that there’s no way we can return’: Russia’s best and brightest are leaving the country in record numbers. 6 young Russians explain why they left (msn.com). The Central Bank of Russia is reporting that 458 billion rubles (7.46 billion dollars) has been withdrawn from personal accounts since 21 September. The estimated GDP of Russia $2.133 trillion (IMF 2022), or 1.776 trillion (World Bank 2021) or 1.483 trillion (United Nations 2020). So, this is 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP that I am guessing has just migrated out of the country in the last month.

Added to that professional migration, it is estimated by the Gaidar Institute (which is still independent) that 250 to 350,000 people have left because the partial mobilization. See: IGOR YEFREMOV: “RAPID DEPARTURE OF EVEN A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND RUSSIANS OF WORKING AGE CAUSES A VISIBLE BLOW TO THE LABOR MARKET” (The Gaidar Institute) (iep.ru). This is also lower than some previous claims (for example Forbes says 600,000 to 700,000, see above under “Russian Army Build-up”). Still, this adds up to potentially a half-million or more who have left the country because of the war. 

The latest story is that of the 10,500 Russians that have entered Argentina in the last year, over half of them have been pregnant woman that have entered in the list three months (according to the Argentinian National Director of Immigration). I guess these women are voting with their feet. I wish them the best. Meanwhile, Russian birthrate in 2020 was 1.5 children born per woman (replacement rate is @2.1…U.S. birthrate is 1.664 in 2021). We have talked about this before (long before Elon Musk started talking about it):  Demographics of Russia | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Demographics of Russia – part 2 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

A major part of this war is about who is getting hurt the worst economically and how long people can stand the pain. The IMF reports that the Euro Area grew by 3.5% in 2022 and with a 2.0% growth for the U.S. It does appear that Putin’s plan to turn Europe away from supporting Ukraine has failed. From a practical point of view, around half the aid going to Ukraine is the from the U.S., the other half is from the EU. There is some other international support (like Japan). According to the latest IMF estimates (which I do not have complete confidence in), the U.S. economy is going to grow by 1.4% for 2023, the Euro area by 0.7% and Russia by 0.3%. They have the UK economy declining by 0.6% in 2023.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is saying that budget revenue in January 2023 was 35% lower compared to January 2022. Deficit was 1.77 trillion rubles (23.9 billion). Oil and Gas revenue, the backbone of Russia’s budget and economy, was down 46% compared to January 2022. The oil and gas sector accounted for up to 40% of Russia’s budget revenues in 2019. Lower oil prices are clearly having an impact. Would be nice if we could get Saudi Arabia and OPEC to up production by 2 billion barrels. Russia is selling gold to cover the deficit.

The reduction in energy imports already led to a $5.9 billion budget shortfall for Russia in August. They previously were running in the black. The Russian government ended up having to do a 10% across the board cut because of the budget shortfalls. I gather that most energy exports to the west have now ended.

Meanwhile, as of 17 February, European gas prices have dropped to below 50 Euro per megawatt hour. This is an 85% drop from the price peak last year. It just reinforces the narrative that Putin’s attempt to undermine European support has failed.

Price of oil (Brent Crude) is at 84.70 as of 8:30 AM. This lower price does hurt Russia. Saudi Arabia and OPEC decided in October to cut production by 2 billion barrels. This cut clearly helped Russia and may have affected U.S. politics. It is a dangerous political play by Saudi Arabia considering that its leadership is not well loved in the west. Saudi Arabia is now providing $410 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and last week made their first official visit to Ukraine. Saudi currently produces around 10.6 million barrels a day. As I pointed out in an old post below $80 a barrel used to be the point where the Russian government budget would go into the red. Needless to say, low oil prices starve the Russian war machine. The Ruble is down to 75.45 to the dollar, probably because of declining oil prices. The Ukrainian Hryvnia is steady at 36.90 to a dollar.

U.S. inflation rate for 2022 was 8.0% but appears to be declining. Germany was 7.88%, UK was 7.90%, France was 5.22%, Italy was 8.18%. Turkey was 71.98%. Russia was 11.53% for 2022. It is up to 11.8% for Russia in January 2023, inflamed by the declining ruble.

It does appear that Putin has ridden out the political blowback from the partial mobilization. This has included 1) municipal councils in St. Petersburg and Moscow petitioning for his removal; 2) street protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere against the mobilization. According to OVD-Info, so far 16,437 people have been arrested or detained in Russia for anti-war activism since the start of the invasion and at least another 1,300 were detained or arrested around 21 September, 3) famed musician Alla Pugacheva speaking out against the invasion, and 4) mass migration from the country that may be as many as a half-million people. Still, it appears the government is securely in power and are going continue the war for 2023.

Casualties: The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian miliary, Valerii Zaluzhny, on 21 August stated that almost 9,000 Ukrainian military have died in the war. This is a lower estimate than most people have given (although we have leaned towards the lower estimates). Not sure if these figures included militia losses (like Azov Regiment). If Ukraine lost almost 9,000, then hard to believe the Russian losses are that much higher. On 1 December a presidential advisor stated that Ukraine has lost between 10,000 and 13,000 troops killed.

I also note this recent article: Ukraine’s war secret: how many of their troops have died? | News | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk). There is also a discussion on ammunition consumption on both sides at the end of the article.

I did do a briefing on 7 December in Norway that concluded:

Losses in 2022:

Ukrainian Army:

  • 13,500 – 16,500 killed
  • 54,000 – 66,000 wounded
  • 6,000 captured
  • 1,000 missing

Russian Army:

  • 16,028 – 19,028 killed (including LPR and DPR)
  • 64,112 – 76,112 wounded
  • 1,000 captured
  • 1,000? missing

Civilians:

  • 6,655 killed as of 1 December
  • Real figure is probably thousands more

The (slightly edited) full briefing is here (the figures are on slide 46): Some Observations from the War in Ukraine (2)

The Pentagon has just claimed that total Russian losses may exceed 110K. That is in line with my figures. BBC News Russia and an independent Russia media outlet called Mediazona records 10,720 Russians killed in 2022 and have added another 942 deaths for January 1-17 2023. This is a count of casualties by name that is developed by reviewing Russian announcements, obituaries, etc. As such, it certainly undercounts deaths to a degree. 

As of end of November, people were batting around Russian loss figures in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 or more. Now, they seem to be above 200,000. So, nine months to get to the first 100,000 casualties and now over the last two months another 100,000 casualties? This seems odd, especially as there are no major offensives being conducted, it is bad weather and short days. Not sure what is the factual basis for these recent higher casualty estimates. 

The Mediazona count of Russian war dead as of 3 February was 13,030. The actual figures are certainly higher, but how much higher? 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.

Note that the article also says: “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. 

The Russian Defense Minister is now claiming as of 21 September that they have lost 5,937 killed in this war. This is their first update since March. This figure is probably low. A BBC News effort to count Russian casualties by name from open sources has come up with a figure of 6,476 as of 15 September. There are also losses of 3,069 for the DPR and at least 600 for the LPR (and I suspect the figure is higher). So, it appears that Russia and their allied losses are at least 9,606 killed and this probably does not include Chechens or the Wagner Group. He also claimed that almost 90% of the wounded have already returned to service and Ukrainian losses were 61,207 dead and 49,368 wounded. On 21 September, the Ukrainian General Staff put Russian killed at 55,110. On 25 March the Russian Defense Ministry stated that their losses were 1,351 Russians killed and 3,825 wounded (a 2.83-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio).

The BBC Russia count of Russian dead is up to 7,822 Russians reported killed as of 21 October. This includes 41 recent draftees. My general sense is that the Russia army let itself get seriously depleted and should have started partial mobilization sooner. Sending recently mobilized troops to hold the line is not a good use of personnel.

There are rumors in mid-October that Russian has suffered 90,000 irrecoverable losses. Sources are reports from Russian news service Meduza quoting unnamed FSB source (would FSB know Army losses?). An irrecoverable loss is killed, seriously wounded or missing. So maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of those losses are killed, which does produce a figure on the high side in my opinion. I assume Ukraine does know how many Russians it has captured, but I have never seen a figure for that.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian deputy defense minister on 16 October is claiming that they exchanging losses with the Russians at a rate of 1 to 6.5. I do not trust such a claim. 

The UN is reporting as of 27 February at least 8,101 civilians confirmed dead in the war. This is a large leap of almost a thousand killed since the report of 13 February (7,199) and I assume is due to upgrading of the records, as they only reporting 123 civilians killed from 1-26 February. See: Ukraine: civilian casualty update 27 February 2023 | OHCHR vice Ukraine: civilian casualty update 13 February 2023 | OHCHR. Not sure why the reporting has suddenly gotten “squirrelly.”

Of those 3,714 of the deaths are in Ukrainian controlled territory in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk with 622 killed in territory controlled by Russian separatists. One wonders how many of the claimed Mariupol casualties are included in these figures.

From 1-30 November, OHCHR recorded 688 civilian casualties (162 killed). Of those, 153 were killed and 487 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 9 were killed and 39 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.  

From 1-31 December, OHCHR recorded 801 civilian casualties (188 killed). Of those 164 were killed and 584 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 24 were killed and 29 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

From 1-31 January, OHCHR recorded 697 civilian casualties (177 killed). Of those 167 were killed and 495 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 10 were killed and 25 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

They did include this chart in one of their earlier reports:

On 5 December, the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Yevhen Yenin, said that according to National Police over 9,400 civilians have been killed in Russian shelling.

More than 28,000 people have died in this conflict: 5,937 or more (Russian Army) + 9,000 or more (Ukrainian Army) + 8,101 (Civilians) + 4,176 (DPR) + 600 (LPR) = 27,814. It is probably in excess of 38,000 total deaths depending on Ukrainian and Russian military deaths and the real count of civilian losses.

On 14 November a Taiwanese fighter, “Jonathan” Tseng Sheng-Guang, is reported to have died in Ukraine. The first Japanese volunteer fighter, under the name of Dobure, also has been killed in Ukraine. It is reported that at least 16 Belarussians have died fighting for Ukraine. It has been reported that two Azerbaijani volunteers have died fighting for Ukraine. The total number of Americans killed in the war is eight killed in combat and three civilians. Three have been captured of which all three have now been exchanged, as has one detained civilian. On 2 February, an American medic, Pete Reed, was killed. He was a former Marine and 33 years old.On 16 February, Andrew Peters, age 28, from Wisconsin was killed. He was former U.S. Army with experience in Afghanistan.

Ammo: The second and third to last paragraphs in The Times (UK) article referenced above says:

However, Barrons argues that Ukraine needs ammunition even more than it needs soldiers. It fires 90,000 155mm shells a month and sometimes 6,000 shells a day but combined US and European production is less than 30,000 a month. “There is a mathematical mismatch,” he says. The US is tripling its output but “Europe has been too slow”.

Russia, which has been firing 20,000 shells a day and is thought to have used up ten years’ worth of production in 12 months, has the same problem. In recent weeks they have reduced the numbers by 75 per cent.

So 6,000 shells a day vice 20,000 shells a day, have no idea if that is true or what percent of the rounds fire are “smart” versus old style. One would expect the side firing the most rounds would be causing more causalities. On the other hand, if U.S. production is less than 30,000 a month Ukraine will be forced to eventually reduce their expenditures to 1,000 or 2,000 shells a day. If Russia has to reduce their numbers by 75%, then they are firing 5,000 shells a day. Don’t know if any single number in this discussion is close to reality but suspect that both sides will have to reduce their artillery expenditure at least until May. This war could be very quiet for a couple of months.

Anyhow, Ukraine is requesting 250,000 shells a month from the EU.

Air Power: The Pentagon on 12 March is reporting that Russia is flying about 200 sorties a day. The Ukrainian air force has 56 operational jets flying 5 to 10 hours a day. March 22 it was reported by the U.S. that Russia flew more than 300 sorties into Ukraine. March 24 it was reported that more than 250 Russian sorties were flown, mostly around Kiev and Kharkov. On 12 May, the U.S. was claiming that the Russians flew 300 sorties over Ukraine in the last 24 hours. On 14 May they were claiming 250 Russian sorties. It has been pretty consistent reporting of 250-300 sorties a day for quite some time now. For 24 August Ukraine reported 200 Russian sorties over Ukraine. 

On 3 September is it stated that Ukraine did 40 sorties, which is a record. On 18 September they claimed to have launched 20 air strikes, on 22 September launched 25 and on 11 October launched 15 air strikes. This is a fairly low level of air activity.

@Oryx, which is a twitter account worth following, is reporting as of 14 September that since the start of the war 53 Russian aircraft have been destroyed as have 42 Ukrainian aircraft. This is all counted by photo confirmation. On 19 September, U.S. General James Hecker stated that Ukraine has shot down 55 Russian aircraft in the war. He stated that he was pretty sure that all of those losses were due to surface-to-air missiles, SA-10s and SA-11s. This count does not include non-battle losses and accidents (of which there are some). It appears no Russian planes have been shot down in air-to-air combat and maybe only a handful of Ukrainian planes.

The Russians are now reported to be using loitering munitions. Ukraine has been using them since the start of the war. There are also reports of drone-on-drone engagements and have been 9 such cases reported. So drone vs drone combat is now a thing. 

A Ukrainian deputy prime minister is saying on 12 February that Ukraine has already “contracted” 1,765 drones. It has spent more than 85.5 million Euros on the drones and more than 3,500 servicemen have been trained to operate them. 

Missile Defense: In his 5 July video, Denys Davydov states almost 80% of Russian missiles are being intercepted by anti-missile defenses. I have seen this claim repeated elsewhere but have no idea as to its validity. On 10 October, Ukraine intercepted only 43 out of the 84 missiles (51%) fired at it. On 11 October, they intercepted 20 out of 28 (71%). On 16 October there was another wave of missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy structure. The Mayor of Kiev (heavy weight world champion Vitali Klitschko) said that 23 of the 28 drones fired at Kiev were intercepted. Overall, 42 drones were fired at Ukraine and they claimed to have shot down 36 of them. 

The bombardment on 31 October consisted of over 50 Russian missiles/drones, of which 44 were claimed to have been shot down. Ukraine claims to have shot down 73 of the over 100 missiles fired in the bombardment of 15 November. Fragments of one Ukrainian air defense missile landed in Poland killing two. The missile that landed in Poland on 15 November was probably a Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missile, of which most versions have a range of less than 100 miles. Pretty hard for this to be anything other than Ukrainian. On 23 November, there was a large missile attack where Ukraine claimed 51 out of 70 missiles shot down. This attack shut down all the power in Kiev and killed four civilians there. The large attack on 5 December claimed around 60 missiles shot down out of around 70 fired, which is 86% intercepted. This is particularly good. On 16 December, they claimed to have intercepted 60 out of 74, or 81%. 

For the attack on 29 December, Ukraine does report shooting down 54 out of 69 cruise missiles and 11 Iranian drones. This comes out to 81% intercepted except other reports are saying over 120 missiles were fired. So, is the interception rate more like 54%? Anyhow, it does look like the Russians overloaded the Ukrainian missile defense this time. As this is supposedly their tenth such strike (I have not verified the count), then it is about time Russia figured this out. The question is: does Russia have the resources to keep doing this?

This was followed up with an attack on New Year’s Eve of about 20 cruise missiles and further attacks on 1 and 2 January. For the attack on New Year’ Eve it looks like they shot down 12 out of 20 cruise missiles (60%). In the attack of 1 and 2 January by 39 or 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones, Ukraine claims it shot them all down. They have power outages in Kyiv as a result of the attack on 2 January. This strongly indicates that not all the drones were shot down.

There was another missile attack on 14 January of only 38 missiles that was effective. Ukraine only shot down 25 of them (only 65%), so power infrastructure was hit, as was several apartment buildings. On 25 January they shot down 47 out of 55 or 85%, which is better than they have been doing recently. The effectiveness of this missile strike against infrastructure was limited. Russia’s last big aerial bombardment attack was on 10 February using 71 missiles. Ukraine claimed 61 downed (86%).

The U.S., Germany and Holland have agreed to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense missile systems. Should be interesting to see how well they do. Not sure when they are arriving, but it looks like we are set up to ship them and to start training Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr in Germany.

End of the War: It does look like Russia intends to hold onto most of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, the majority of Kherson province (but not the capital) and four-fifths of Zaporizhzhia province. The capital Zaporizhzhia (pop. 722,713) is held by Ukraine. So, parts of four out of Ukraine’s 24 provinces and Crimea.

Populations of partly or completely occupied areas (2019 estimates):

Donetsk: 4,165,901

Lugansk: 2,151,833

Crimea: 2,033,700 (2001 census)

Zaporizhzhia: 1,705,836

Kherson: 1,037,640

Sevastopol: 509,992 (2021 estimate)

 

Population of Ukraine (excluding Crimea), 2022 estimate: 41,167,336

What they are willing to later negotiate away to achieve peace or a ceasefire is unknown. Russia has now annexed Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in addition to Crimea and Sevastopol. This sort of indicates that there is no basis for a negotiated settlement. Zelenskyy did lay out a 10-point peace plan in November. It includes:

5. Restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity

6. Total withdrawal of all Russian troops from all of Ukraine.

7. Punishment for war crimes.

The UN General Assembly did recently pass a resolution supporting reparations from Russia, but this does not appear to be in Zelenskyy’s ten-point plan.

Russia’s current peace position is that Ukraine must be demilitarized and de-nazified (is that a word) and Russia keeps Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia (and I guess must hand over the last two province’s capitals), Crimea and Sevastopol. The Russian foreign minister Lavrov did say on 29 Dec: “Putting forward all sorts of ideas and ‘formulas of peace,’ Zelensky cherishes the illusion of achieving, with the help of the West, the withdrawal of our troops from the Russian territory of Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region, the payment of reparations by Russia, and the surrender of international tribunals and the like. Of course, we will not talk to anyone on such conditions.”

Probably the most significant events over the last couple of months is that 1) Russian did not shut down the Ukrainian energy grid and demoralize the population, 2) Russia did not increase the economic pain in Europe sufficiently to undermine support for Ukraine, and 3) Russian still has only done a partial mobilization and appears not to be extensively mobilizing further. Russia appears to be fighting for a stalemate in 2023.

This looks like an extended war, and I don’t think it will be over before the end of summer 2023. It may continue for years: So How Long is this War Going to Last? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Possible Outcomes of the War? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Atrocities: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Ukrainian reforms: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Ukranian defense minister appears to be staying.

Other Issues: 

U.S. Support for Ukraine: I sort of hate to get into discussing this as it invariably gets divisively political, but it is a significant issue. Half of the aid to Ukraine comes from the U.S. If the U.S. wavers, then this poses real challenges for Ukraine’s defensive efforts. The latest Gallup poll (3-22 January) says that 65% of Americans support the war in Ukraine. 31% clearly do not. This is pretty much the same figures as in August 2022 (66% vs 31%). Among self-identified Democrats the split was 81% to 16%, among independents it was 59% to 38% and among Republicans it was 53% to 41%. So, according to the Gallup poll, the majority of Republicans support Ukraine. On the other hand, 47% of the Republicans polled said that the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine. Previous polling from Washington Post shows that 52% of Republicans want to reduce aid to Ukraine or “…want their member of congress to opposed additional funding.” Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was in Kyiv last week.

There was a “Rage Against the War Machine Rally” in Washington D.C. on Sunday 19 February. Its attendance was maybe 750-1000 people including Libertarian and former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. It was a pretty odd and controversial collection of speakers.

The United States passed the fiscal year 2023 budget before the new congress was seated. The Democrats/Independents control the Senate 51-49 and the Republicans now control the House 222-213. The U.S. budget is in place through September 2023 and cannot be overturned or cut by the new Republican majority House, if they so desire. I am pretty certain that come October 2023, the United States will be struggling to approve a budget for fiscal year 2024. This is going to complicate things. Eleven Republican members of the House just proposed a resolution (“Ukraine Fatigue Resolution”) to cut aid to Ukraine. There is a clearly a vocal minority that is opposed to supporting Ukraine, as is presidential candidate Donald Trump (whose run has been endorsed by 5 Senators, 17 congressmen and one governor). There does appear to be some public pushback from other Republicans (i.e. Nancy Mace’s “roast” at the Washington Press Club Foundation). 

The “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” is worth a read. It is here: Text – H.Res.113 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Ukraine Fatigue Resolution | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.

Belarus: I still doubt that they will join the war. Belarus has 60,000 troops and now they are trying to recruit another 20,000. This is from a country that the government was almost overthrown two years ago by popular acclaim. Ukraine has an 891-kilometer border (554 miles) with Belarus, so Ukraine must maintain some forces there. Belarus has stated on 16 October that a little less than 9,000 Russian troops will be stationed in Belarus to protect it borders. 

Kaliningrad: On 14 February, in the Russian isolated city next to NATO members Poland and Lithuania, an IL-20M and 2 Su-27s were intercepted by two Dutch F-35s and escort away from the NATO area. Eight Dutch F-35s are stationed in Poland. Kaliningrad is the former Prussian capital of Koenigsberg. It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and its annexation was confirmed in 1990.

EU: Ukraine has been made a candidate member of the European Union as of 23 June. It still means that it will be years before Ukraine becomes part of the EU, but this is a big first step. The Ukraine government applied for EU membership less than week after Russia first invaded them. Moldova was also granted candidate membership. Georgia has not (and it is not on good terms with Russia).

This was the issue that started all the turmoil in 2013. This is the issue that fueled all the conflict over the last nine years, for the Euromaidan revolt occurred when Ukrainian President Yanukovich decided to join Putin’s Eurasian Union vice the EU. The subsequent conflicts included the whole three-month Euromaidan revolt in the dead of winter of 2013-2014 that led to over 100 Ukrainians being killed, many protesters shot in the street by President Yanokovich’s security forces; the seizure of Crimea; the creation of LPR and DPR; the subsequent war; and now this war. Ukraine certainly has paid a much higher cost to join the EU than anyone else ever has. Current polling (Reuters April 5) shows that 91% of the Ukrainians support joining the EU. 

NATO: Finland and Sweden signed the accession protocol to join NATO on 5 July, along with all 30 members of NATO. They officially applied to join NATO on May 18. There was an objection from Turkey, but Sweden and Finland have resolved their issues just before the summit in Madrid in early July. As of 1 October, 28 NATO members have ratified the accession protocol. It does require unanimous consent of all 30 members for them to join NATO. It does add an 810-mile (1300 km) border with Russia, but NATO already abuts Russian and Belarussian territory in the Baltic states and Norway abuts Russia above the arctic circle. Also, Denmark has joined the common EU defense cooperation, something which it has stayed out of for three decades. The United States voted on 4 August to the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO by 95-1. The remaining two states that need to vote for this are Hungary and Turkey.  Hungary is not going to get around to it until early 2023. It appears that Sweden has made all the “reforms” that it is going to make. Specifically, it has rejected the request to extradite four people. The U.S. in the past has made similar refusals. It is now up to Turkey to decide if this is enough. The U.S. is apparently negotiating selling F-16s to Turkey. This may be the quid-pro-quo that makes this happen. In October 2021 Turkey requested to purchase 40 F-16s. Congress has resisted approving the sale, but it appears it will go through if Turkey approves Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Turkish elections are scheduled for 14 May, so this issue may not get resolved until after that. Right now, U.S. Turkish relations have been a little contentious. Turkey was also just hit with a massive earthquake on 6 February near Syria. Around 53,000 dead in Turkey and Syria, around 46,000 of them in Turkey.

Meanwhile, on 30 September, the president of Ukraine formally applied to join NATO. 

Also, the United States will be establishing a permanent troop presence in Poland, maintain a rotational brigade in Romania, and enhance its rotational deployment in the Baltic States, among other expansions. As of December, the United States has a total of 100,000 troops across all of Europe (including Germany and Italy). Canada is leading a NATO battlegroup of Latvia of around 2,000 soldiers, including troops from Canada, Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Germany is to lead a combat brigade in Lithuania of 3,000 – 5,000 soldiers. The command unit of around 100 soldiers arrived on 4 September. A NATO battalion of about 1,500-1,600 has been stationed there since 2017 and is under command of a German officer. There are also NATO battle groups in Estonia and Poland. Germany is also now talking about an armored division for protection of NATO’s eastern border.

Poland has completed on 30 June a steel wall on its border with Belarus to curb the flow of asylum seekers from Belarus. The wall is 115 miles long (186 km), 18 feet tall (5.5 meters) and cost $407 million to build (353M Euros). Poland is also building a fence along its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which has irked Russia. Work began in late February. The Polish border with Belarus is 258 miles long (416 km). Poland also announced around 15 July that it will be increasing its defense budget to be 5% of the GDP and building up its army to 300,000 troops. Poland is currently spending 2.4% of its GDP on defense. It is going to increase it next year to 3%. The U.S. currently spends 3.5% of our GDP on defense.

Lithuania has also completed a barrier between itself and Belarus. It is mostly a 4 meter (13 foot) tall steel wire fence topped by concertina barbed wire. It covers approximately 550 kilometers (342 miles) and costs 152M euros. See twitter @LinasKojala post for 29 August for a picture of the fence.

Finland is now also talking about starting to build a barbed-wire fence along its long border with Russian starting early next year. They are looking at it covering 124 miles of the 832-mile border. Estimated cost is $393 million with a completion date of 2026.

Nagorno-Karabakh: Artillery fire was exchanged on 5 October between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as a result of their continuing conflict that Russia is supposed to be policing. There are also now credible reports and videos of Azerbaijanis executing Armenian prisoners. Significant fighting has erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia on 13 September. There has been a cease-fire as of 15 September. Armenia has said that at least 49 of its soldiers have been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday. They are now saying 105. Azerbaijan has said it has lost 50 troops. Russia is serving as the peacekeeper force with about 2,000 troops. I gather most of the fighting is artillery shelling. There have been large protests the last few days in the capital of Yerevan, Armenia against the prime minister. Meanwhile, U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is in Yerevan as of 18 September. This visit was then followed by protests in Yerevan against the Russian dominated military alliance CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), which Armenia, Russia, Belarus and three other post-Soviet states are members of.

Previous recent fights have resulted in at least 2 Armenians killed and more than a dozen wounded and 1 Azeri killed and 3 wounded. Azerbaijan took the border position. Russia is the Armenian-leaning peacekeepers in this area. One wonders if many of the outlying areas of the Soviet empire are going to turn into disorder over the next few months. The Azerbaijan embassy in London was also seized a few months ago by Muslim fundamentalists. Azerbaijan is a secular state. The Muslim fundamentalists may be supported by Iran. On 14 November, there was another round of shelling reported by Armenia at the border. On 26 November, there was another clash along the border, but no losses and then more firing on 27 November, with two Armenians reported wounded. There was another shelling by Azerbaijan reported on 23 December by Armenia. No casualties reported. It appears that Azerbaijan is trying to cut off the Lachin corridor, which connects Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan has called for parliamentary elections on March 19. We shall see how that goes. Khazakstan was having blackouts, not caused by bombing. The last time they had political demonstrations (January 2022), estimates were that 217 to over 230 people were killed and they called in over 3,000 Russian paratroopers to help them. There were also major protests in 2011 (14 killed), 2016, 2018, several times in 2019, and 2020. So kind of waiting for next big eruption. Meanwhile, Khazastan has set up two “Yurts of Invincibility” in Bucha and Kyiv. These yurts provide food, medical care and shelter to Ukrainians.

European Support: The government of Hungary is the one NATO nation that is not clearly behind Ukraine. Hungary is dealing with economic problems and the EU is withholding recovery funding due to a “rule-of-law dispute.” Prime Minister Viktor Orban on 11 October called for a ceasefire in the war and accused the U.S. of fueling the war. He did state that he was on the side of Ukraine. He also has not yet approved Sweden and Finland’s membership into NATO but he has finally acquiesced to the latest EU aid effort to Ukraine. 

The country that produced the largest peace demonstrations, some 70,000 protesters in Prague on 3 September 2022, has just elected a retired three-star general as its president. He has made it clear that he supports Ukraine. Recent elections in Estonia have reinforced the support for governments that favor supporting Ukraine. It does appear that Putin’s policy of trying to undermine support this winter in Europe for the war in Ukraine is failing. It does appear that European support is solid and broad, with Czechia elections, Germans providing Leopards, Hungary signing off on EU aid packages to Ukraine, Bulgarian parliament overruling their president and providing aid, etc. The political situation is getting simpler, the war is going to continue until at least next fall. It may get resolved on the battlefield this summer. It could continue into 2024.

In 2022 there have been some protests against the pro-western government of Moldova (pop. 2.6 million). The President of Moldova is now claiming that Russia was planning to stage a coup d’état through opposition protests. Zelenskyy made the same claims a week ago. Last June Moldova was granted EU candidate status. Moldovan intelligence intercepted some attempts between October and December of last year. Russia still has 1,500 peacekeeping troops in Transnistria and of course, there is still the breakaway Russian statelet of Transnistria (pop. @360,938) carved out of Moldovan territory. A Russian presence in Moldova is a threat to Odesa.

There was an anti-war protest in Berlin on Saturday, 25 February. It was attended by around 10,000, mostly from the left wing of the political spectrum. Germany has a long history of a pacifistic vocal left-wing since the 1980s (remember the late Petra Kelly and the Green Party). If this is the best that this political wing can produce now, that is very limited. It does appear that most of Europe is solidly behind Ukraine (as is Japan, South Korea, Australia and even New Zealand). Putin has done a good job of politically uniting the west.

Iran: It appears that the large protests in Iran are fizzling out. There are some serious demonstrations going on in Iran since 16 September, supported by labor strikes. It is said that at least nine protesters died in the first five days and Iran is now stating as of 24 September that 41 protesters have been killed. The count is certainly higher than that. An Oslo-based organization called Iran Human Rights is claiming as of 29 November that at least 448 people killed. They previously reported that also 40 security forces were killed. An Iranian general did acknowledge on 27 November that over 300 were dead. There are also an armed group (separatists?) that conducted an attack on 30 September in southeastern Iran (city of Zahedan) that killed 19 people. One wonders if the Iranian government has weathered the storm. Iran has arrested over 20,000 protesters.

Meanwhile, the night of Jan. 28 someone attacked manufacturing facilities in Iran. It was done with at least three drones and a strike was clearly made in Isfahan, a city of 2-4 million right in the middle of Iran. There were four reported large explosions. The mostly likely story is that it was done by Israel operating from Azerbaijan. 

Miscellaneous: Also, corrupt Navy-contractor “Fat Leonard” Francis, 57, was detained last Tuesday by Interpol in Venezuela trying to flee to Russia. He had escaped house arrest in San Diego, fled to Mexico then Cuba and was intercepted at the Venezuelan airport. He was not using an alias and should be extradited back to the U.S. He is currently still in Venezuela.

There were two pipelines that were bombed in international waters. Apparently 165 feet of the pipe is destroyed. Sweden is currently investigating but has not found any clear evidence linking Russia to the bombing. That said, it is hard to imagine who else would do this. I am kind of ignoring the latest claims from Seymour Hersh. He has been dead wrong before.

Second Call for Presentations for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023

Want to make a second call for presentations for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC) in Tysons Corner in October 2023.

Anyone interested in making what they feel is a useful and relevant contribution should email me at LawrenceTDI@aol.com or call me at (703) 289-0007.

The current schedule for the conference is here: Schedule for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

We do not require any formal paper or publication to support such a presentation. The presentations should be planned to be completed within 45 minutes, giving us time for 15 minutes of discussion.

We are looking for presentations from academia, think tanks, defense companies, the armed services or private individuals that are related to historical analysis of military affairs. I do have a bias towards quantitative historical analysis but reman open-minded towards anything of value.

I will probably be accepting requests for presentations up through the end of September, when for practical purposes I will need to finalize the schedule. We prefer the presentations to be in person, but we have arranged for at least one virtual presentation.

We do give a $60 discount to the fee for the conference to presenters (it is $150 for the entire conference or $60 a day). While it would be nice to cover people’s travel expenses and pay honorariums to the presenters, I am funding these conferences out of my own pocket. I guess I could charge more for the conference to allow for this; but instead, I limited the charges just to cover the expenses of the conference rooms.

 

P.S.

Conference description is here: The Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 in Tysons Corner, VA | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

Costs and Hotels: Cost of the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17 -19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Hotels for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

 

The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 369

What is interesting over the last month is what has not happened. The weather at the beginning of the month finally chilled enough to freeze the ground. This created a six-week window for offensive operations. We are now more than half-way through that window and neither side has conducted a major offensive. Other things that have not happened include: 1) Bakhmut has not fallen, 2) there had not been a major missile strike since 10 February and 3) Russia had not showed up on the battlefield with an extra 200,000 or 500,000 troops. In general, this month is notable for what has not happened. Needless to say, some “analysts” were predicting all kinds of things.

I am guessing at this point, that if nothing has happened in the first four weeks of this six-week weather window, then probably nothing major is not going to happen in the last two weeks. That does not mean that Bakhmut may not fall, but I don’t really consider it militarily significant.

The Russian attacks around Bakhmut has been undramatic this last week. They have made only limited advances to the south of the large town but they did take the village of Verkhivka to the north and made some minor advances in and around Bakhmut itself. This is not very significant for a week of work. It was reported on 26 February that Ukraine “blew” a dam near Bakhmut to flood the area. Most likely Ukraine will hold onto Bakhmut over the next two weeks and if that is the case, then will hold onto it until May, when the spring offensives will be initiated by one side or the other.

The rest of the front is quiet. In the last two weeks there has not been much action to the south of Bakhmut at the village of Vuhledar (pop. 14,144 in 2022). Two Russian naval infantry brigades (the 155th and the 40th) appear to have taken heavy losses in an attack a couple of weeks ago, and nothing has happened since then. There are only minor actions in and around Kreminna, Svatove, etc.

Russia last big aerial bombardment attack was on 10 February using 71 missiles. Ukraine claimed 61 downed (86%). What is interesting is the long wait since then. If Russia was going to degrade the Ukrainian power system, then they probably need to strike every 7 to 10 days. They are no longer doing that. Is that because they need to preserve resources (drones and rockets) and they attacks are not having their desired effect, either to the electrical grid or to the will of the Ukrainians to continue the war? It appears that this Russian air campaign is a failure. They didn’t even launch something is celebration of the one-year anniversary of the war. This is an anniversary that the Russians do not seem all that interested in celebrating.

The U.S. and many countries in and around Europe are now providing tanks to Ukraine. This includes 31 Abrams (M1A2) from the U.S., the previously announced 40 AMX-10 light tanks from France, the previously announced 14 Challengers from the UK, 14 Leopards (2A6) from Germany announced on Jan. 25 plus they are going to provide 14 more later, 14 or so Leopards (2A4?) from Poland, maybe 20 Leopards (2A4) from Spain, but so far only 6 have been confirmed (they are planning to train 55 Ukrainian crew members), no Leopards from Netherlands (previous rumors said 18), Portugal is sending 4 (2A6) out of their 37, 8 (2A4) from Norway out of their 36, and 4 2A4 Leopards from Canada out of their 80. Non-NATO members Finland is providing 3 Leopards and Sweden is providing 6 or 10 A6s. Also, Morocco is providing Ukraine with 173 T-74s EA, 70 are already in Ukraine. It does appear in a number of cases the announcements are lagging behind the actual shipments of tanks. Poland is providing Ukraine with another 60 upgraded T-72s. It has already sent Ukraine some 260 or more tanks. 

Twelve countries in NATO have Leopards. Germany is saying that a total of around 80 will be sent between them all. My count currently shows at least 73 Leopards from eight different countries (two not yet in NATO). It now looks like many of the older 40-45 ton German Leopard Is are being refurbished and will be sent. Germany has 88 of them it could send and Belgium has 50. Between Denmark, Netherlands and Germany, they are putting together a package of 100 1A5s, although the details of the deal keep changing.  It will be a while before most of them arrive. An initial package of 29 is being refurbished and are supposed to arrive in the summer (enough for one more brigade). There are a lot of them out there, with Greece supposedly having 520 (and 392 U.S. M-48s and 100 U.S. M-60s) and Turkey having 355 or 397 (and 750 M-48s and 785 M-60s). Opportunity to replace old stocks.

From a practical point of view, it means that around four or so Ukrainian tank battalions will be armed up with Abrams/Leopard 2/Challengers. Ukraine has over 30 tank battalions. Some should probably be in place for the spring offensives. Some of the Canadian Leopard 2s have already arrived in Poland. At least 4 of the Leopards have arrived in Ukraine. Challengers will be arriving in Ukraine next month (March).

I will put any changes/updates since my last post in italics. A link to a blow up of the map is here: Wikipedia map. It is dated 27 February. The last dated update on the map is Soledar on 16 January.

Map from 13 January 2023 of Bakhmut area is from @War_Mapper:

Map from 18 February 2023 of Bakhmut from @War_Mapper:

Russia currently occupies five cities: Lysychansk (pop. 95,031), Severodonetsk (pop. 101,135), Mariupol (pop. 431,859), Berdyansk (pop. 107,928) and Melitopol (pop. 150,768). Kherson (pop. 283,649) was retaken by Ukraine on 11 November.

 

We have been looking at six major areas of operations. Only the Donbas appears to be active right now. 

1. Kyiv (pop: 2,962,180): It appears that Kyiv is secure.

2. Odesa (pop: 1,015,826): Appears to be secure. Russia has rejoined the grain deal that they withdraw from on 29 October as a result of Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships near Sevastopol, and they have renewed the grain deal for another 120 days. The shipments still continue and the agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey has resulted in over twenty-two million tons of grain shipped by sea. As of 26 February, the amount of grain shipped from Ukrainian ports and across the Black Sea was 22,301,613 metric tonnes carried in 768 ships according to recent posts on twitter by @exit266. There are 21 days left to the agreement. The Russians did hit a Turkish ship in Odesa last month. I am guessing that is an accident, as Turkey is one of the few NATO countries that Russia has any dialogue with.

3. Kharkiv (pop: 1,433,886): Kharkiv looks to be secure. Still, it is near the Russian border, so this can change suddenly.

4. The Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (the Donbas): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is reporting as of 16 December that they had 4,133 soldiers killed and 17,379 wounded (4.20-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio). This includes the 13 killed and 50 wounded reported from 01.01.22 to 02.25.22. For the period of 16 – 22 December (overlapping dates on 16 December) they report 43 killed, but do not report the wounded. Through the 16th, this is 108% casualties out of an estimated initial force of 20,000. Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) is reported as of 5 April to have had 500-600 killed out of an estimated force of 14,000. This is 21% casualties, assuming a 4-to-1 killed ratio.

5. Mariupol (pop: 431,859): Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Prisoner Exchanges: Russia has claimed that they captured 2,439 prisoners from the siege of Mariupol. Russian claimed on 30 June that they held 6,000 prisoners. Ukraine stated in early July that they had more than 7,000 missing. Now Ukraine is stating as of 30 December that Russian holds 3,400 prisoners and 15,000 Ukrainians are missing.

In 2022 there were 1,447 prisoners of war exchanged, 112 civilians and five foreigners. Of those, at least 427 were from Mariupol/Azovstal and up to 53 others were killed in captivity. Latest prisoner exchange on 8 January was for 50 prisoners. Another prisoner exchange on 4 February of 116. Some of these Ukrainian prisoners had been in captivity for almost a year. Latest prisoner exchange, on 16 February, was for 100 soldiers and one civilian for 101 Russian soldiers. 94 of them were defenders of Mariupol, including 63 soldiers from Azovstal.

The Ukrainian Omsbudsman has stated in late January that 800 severely wounded Ukrainians are held as POWs. He also stated that they hold 200 severely wounded Russians.

6. Crimea & Kherson (pop: 283,649): Kherson is now back under Ukrainian control as of 11 November. Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

 

Weather: Kharkiv at 3 PM: It is 36 degrees (2 Celsius) and mixed rain and snow. Snow is forecasted for today and Wednesday and Saturday through Monday. Then rain on Tuesday. For the next 10 days, it is freezing at nights and above freezing on all but one day. Sunrise is now at 6:21 and sunset is at 5:13, giving them almost eleven hours of daytime to operate it. 

Kherson is a balmy 54 degrees (12 Celsius) and cloudy. Rain is forecasted for Saturday and Tuesdays. For the next 10 days, it is freezing most nights and above freezing during all of the days. Sunrise at 6:31 and sunset at 5:31. 

This week appears unusually warm for February in Ukraine. I suspect serious offensives will not start until Spring. Spring in 1943 meant around 1 May. It was too wet and muddy before then.

Ukrainian Army Build-up: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Do not know the current strength of the deployed Ukrainian Army but am guessing that it is between 200,000 to 300,000 troops. They clearly are going to have to build it up to 400,000 or more in response to Russia’s partial mobilization. There is a Ukrainian Territorial Defense Force of 100,000 to 200,000. Wikipedia was reporting 209,000 in their armed forces and 102,000 paramilitary. They were reporting their ground forces at 198,000 in July 2022. 

Do not have a good estimate of the total number of foreign volunteers now in Ukraine, although it is clearly thousands.

Russian Army Build-up:  

Ukraine is reporting that around 280,000 Russians are deployed in Ukraine. This seems a reasonable estimate. On 4 November Putin stated at 318,000 reservists and “new volunteers” have been mobilized and 49,000 are in combat zones. I assume the Russian army in Ukraine was at about 200,000 at the start of this mobilization. Ukrainian press is now reporting that Russia is going to mobilize another 500,000 starting 15 January. Now their minister is saying Russia recruited 500,000 soldiers in their call up of reservists. We shall see if these rumors are correct. Ukraine will have to respond in kind.

The U.S. and UK estimate that the Wagner Group had 50,000 people in December 2022. Have no idea if this estimate is accurate.

The Russian defense budget for 2023 is $159 billion, up from $111 billion in 2022. This appears to now be around 9% of GDP.

According to one article, which I suspect is a little biased, Russian tank production at Uralvagonzavod is currently over 900 armored vehicles a year, including 35-40 T-90s a month. In contrast, the U.S. is producing two M-1A2 a month in Lima, Ohio. The German Leopard 2 is also still in production. 

Russia is getting some support from China, possibly spare parts and more important, microchips. They are reportedly not currently providing Russia with weapons.

Opposing forces: Ukraine had before the war an army (ground forces) of 169,000 in 2016. The Russian army (not armed forces) was 280,000. The current Ukrainian army is now probably over 200,000. The Russian army (ground forces) in and around Ukraine is probably around 150,000 (up to 190,000). Donetsk PR is estimated at 20,000 and Lugansk at 14,000. Russia has added at least 41,000 troops to the front line from their new partial mobilization effort and will be adding more. Potentially up to 300,000. Most likely by the spring next year, both armies will be sporting 400,000 or more troops. It does appear that by next spring, the level of intensity and casualties from this war will be a count twice as high as it currently has been.

General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, said in an interview on 16 December that Russia is preparing 200,000 fresh troops to launch another attack on Kiev in February or March or maybe late January. This is sort of line with my assumption that the Russian Army in Ukraine will be built up to around 400,000 troops by spring. Suspect the same or more for Ukraine. On the other hand, a Ukrainian minister is now saying the Russians recruited 500,000 late last year (instead of 300,000) and so therefore will be employing superior numbers against Ukraine. Not sure this is the case. 

Economics and the Home Fronts:

On 30 December the Prime Minister of Ukraine said that Ukraine managed to harvest 60 million tons of crops. In 2021 according to the Kyiv Independent Ukraine harvested 84 million tons of cereals and legumes, as well as 22.6 million tons of oilseed. This was actually the largest harvest in the recent history of Ukraine (since 1991). This was primarily due to favorable weather conditions (they are being helped by global warming?). In 2021 Ukraine had 42 million hectares of farmland which covers 70% of the country. Large agro-corporations operated 6 million of these hectares, small and medium agro-companies operated on 11 million. In 2020 Ukraine’s agricultural sector made up 9% of their GDP. A 20-year moratorium on land transactions was officially lifted on July 1, 2021.

According to Ukraine’s economic ministry. the Ukrainian economy shrank by 30.4% in 2022. I have seen an estimated for Ukraine of 45% decline in the economy and IMF has estimated a 35% decline (and 8.5% for Russia). Not sure that is the case anymore with $100+ billion in aid coming in (Ukrainian GDP was $181 billion in 2021). According to Ukraine, its GDP has dropped by 30% in the first nine months of this year. 

A recent late January poll said that 87% of Ukrainians support joining the EU while 86% support joining NATO. Don’t know how accurate that poll is, but it sounds about right.

According to the IMF as of 31 January 2023, the Russian GDP shrank by at least 2.2% in 2022 and maybe as much as 3.9% (World Bank/OECD). The IMF is now saying the Russian economy will grow by 0.3% in 2023. Not sure how that happens with declining oil prices (see below).For December 2022, retail sales are down 10.5% and production was down 4.3% compared to December 2021. This sounds like a still declining economy. Meanwhile the U.S. GDP grew by 2.0% in 2022 (latest IMF figures).

Russia has lost professional workers to flight from the country. The Federal State Statistic Service (Rosstat) is reporting 419,00 left Russia in the first half of 2022. They are claiming that 321,000 have returned. These are lower figures than people have previously reported (see paragraph below). See: Rosstat: Since the beginning of the year, 419 thousand people have left russia – DW – 06.09.2022. 

A recent non-governmental survey states that the average age of Russians who left the county after Feb. 24 is 32 years old, while 80% of them have a higher education degree. Between January and May of 2022, the population of the Russian Federation fell by over 430,000 people, 20% of those having left the country according to Rosstat. The long-term impact on Russia of this is significant and it may affect the country for decades. This article is worthwhile: ‘We realized that there’s no way we can return’: Russia’s best and brightest are leaving the country in record numbers. 6 young Russians explain why they left (msn.com). The Central Bank of Russia is reporting that 458 billion rubles (7.46 billion dollars) has been withdrawn from personal accounts since 21 September. The estimated GDP of Russia $2.133 trillion (IMF 2022), or 1.776 trillion (World Bank 2021) or 1.483 trillion (United Nations 2020). So, this is 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP that I am guessing has just migrated out of the country in the last month.

Added to that professional migration, it is estimated by the Gaidar Institute (which is still independent) that 250 to 350,000 people have left because the partial mobilization. See: IGOR YEFREMOV: “RAPID DEPARTURE OF EVEN A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND RUSSIANS OF WORKING AGE CAUSES A VISIBLE BLOW TO THE LABOR MARKET” (The Gaidar Institute) (iep.ru). This is also lower than some previous claims (for example Forbes says 600,000 to 700,000, see above under “Russian Army Build-up”). Still, this adds up to potentially a half-million or more who have left the country because of the war. 

The latest story is that of the 10,500 Russians that have entered Argentina in the last year, over half of them have been pregnant woman that have entered in the list three months (according to the Argentinian National Director of Immigration). I guess these women are voting with their feet. I wish them the best. Meanwhile, Russian birthrate in 2020 was 1.5 children born per woman (replacement rate is @2.1…U.S. birthrate is 1.664 in 2021). We have talked about this before (long before Elon Musk started talking about it):  Demographics of Russia | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Demographics of Russia – part 2 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

A major part of this war is about who is getting hurt the worst economically and how long people can stand the pain. The IMF reports that the Euro Area grew by 3.5% in 2022 and with a 2.0% growth for the U.S. It does appear that Putin’s plan to turn Europe away from supporting Ukraine has failed. From a practical point of view, around half the aid going to Ukraine is the from the U.S., the other half is from the EU. There is some other international support (like Japan). According to the latest IMF estimates (which I do not have complete confidence in), the U.S. economy is going to grow by 1.4% for 2023, the Euro area by 0.7% and Russia by 0.3%. They have the UK economy declining by 0.6% in 2023.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is saying that budget revenue in January 2023 was 35% lower compared to January 2022. Deficit was 1.77 trillion rubles (23.9 billion). Oil and Gas revenue, the backbone of Russia’s budget and economy, was down 46% compared to January 2022. The oil and gas sector accounted for up to 40% of Russia’s budget revenues in 2019. Lower oil prices are clearly having an impact. Would be nice if we could get Saudi Arabia and OPEC to up production by 2 billion barrels. Russia is selling gold to cover the deficit.

The reduction in energy imports already led to a $5.9 billion budget shortfall for Russia in August. They previously were running in the black. The Russian government ended up having to do a 10% across the board cut because of the budget shortfalls. I gather that most energy exports to the west have now ended.

Meanwhile, as of 17 February, European gas prices have dropped to below 50 Euro per megawatt hour. This is an 85% drop from the price peak last year. It just reinforces the narrative that Putin’s attempt to undermine European support has failed.

Price of oil (Brent Crude) is at 82.37 as of 8:51 AM. This lower price does hurt Russia. Saudi Arabia and OPEC decided in October to cut production by 2 billion barrels. This cut clearly helped Russia and may have affected U.S. politics. It is a dangerous political play by Saudi Arabia considering that its leadership is not well loved in the west. Saudi Arabia has announced $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Saudi currently produces around 10.6 million barrels a day. As I pointed out in an old post below $80 a barrel used to be the point where the Russian government budget would go into the red. Needless to say, low oil prices starve the Russian war machine. The Ruble is down to 74.57 to the dollar, probably because of declining oil prices. The Ukrainian Hryvnia is steady at 36.57 to a dollar.

U.S. inflation rate for 2022 was 8.0% but appears to be declining. Germany was 7.88%, UK was 7.90%, France was 5.22%, Italy was 8.18%. Turkey was 71.98%. Russia was 11.53% for 2022. It is up to 11.8% for Russia in January 2023, inflamed by the declining ruble.

It does appear that Putin has ridden out the political blowback from the partial mobilization. This has included 1) municipal councils in St. Petersburg and Moscow petitioning for his removal; 2) street protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere against the mobilization. According to OVD-Info, so far 16,437 people have been arrested or detained in Russia for anti-war activism since the start of the invasion and at least another 1,300 were detained or arrested around 21 September, 3) famed musician Alla Pugacheva speaking out against the invasion, and 4) mass migration from the country that may be as many as a half-million people. Still, it appears the government is securely in power and are going continue the war for 2023.

Casualties: The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian miliary, Valerii Zaluzhny, on 21 August stated that almost 9,000 Ukrainian military have died in the war. This is a lower estimate than most people have given (although we have leaned towards the lower estimates). Not sure if these figures included militia losses (like Azov Regiment). If Ukraine lost almost 9,000, then hard to believe the Russian losses are that much higher. On 1 December a presidential advisor stated that Ukraine has lost between 10,000 and 13,000 troops killed.

I also note this recent article: Ukraine’s war secret: how many of their troops have died? | News | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk). There is also a discussion on ammunition consumption on both sides at the end of the article.

I did do a briefing on 7 December in Norway that concluded:

Losses in 2022:

Ukrainian Army:

  • 13,500 – 16,500 killed
  • 54,000 – 66,000 wounded
  • 6,000 captured
  • 1,000 missing

Russian Army:

  • 16,028 – 19,028 killed (including LPR and DPR)
  • 64,112 – 76,112 wounded
  • 1,000 captured
  • 1,000? missing

Civilians:

  • 6,655 killed as of 1 December
  • Real figure is probably thousands more

The (slightly edited) full briefing is here (the figures are on slide 46): Some Observations from the War in Ukraine (2)

The Pentagon has just claimed that total Russian losses may exceed 110K. That is in line with my figures. BBC News Russia and an independent Russia media outlet called Mediazona records 10,720 Russians killed in 2022 and have added another 942 deaths for January 1-17 2023. This is a count of casualties by name that is developed by reviewing Russian announcements, obituaries, etc. As such, it certainly undercounts deaths to a degree. 

As of end of November, people were batting around Russian loss figures in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 or more. Now, they seem to be above 200,000. So, nine months to get to the first 100,000 casualties and now over the last two months another 100,000 casualties? This seems odd, especially as there are no major offensives being conducted, it is bad weather and short days. Not sure what is the factual basis for these recent higher casualty estimates. 

The Mediazona count of Russian war dead as of 3 February was 13,030. The actual figures are certainly higher, but how much higher? 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.

Note that the article also says: “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. 

The Russian Defense Minister is now claiming as of 21 September that they have lost 5,937 killed in this war. This is their first update since March. This figure is probably low. A BBC News effort to count Russian casualties by name from open sources has come up with a figure of 6,476 as of 15 September. There are also losses of 3,069 for the DPR and at least 600 for the LPR (and I suspect the figure is higher). So, it appears that Russia and their allied losses are at least 9,606 killed and this probably does not include Chechens or the Wagner Group. He also claimed that almost 90% of the wounded have already returned to service and Ukrainian losses were 61,207 dead and 49,368 wounded. On 21 September, the Ukrainian General Staff put Russian killed at 55,110. On 25 March the Russian Defense Ministry stated that their losses were 1,351 Russians killed and 3,825 wounded (a 2.83-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio).

The BBC Russia count of Russian dead is up to 7,822 Russians reported killed as of 21 October. This includes 41 recent draftees. My general sense is that the Russia army let itself get seriously depleted and should have started partial mobilization sooner. Sending recently mobilized troops to hold the line is not a good use of personnel.

There are rumors in mid-October that Russian has suffered 90,000 irrecoverable losses. Sources are reports from Russian news service Meduza quoting unnamed FSB source (would FSB know Army losses?). An irrecoverable loss is killed, seriously wounded or missing. So maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of those losses are killed, which does produce a figure on the high side in my opinion. I assume Ukraine does know how many Russians it has captured, but I have never seen a figure for that.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian deputy defense minister on 16 October is claiming that they exchanging losses with the Russians at a rate of 1 to 6.5. I do not trust such a claim. 

The UN is reporting as of 13 February at least 7,199 civilians confirmed dead in the war. Of those 4,189 of the deaths are in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk with 510 killed in territory controlled by Russian separatists. One wonders how many of the claimed Mariupol casualties are included in these figures.

From 1-30 November, OHCHR recorded 688 civilian casualties (162 killed). Of those, 153 were killed and 487 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 9 were killed and 39 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.  

From 1-31 December, OHCHR recorded 801 civilian casualties (188 killed). Of those 164 were killed and 584 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 24 were killed and 29 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

From 1-31 January, OHCHR recorded 697 civilian casualties (177 killed). Of those 167 were killed and 495 injured due to explosive weapons with wide area effects and 10 were killed and 25 injured due to mines and explosive remnants of war.

They did include this chart in one of their earlier reports:

On 5 December, the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Yevhen Yenin, said that according to National Police over 9,400 civilians have been killed in Russian shelling.

More than 26,000 people have died in this conflict: 5,937 or more (Russian Army) + 9,000 or more (Ukrainian Army) + 7,199 (Civilians) + 4,176 (DPR) + 600 (LPR) = 26,912. It is probably in excess of 36,000 total deaths depending on Ukrainian and Russian military deaths and the real count of civilian losses.

On 14 November a Taiwanese fighter, “Jonathan” Tseng Sheng-Guang, is reported to have died in Ukraine. The first Japanese volunteer fighter, under the name of Dobure, also has been killed in Ukraine. It is reported that at least 16 Belarussians have died fighting for Ukraine. It has been reported that two Azerbaijani volunteers have died fighting for Ukraine. The total number of Americans killed in the war is eight killed in combat and three civilians. Three have been captured of which all three have now been exchanged, as has one detained civilian. On 2 February, an American medic, Pete Reed, was killed. He was a former Marine and 33 years old. On 16 February, Andrew Peters, age 28, from Wisconsin was killed. He was former U.S. Army with experience in Afghanistan.

Ammo: The second and third to last paragraphs in The Times (UK) article reference above says:

However, Barrons argues that Ukraine needs ammunition even more than it needs soldiers. It fires 90,000 155mm shells a month and sometimes 6,000 shells a day but combined US and European production is less than 30,000 a month. “There is a mathematical mismatch,” he says. The US is tripling its output but “Europe has been too slow”.

Russia, which has been firing 20,000 shells a day and is thought to have used up ten years’ worth of production in 12 months, has the same problem. In recent weeks they have reduced the numbers by 75 per cent.

So 6,000 shells a day vice 20,000 shells a day, have no idea if that is true or what percent of the rounds fire are “smart” versus old style. One would expect the side firing the most rounds would be causing more causalities. On the other hand, if U.S. production is less than 30,000 a month Ukraine will be forced to eventually reduce their expenditures to 1,000 or 2,000 shells a day. If Russia has to reduce their numbers by 75%, then they are firing 5,000 shells a day. Don’t know if any single number in this discussion is close to reality but suspect that both sides will have to reduce their artillery expenditure at least until May. This war could be very quiet for a couple of months.

Air Power: The Pentagon on 12 March is reporting that Russia is flying about 200 sorties a day. The Ukrainian air force has 56 operational jets flying 5 to 10 hours a day. March 22 it was reported by the U.S. that Russia flew more than 300 sorties into Ukraine. March 24 it was reported that more than 250 Russian sorties were flown, mostly around Kiev and Kharkov. On 12 May, the U.S. was claiming that the Russians flew 300 sorties over Ukraine in the last 24 hours. On 14 May they were claiming 250 Russian sorties. It has been pretty consistent reporting of 250-300 sorties a day for quite some time now. For 24 August Ukraine reported 200 Russian sorties over Ukraine. 

On 3 September is it stated that Ukraine did 40 sorties, which is a record. On 18 September they claimed to have launched 20 air strikes, on 22 September launched 25 and on 11 October launched 15 air strikes. This is a fairly low level of air activity.

@Oryx, which is a twitter account worth following, is reporting as of 14 September that since the start of the war 53 Russian aircraft have been destroyed as have 42 Ukrainian aircraft. This is all counted by photo confirmation. On 19 September, U.S. General James Hecker stated that Ukraine has shot down 55 Russian aircraft in the war. He stated that he was pretty sure that all of those losses were due to surface-to-air missiles, SA-10s and SA-11s. This count does not include non-battle losses and accidents (of which there are some). It appears no Russian planes have been shot down in air-to-air combat and maybe only a handful of Ukrainian planes.

The Russians are now reported to be using loitering munitions. Ukraine has been using them since the start of the war. There are also reports of drone-on-drone engagements and have been 9 such cases reported. So drone vs drone combat is now a thing. 

A Ukrainian deputy prime minister is saying on 12 February that Ukraine has already “contracted” 1,765 drones. It has spent more than 85.5 million Euros on the drones and more than 3,500 servicemen have been trained to operate them. 

Missile Defense: In his 5 July video, Denys Davydov states almost 80% of Russian missiles are being intercepted by anti-missile defenses. I have seen this claim repeated elsewhere but have no idea as to its validity. On 10 October, Ukraine intercepted only 43 out of the 84 missiles (51%) fired at it. On 11 October, they intercepted 20 out of 28 (71%). On 16 October there was another wave of missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy structure. The Mayor of Kiev (heavy weight world champion Vitali Klitschko) said that 23 of the 28 drones fired at Kiev were intercepted. Overall, 42 drones were fired at Ukraine and they claimed to have shot down 36 of them. 

The bombardment on 31 October consisted of over 50 Russian missiles/drones, of which 44 were claimed to have been shot down. Ukraine claims to have shot down 73 of the over 100 missiles fired in the bombardment of 15 November. Fragments of one Ukrainian air defense missile landed in Poland killing two. The missile that landed in Poland on 15 November was probably a Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missile, of which most versions have a range of less than 100 miles. Pretty hard for this to be anything other than Ukrainian. On 23 November, there was a large missile attack where Ukraine claimed 51 out of 70 missiles shot down. This attack shut down all the power in Kiev and killed four civilians there. The large attack on 5 December claimed around 60 missiles shot down out of around 70 fired, which is 86% intercepted. This is particularly good. On 16 December, they claimed to have intercepted 60 out of 74, or 81%. 

For the attack on 29 December, Ukraine does report shooting down 54 out of 69 cruise missiles and 11 Iranian drones. This comes out to 81% intercepted except other reports are saying over 120 missiles were fired. So, is the interception rate more like 54%? Anyhow, it does look like the Russians overloaded the Ukrainian missile defense this time. As this is supposedly their tenth such strike (I have not verified the count), then it is about time Russia figured this out. The question is: does Russia have the resources to keep doing this?

This was followed up with an attack on New Year’s Eve of about 20 cruise missiles and further attacks on 1 and 2 January. For the attack on New Year’ Eve it looks like they shot down 12 out of 20 cruise missiles (60%). In the attack of 1 and 2 January by 39 or 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones, Ukraine claims it shot them all down. They have power outages in Kyiv as a result of the attack on 2 January. This strongly indicates that not all the drones were shot down.

There was another missile attack on 14 January of only 38 missiles that was effective. Ukraine only shot down 25 of them (only 65%), so power infrastructure was hit, as was several apartment buildings. In the current attack on 25 January they shot down 47 out of 55 or 85%, which is better than they have been doing recently. The effectiveness of the current missile strike against infrastructure was limited.

The U.S., Germany and Holland have agreed to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense missile systems. Should be interesting to see how well they do. Not sure when they are arriving, but it looks like we are set up to ship them and to start training Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr in Germany.

End of the War: It does look like Russia intends to hold onto most of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, the majority of Kherson province (but not the capital) and four-fifths of Zaporizhzhia province. The capital Zaporizhzhia (pop. 722,713) is held by Ukraine. So, parts of four out of Ukraine’s 24 provinces and Crimea.

Populations of partly or completely occupied areas (2019 estimates):

Donetsk: 4,165,901

Lugansk: 2,151,833

Crimea: 2,033,700 (2001 census)

Zaporizhzhia: 1,705,836

Kherson: 1,037,640

Sevastopol: 509,992 (2021 estimate)

 

Population of Ukraine (excluding Crimea), 2022 estimate: 41,167,336

What they are willing to later negotiate away to achieve peace or a ceasefire is unknown. Russia has now annexed Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in addition to Crimea and Sevastopol. This sort of indicates that there is no basis for a negotiated settlement. Zelenskyy did lay out a 10-point peace plan in November. It includes:

5. Restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity

6. Total withdrawal of all Russian troops from all of Ukraine.

7. Punishment for war crimes.

The UN General Assembly did recently pass a resolution supporting reparations from Russia, but this does not appear to be in Zelenskyy’s ten-point plan.

Russia’s current peace position is that Ukraine must be demilitarized and de-nazified (is that a word) and Russia keeps Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia (and I guess must hand over the last two province’s capitals), Crimea and Sevastopol. The Russian foreign minister Lavrov did say on 29 Dec: “Putting forward all sorts of ideas and ‘formulas of peace,’ Zelensky cherishes the illusion of achieving, with the help of the West, the withdrawal of our troops from the Russian territory of Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region, the payment of reparations by Russia, and the surrender of international tribunals and the like. Of course, we will not talk to anyone on such conditions.”

Probably the most significant events over the last couple of months is that 1) Russian did not shut down the Ukrainian energy grid and demoralize the population, 2) Russia did not increase the economic pain in Europe sufficiently to undermine support for Ukraine, and 3) Russian still has only done a partial mobilization and appears not to be extensively mobilizing further. Russia appears to be fighting for a stalemate in 2023.

This looks like an extended war, and I don’t think it will be over before the end of summer 2023. It may continue for years: So How Long is this War Going to Last? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Possible Outcomes of the War? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Atrocities: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). 

Ukrainian reforms: Complete write-up is available in this post: The Russo-Ukrainian War – Day 355 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). The Ukranian defense minister appears to be staying.

Other Issues: 

U.S. Support for Ukraine: I sort of hate to get into discussing this as it invariably gets divisively political, but it is a significant issue. Half of the aid to Ukraine comes from the U.S. If the U.S. wavers, then this poses real challenges for Ukraine’s defensive efforts. The latest Gallup poll (3-22 January) says that 65% of Americans support the war in Ukraine. 31% clearly do not. This is pretty much the same figures as in August 2022 (66% vs 31%). Among self-identified Democrats the split was 81% to 16%, among independents it was 59% to 38% and among Republicans it was 53% to 41%. So, according to the Gallup poll, the majority of Republicans support Ukraine. On the other hand, 47% of the Republicans polled said that the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine. Previous polling from Washington Post shows that 52% of Republicans want to reduce aid to Ukraine or “…want their member of congress to opposed additional funding.” Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was in Kyiv last week.

There was a “Rage Against the War Machine Rally” in Washington D.C. on Sunday 19 February. Its attendance was maybe 750-1000 people including Libertarian and former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. It was a pretty odd and controversial collection of speakers.

The United States passed the fiscal year 2023 budget before the new congress was seated. The Democrats/Independents control the Senate 51-49 and the Republicans now control the House 222-213. The U.S. budget is in place through September 2023 and cannot be overturned or cut by the new Republican majority House, if they so desire. I am pretty certain that come October 2023, the United States will be struggling to approve a budget for fiscal year 2024. This is going to complicate things. Eleven Republican members of the House just proposed a resolution (“Ukraine Fatigue Resolution”) to cut aid to Ukraine. There is a clearly a vocal minority that is opposed to supporting Ukraine, as is presidential candidate Donald Trump (whose run has been endorsed by 5 Senators, 17 congressmen and one governor). There does appear to be some public pushback from other Republicans (i.e. Nancy Mace’s “roast” at the Washington Press Club Foundation). 

The “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” is worth a read. It is here: Text – H.Res.113 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Ukraine Fatigue Resolution | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.

Belarus: I still doubt that they will join the war. Belarus has 60,000 troops and now they are trying to recruit another 20,000. This is from a country that the government was almost overthrown two years ago by popular acclaim. Ukraine has an 891-kilometer border (554 miles) with Belarus, so Ukraine must maintain some forces there. Belarus has stated on 16 October that a little less than 9,000 Russian troops will be stationed in Belarus to protect it borders. 

Kaliningrad: On 14 February, in the Russian isolated city next to NATO members Poland and Lithuania, an IL-20M and 2 Su-27s were intercepted by two Dutch F-35s and escort away from the NATO area. Eight Dutch F-35s are stationed in Poland. Kaliningrad is the former Prussian capital of Koenigsberg. It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and its annexation was confirmed in 1990.

EU: Ukraine has been made a candidate member of the European Union as of 23 June. It still means that it will be years before Ukraine becomes part of the EU, but this is a big first step. The Ukraine government applied for EU membership less than week after Russia first invaded them. Moldova was also granted candidate membership. Georgia has not (and it is not on good terms with Russia).

This was the issue that started all the turmoil in 2013. This is the issue that fueled all the conflict over the last nine years, for the Euromaidan revolt occurred when Ukrainian President Yanukovich decided to join Putin’s Eurasian Union vice the EU. The subsequent conflicts included the whole three-month Euromaidan revolt in the dead of winter of 2013-2014 that led to over 100 Ukrainians being killed, many protesters shot in the street by President Yanokovich’s security forces; the seizure of Crimea; the creation of LPR and DPR; the subsequent war; and now this war. Ukraine certainly has paid a much higher cost to join the EU than anyone else ever has. Current polling (Reuters April 5) shows that 91% of the Ukrainians support joining the EU. 

NATO: Finland and Sweden signed the accession protocol to join NATO on 5 July, along with all 30 members of NATO. They officially applied to join NATO on May 18. There was an objection from Turkey, but Sweden and Finland have resolved their issues just before the summit in Madrid in early July. As of 1 October, 28 NATO members have ratified the accession protocol. It does require unanimous consent of all 30 members for them to join NATO. It does add an 810-mile (1300 km) border with Russia, but NATO already abuts Russian and Belarussian territory in the Baltic states and Norway abuts Russia above the arctic circle. Also, Denmark has joined the common EU defense cooperation, something which it has stayed out of for three decades. The United States voted on 4 August to the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO by 95-1. The remaining two states that need to vote for this are Hungary and Turkey.  Hungary is not going to get around to it until early 2023. It appears that Sweden has made all the “reforms” that it is going to make. Specifically, it has rejected the request to extradite four people. The U.S. in the past has made similar refusals. It is now up to Turkey to decide if this is enough. The U.S. is apparently negotiating selling F-16s to Turkey. This may be the quid-pro-quo that makes this happen. In October 2021 Turkey requested to purchase 40 F-16s. Congress has resisted approving the sale, but it appears it will go through if Turkey approves Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Turkish elections are scheduled for 14 May, so this issue may not get resolved until after that. Right now, U.S. Turkish relations have been a little contentious. Turkey was also just hit with a massive earthquake on 6 February near Syria. Over 47,000 dead in Turkey and Syria, over 41,000 of them in Turkey.

Meanwhile, on 30 September, the president of Ukraine formally applied to join NATO. 

Also, the United States will be establishing a permanent troop presence in Poland, maintain a rotational brigade in Romania, and enhance its rotational deployment in the Baltic States, among other expansions. As of December, the United States has a total of 100,000 troops across all of Europe (including Germany and Italy). Canada is leading a NATO battlegroup of Latvia of around 2,000 soldiers, including troops from Canada, Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Germany is to lead a combat brigade in Lithuania of 3,000 – 5,000 soldiers. The command unit of around 100 soldiers arrived on 4 September. A NATO battalion of about 1,500-1,600 has been stationed there since 2017 and is under command of a German officer. There are also NATO battle groups in Estonia and Poland. Germany is also now talking about an armored division for protection of NATO’s eastern border.

Poland has completed on 30 June a steel wall on its border with Belarus to curb the flow of asylum seekers from Belarus. The wall is 115 miles long (186 km), 18 feet tall (5.5 meters) and cost $407 million to build (353M Euros). Poland is also building a fence along its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which has irked Russia. Work began in late February. The Polish border with Belarus is 258 miles long (416 km). Poland also announced around 15 July that it will be increasing its defense budget to be 5% of the GDP and building up its army to 300,000 troops. Poland is currently spending 2.4% of its GDP on defense. It is going to increase it next year to 3%. The U.S. currently spends 3.5% of our GDP on defense.

Lithuania has also completed a barrier between itself and Belarus. It is mostly a 4 meter (13 foot) tall steel wire fence topped by concertina barbed wire. It covers approximately 550 kilometers (342 miles) and costs 152M euros. See twitter @LinasKojala post for 29 August for a picture of the fence.

Finland is now also talking about starting to build a barbed-wire fence along its long border with Russian starting early next year. They are looking at it covering 124 miles of the 832-mile border. Estimated cost is $393 million with a completion date of 2026.

Nagorno-Karabakh: Artillery fire was exchanged on 5 October between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as a result of their continuing conflict that Russia is supposed to be policing. There are also now credible reports and videos of Azerbaijanis executing Armenian prisoners. Significant fighting has erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia on 13 September. There has been a cease-fire as of 15 September. Armenia has said that at least 49 of its soldiers have been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday. They are now saying 105. Azerbaijan has said it has lost 50 troops. Russia is serving as the peacekeeper force with about 2,000 troops. I gather most of the fighting is artillery shelling. There have been large protests the last few days in the capital of Yerevan, Armenia against the prime minister. Meanwhile, U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is in Yerevan as of 18 September. This visit was then followed by protests in Yerevan against the Russian dominated military alliance CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), which Armenia, Russia, Belarus and three other post-Soviet states are members of.

Previous recent fights have resulted in at least 2 Armenians killed and more than a dozen wounded and 1 Azeri killed and 3 wounded. Azerbaijan took the border position. Russia is the Armenian-leaning peacekeepers in this area. One wonders if many of the outlying areas of the Soviet empire are going to turn into disorder over the next few months. The Azerbaijan embassy in London was also seized a few months ago by Muslim fundamentalists. Azerbaijan is a secular state. The Muslim fundamentalists may be supported by Iran. On 14 November, there was another round of shelling reported by Armenia at the border. On 26 November, there was another clash along the border, but no losses and then more firing on 27 November, with two Armenians reported wounded. There was another shelling by Azerbaijan reported on 23 December by Armenia. No casualties reported. It appears that Azerbaijan is trying to cut off the Lachin corridor, which connects Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan has called for parliamentary elections on March 19. We shall see how that goes. Khazakstan was having blackouts, not caused by bombing. The last time they had political demonstrations (January 2022), estimates were that 217 to over 230 people were killed and they called in over 3,000 Russian paratroopers to help them. There were also major protests in 2011 (14 killed), 2016, 2018, several times in 2019, and 2020. So kind of waiting for next big eruption. Meanwhile, Khazastan has set up two “Yurts of Invincibility” in Bucha and Kyiv. These yurts provide food, medical care and shelter to Ukrainians.

European Support: The government of Hungary is the one NATO nation that is not clearly behind Ukraine. Hungary is dealing with economic problems and the EU is withholding recovery funding due to a “rule-of-law dispute.” Prime Minister Viktor Orban on 11 October called for a ceasefire in the war and accused the U.S. of fueling the war. He did state that he was on the side of Ukraine. He also has not yet approved Sweden and Finland’s membership into NATO but he has finally acquiesced to the latest EU aid effort to Ukraine. 

The country that produced the largest peace demonstrations, some 70,000 protesters in Prague on 3 September 2022, has just elected a retired three-star general as its president. He has made it clear that he supports Ukraine. It does appear that Putin’s policy of trying to undermine support this winter in Europe for the war in Ukraine is failing. It does appear that European support is solid and broad, with Czechia elections, Germans providing Leopards, Hungary signing off on EU aid packages to Ukraine, Bulgarian parliament overruling their president and providing aid, etc. The political situation is getting simpler, the war is going to continue until at least next fall. It may get resolved on the battlefield this summer. It could continue into 2024.

In 2022 there have been some protests against the pro-western government of Moldova (pop. 2.6 million). The President of Moldova is now claiming that Russia was planning to stage a coup d’état through opposition protests. Zelenskyy made the same claims a week ago. Last June Moldova was granted EU candidate status. Moldovan intelligence intercepted some attempts between October and December of last year. Russia still has 1,500 peacekeeping troops in Transnistria and of course, there is still the breakaway Russian statelet of Transnistria (pop. @360,938) carved out of Moldovan territory. A Russian presence in Moldova is a threat to Odesa.

There was an anti-war protest in Berlin on Saturday, 25 February. It was attended by around 10,000, mostly from the left wing of the political spectrum. Germany has a long history of a pacifistic vocal left-wing since the 1980s (remember the late Petra Kelly and the Green Party). If this is the best that this political wing can produce now, that is very limited. It does appear that most of Europe is solidly behind Ukraine (as is Japan, South Korea, Australia and even New Zealand). Putin has done a good job of politically uniting the west.

Iran: It appears that the large protests in Iran are fizzling out. There are some serious demonstrations going on in Iran since 16 September, supported by labor strikes. It is said that at least nine protesters died in the first five days and Iran is now stating as of 24 September that 41 protesters have been killed. The count is certainly higher than that. An Oslo-based organization called Iran Human Rights is claiming as of 29 November that at least 448 people killed. They previously reported that also 40 security forces were killed. An Iranian general did acknowledge on 27 November that over 300 were dead. There are also an armed group (separatists?) that conducted an attack on 30 September in southeastern Iran (city of Zahedan) that killed 19 people. One wonders if the Iranian government has weathered the storm. Iran has arrested over 20,000 protesters.

Meanwhile, the night of Jan. 28 someone attacked manufacturing facilities in Iran. It was done with at least three drones and a strike was clearly made in Isfahan, a city of 2-4 million right in the middle of Iran. There were four reported large explosions. The mostly likely story is that it was done by Israel operating from Azerbaijan. 

Miscellaneous: Also, corrupt Navy-contractor “Fat Leonard” Francis, 57, was detained last Tuesday by Interpol in Venezuela trying to flee to Russia. He had escaped house arrest in San Diego, fled to Mexico then Cuba and was intercepted at the Venezuelan airport. He was not using an alias and should be extradited back to the U.S. He is currently still in Venezuela.

There were two pipelines that were bombed in international waters. Apparently 165 feet of the pipe is destroyed. Sweden is currently investigating but has not found any clear evidence linking Russia to the bombing. That said, it is hard to imagine who else would do this. I am kind of ignoring the latest claims from Seymour Hersh. He has been dead wrong before.

One Year Anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian War

These are not the anniversaries you want to be acknowledging. I am sure a lot of other people will have a lot to say. I am just going to take a moment and quote from an upcoming book of mine:

Vladimir Putin created the modern state of Ukraine. This is a state that clearly is now going to be around for decades, if not centuries. The year 2022 is their 1776. It is the year they unified their country and finally and firmly broke with their past as a member of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It is the year it clearly asserted itself as Ukraine.

…it still has a long, extended fight on its hands, where a country over three times its population and almost ten times its economy has seized and looks like it intends to hold onto major parts of its Eastern regions. Not sure for how long that will play out, and whether this is a war that reaches a negotiated settlement in six months, of a war that continues on for years, or achieves an armistice for now only to return back to war later. But what is clear, is that Ukraine as a nation is going to continue to stand, and the primary reason for that is they were willing to fight for their independence multiple times, in the protests of 2004, in the protests of 2013-2014, in the fighting of 2014-2015 and in the war of 2022. Sadly, sometimes freedom and self-determination have to be earned by blood.

 

Note that this last paragraph is drawn from my old blog post: At this point, it looks like Ukraine has been saved | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Schedule for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023

This is the first provisional schedule for the second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We currently have 19/20 presentations scheduled by 13/14 speakers and two group discussions planned. Each slot is an hour long, so planning for a 45-minute presentation and 15 minutes of discussion.

The conference is at 1934 Old Gallows Road, Suite 350, Vienna, VA 22182. This is basically across the street by Tysons Corner Shopping mall and the Marriot Hotel on Route 7. It is right off the Route 7 exit from 495 (the Beltway). It is at the corner of Route 7 (Leesburg Pike) and Old Gallows Road. It is in the building above the restaurant called Rangos. Parking is in the parking garage next door to it.

Conference description is here: The Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 in Tysons Corner, VA | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Costs, Hotels and Call for Presentations: Cost of the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17 -19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Hotels for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Call for Presentations for the Second Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 17-19 October 2023 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

The cost of the conference is $150 for entire conference or $60 a day. Please pay through PayPal (www.paypal.com) to SRichTDI@aol.com. The conference is priced to cover the costs of the conference facility. We are also set up to take credit card payments by phone. Call The Dupuy Institute during working hours at (703) 289-0007.

We are set up for virtual presentations and virtual attendees. We are exploring the costs of having the presentations professionally recorded.

 

Schedule: Pike and Gallows Conference Center

Updated: 9 January 2023

 

 

Day 1: Analysis of Conventional Combat

0900 – 0930    Introductory remarks (new)          Christopher A. Lawrence (TDI)

0930 – 1030 Land Operations – consistencies and discrepancies between theory, historical analysis and doctrine                             LtC. Trygve Smidt (Norway)

1030 – 1130    Temporal and Geographic Patterns of Fatal Casualty Rates in WWI and WWII                                                                         Sasho Todorov

1130 – 1230    open

1230 – 1400    Lunch

1400 – 1500    open

1500 – 1600    open

1600 – 1700    open

1700 – 1800    open

 

Evening (1900):          Group Dinner – Rangos

 

 

Day 2: Analysis of Unconventional Warfare

0900 – 1000    Iraq, Data, Hypotheses and Afghanistan (old)

                                                                                   Christopher A. Lawrence (TDI)

1000 – 1100 Unburdened by History: Understanding Russia’s Growing Influence in Haiti                                                                           Dr. Christopher Davis (UNCG)

1100 – 1200    open

1200 – 1300    Lunch

1300 – 1400    The Right Way to Do Risk Analysis: A Primer and Update, With Examples from Pandemics                                                       Dr. Doug Samuelson (InfoLogix)

 

1400 – 1500    Close  Combat Overmatch Weapons (SLAMMER)

                                                                                    Joe Follansbee (Col., USA, ret.)

1500 – 1600    Chemical Weapons in Syria            Jennifer Schlacht, M.A.

1600 – 1700    Group Discussion: The Next Middle East Wars

 

Evening (1900):          Group Dinner – BJs

 

 

Day 3: Other Analysis of Warfare

0900 – 1000    Russian Information Warfare Against Western Democracies Since 2013: A review and update                                                 Dr. Doug Samuelson (InfoLogix)

1000 – 1100    open

1100 – 1200    open

1200 – 1300    Lunch

1300 – 1400    slot held for possible presentation.

1400 – 1500    The Future of TDI and work of the conference (new)

                                                                                  Christopher A. Lawrence (TDI)

1500 – 1600    open

1600 – 1700    open

 

Evening:         Happy hour – Rangos 

 

 

Schedule: Einstein Conference Room

 

Day 1: Poster and Book Room

Opened at 0800

 

Afternoon Day 1: Other Analysis of Warfare

1400 – 1500   History of Pneumatic Combat Weapons    Jacob Friend

1500 – 1600   Soviet WWII Aerial Photography      Eugene Matyukhin 

1600 – 1700   Open

 

 

Day 2: Analysis of Conventional Combat

0900 – 1000    Penetrate, Dis-Integrate and Exploit: The Israeli Counter-Offensive at the Suez Canal, 1973                                                    LtC. Nathan A Jennings, PhD

1000 – 1100    Open

1100 – 1200    Urban Warfare (old)                         Christopher A. Lawrence (TDI)

1200 – 1300    Lunch

1300 – 1400    Study of Pneumatic Weapons in Sub/Urban Conbat

                                                                                  Jacob Friend

1400 – 1500    Open

1500 – 1600    Open

1600 – 1700    Open

 

 

Day 3: Researching Operations

0900 – 1000 The AEF and Consolidation of Gains Operations Durning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive                                                  Dr. Christopher Davis (UNCG)

1000 – 1100    Kursk Photo Analysis                     Eugene Matyukhin

1100 – 1200    The Red Army’s Offensive Operations in Ukraine, 1943-44                                                                Dr. Richard Harrison

1200 – 1300    Lunch

1300 – 1400   Patterns of Explosive Violence Harm in Ukraine Before and After the 24 Feb. Invasion                                                           Chiara Torelli (AOAV) – virtual

1400 – 1500    Open

1500 – 1600    Open

1600 – 1700    Group Discussion: Russo-Ukrainian War

 

The presentations from all three days of the first HAAC are here: Presentations from the first HAAC – all three days | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

Wargaming 101 – In the Bowels of the Pentagon with J-8

Another great William “Chip” Sayers article on wargaming. 

 

Wargaming 101 – In the Bowels of the Pentagon with J-8

I had been a Soviet Military Aviation analyst for DIA for only a few weeks when a friend from my previous life in the Air Force Reserve Intelligence program invited me to accompany him to the Pentagon to observe a wargame being conducted by J-8, the Joint Staff’s Force Requirements directorate.  The J-8 was basically “wargame central” for the Pentagon, using this tool in various forms to evaluate the impact of various proposed force structure changes on the warfighting abilities of the US military.  In this case, the wargame “command post” was dominated by a floor to ceiling map of NATO’s Central Front with small cardboard chits representing units stuck to the clear acetate covering.  One glance was sufficient to tell me all I needed to know:  the units were in a solid line one-deep stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Alps.  It was 1915 all over again.  Not the most auspicious beginning to 10-years of playing Red Cell in J-8 wargames, but I have to admit it got a lot more interesting from there.

One of my more interesting encounters with J-8 was with regard to an exercise known as “Competitive Strategies.”  The brainchild of Senator — and later Vice-President — Dan Quayle, Competitive Strategies was designed identify and implement ideas that would pit enduring US strengths against enduring Soviet weaknesses.  Senator Quayle, at that time considered a true wunderkind  and the smartest person in the Senate, believed that too often the US was pitting strength against strength — a contest the US could not win — and wanted to engage in what would today be referred to as “asymmetric warfare” that the USSR could not match.  For example, pushing technological warfare beyond what the Soviet industrial base could compete with.

J-8 scoured the Pentagon for ideas, then sent them to the intelligence community to be vetted.  I had missed out on Competitive Strategies I, which took place shortly before I arrived at DIA, but was there for Competitive Strategies II and III.  In the first round, a number of ideas were kicked around, but apparently none were found suitable.  In CS II, I was chosen to be on a board that considered a proposal to counter Soviet air operations (lower case).  The Soviet Air Operation (upper case) was a stratagem the Soviet General Staff came up with when they realized that upwards of half of NATO’s combat power resided in their air forces.  The Air Operation was a preplanned series of strikes intended to deny NATO its airpower advantage by destroying NATO’s air assets on the ground before they could be employed.  This meant that the Air Operation, and the initial ground operations as well, would fire the first shots of WWIII.  I was known to be well versed in the Soviet Air Operation — thus my invitation as a relatively junior analyst to serve on the board — and was not pleased with the proposal.  It seemed inordinately expensive, technologically doubtful, and unlikely to yield the desired impact.  The proposal involved creating a force of ground-launched tactical cruise missiles targeted on virtually every Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) on every Soviet and Warsaw Pact airfield in the East Bloc countries.  These missiles would be fired at the outset of hostilities to catch the enemy aircraft on the ground and destroy them before they could take to the air.

The gentleman who served as our chairman was a good and knowledgeable analyst, but I felt at the time was too prone to “go along and get along.”  We met on a Friday and he proposed to rubber-stamp the proposal and let it go because, “It’s what they want.”  We agreed to meet again on Monday to decide the matter.  As I said, I was young and fairly inexperienced in the way of bureaucracy and chaffed at approving an idea I believed was fatally flawed.  First, the idea proposed creating a sizable force above and beyond the existing force structure, clearly a very expensive proposition.  There were probably an average of 36 to 45 HAS on each of 20-30 airfields on NATO’s Central Front, alone.  That’s 720-1,350 missiles on 180-340 launch vehicles, if they piggy-backed on the similar Ground-Launched Cruise-Missile deployment under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces scheme.  The GLCM force as deployed reached a total of 120 GLCM Transporter Erector Launcher vehicles — each with four missiles — in 22 flights of about 69 airmen, each.  This proposed anti-HAS force would have been potentially three times larger — a very significant investment in force structure above and beyond that already fielded.

Worse, it was highly unlikely that the anti-HAS force would accomplish its intended mission.  The Soviets were all about preempting NATO in order to limit the damage to their own forces and infrastructure, while it was almost inconceivable that NATO would fire the first shot in any credible scenario.  NATO was greatly outnumbered in virtually every category of military equipment and personnel, and starting on the offensive was fairly universally recognized as a death-wish, given the advantages of the defender.  More to the point, getting unanimous consent from all of NATO’s member countries to start a war — regardless of the provocation — was laughable.  Even if one could conceive of a scenario where all the members would agree, the time expended in reaching a decision and promulgating it through the system would ensure that the Soviets — who had thoroughly penetrated NATO’s command structure — would have seized the initiative and launched a preemptive strike long before NATO was ready to move.  This being the case, the Soviets would have gotten the first shot in by launching the Air Operation before the anti-HAS force was ready to go into action.  When the cruise missiles arrived at their targets, they would find the HAS either empty or filled with second-line jets to replace the first-line units which would have recovered at dispersal locations away from their main bases.

Being young and inexperienced, I decided to spend my weekend writing my own substitute proposal, which emphasized doctrinal changes designed specifically to answer the Air Operation.  I had spent a reserve tour working on recreating the AO using individual aircraft on a time schedule, so I believed I had some insight on what the strengths and weaknesses were in the operation.  My proposal was more about where and how to fight, vice buying a whole new category of weapon and the infrastructure to support it.  On Monday morning, I handed out my counter-proposal — Countering the Soviet Air Operation — to the other board members.  After reading it, they voted to adopt it in place of the original proposal and send it forward as our recommendation.

A year or so later, I had the opportunity to host and chair an interagency panel to vet proposals for CSIII.  Over 30 years later, the only proposal I remember was one that proposed to raise several divisions of Marines who would invade the Crimean and Kamchatka peninsulas and cause the fall of the Soviet empire because, as everyone knew, the post-WWII Soviets could not abide by the loss of even a single square centimeter of Soviet territory.  Needless to say, that proposal failed to make the cut.  In fact, such was the disconnect between “Blue” strategists and “Red” doctrine that we could not in good conscience give a thumbs up to any submitted proposal.  Nevertheless, it was a fun, if fruitless, endeavor.  Was Competitive Strategies a completely dry hole?  Had the Soviet Union survived longer, I’m sure it would have proven its worth.  As it was, I was later told that there was at least one proposal adopted through the process.  However, modesty forbids me to talk about it further…

Another interesting J-8 wargame I participated in was a NATO exercise in the late 1980s.  My office was directed to supply a “Red Air” commander and I was selected mainly because the game was scheduled to run over the Thanksgiving holiday that year and I was still fairly junior in the office.  In order to save time, it was decided that we would piggy-back on another wargame that was run every year by another organization.  The did the preliminaries and the first three days of combat, and we would take over from there, starting our game on D+3.

Unfortunately, the folks that had run Red Air had no concept of the Soviet Air Operation, what they would target, or how they would fight.  Their model claimed the Soviet side had lost 800 aircraft in three days and accomplished nothing while doing so.  The losses were excessive, but had they been sacrificed achieving some important goal, that would be one thing.  To simply throw them away like so many target drones was ludicrous.  Red Ground had not fared much better.  They were held to an advance of less than ten kilometers across the length of the front — an inconceivably small movement.  The Soviets could practically have tripped and fallen that far forward.  Any model that could produce such results should have automatically been suspect.

Our overall Red commander was an expert at NATO bureaucracy, but knew very little about how the Soviets would fight.  Despite the team’s protests, he insisted on fighting the Red side according to  MC 161 NATO’s Strategic Intelligence Estimate.[1]  MC 161 was supposed to be NATO’s assessment of the threat, but each NATO country insisted on having the final say on how the threat to them would look.  After the document was compiled and approved, it was used to by the various Ministries of Defence to justify their military budgets.  The upshot was that each country had to have a goodly slice of the threat, whether or not it made sense within the scope of Soviet doctrine.  For instance, during this game, I was instructed to come up with a Soviet Air Force threat to Portugal so that the Portuguese military could play.  I dutifully came up with a scheme to send Tu-95/BEAR bombers along a circuitous route across North Africa to hit a NATO target in Portugal only to be told they had been spotted a thousand nautical miles out and swatted down like flies.  I’m pretty sure those weren’t Portuguese Air Force A-7P attack jets that did in the Bears.  The upshot was that NATO had the Soviets attacking everywhere and concentrating nowhere, thus dissipating their forces and chances for success — precisely the opposite of Soviet doctrine.

As it happened, our overall Red commander suffered a health issue and I moved into his position.  I immediately moved to reconfigure the Soviet attack into something much more akin to their actual doctrine.  After having run three practices according to MC 161, the “Blue” players were unprepared for what hit them — they undoubtedly felt sucker-punched.  To be fair, Blue’s big move had not been a part of the practice runs, either so both sides were confronted with surprises. 

The final plan with fixing attacks (screw-type arrows) to pin three NORTHAG Corps in place while the Northernmost corps was hit with overwhelming force.  The critical moment occurred whenSACEUR ordered a rearward passage of lines to save the corps sector.

The original plan had the Soviets attacking in proportionate attacks all along the front.  The big change I made for Red’s ground offensive was to concentrate forces against the weakest of the NATO corps, while making lower-odds attacks to fix the other forces in place.  Since NATO exercises always assumed a Soviet/Pact invasion, the tools used by white (control) cells developed in a way that were inherently biased to favor the defense.  This bias insinuated itself into the programing of computers that were eventually used to adjudicate results to the extent that the attacker had to overwhelm the defender to make any ground at all.  Witness the beginning of this exercise where in the first three days of fighting, Red forces made less than 10km in the advance.  Our final plan set up an attack so overwhelming that even the computer could not deny a Red victory.  Even that victory was limited such that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) was able to order a corps-level rearward passage of lines to introduce a fresh defending force in that sector. 

A rearward passage of lines has an unengaged, fresh force set up defensive positions to the rear of the force to be relieved while it is still delaying the enemy.  When the relieved force is pushed back to the relieving force’s new defensive positions, the relieved force slips through the lines at prearranged points with the relieving force taking up responsibility for the sector.  It is one of the most complex and difficult of military maneuvers, and for a brief time, twice the normal amount of defenders are squeezed into the attacker’s line of fire.  To help minimize the risk, SACEUR ordered a fleet of reserve combat aircraft brought in from the UK and other rear bases to cover the maneuver.

One of the key factors in the Red victory came from an unlikely source.  Having failed to do the Soviet Air Operation in the first three days of war, the previous crew left a lot of tools lying around unused.  It so happens that Blue’s movement of aircraft was noted by Red intel and was particularly vulnerable to a belated Air Operation as the aircraft were being staged through auxiliary bases without aircraft shelters.  It would take a little explaining to the control cell, but fortunately, I was on good terms with their leader, having hosted him at my house for an evening of hobbyist wargaming before the exercise.  It turns out that he was one of my all-time favorite game designers, so we had a common language to use.  One of the interesting things I found out was that the program J-8 was using did not explicitly model airbase attacks, and in particular, runway attacks.  I explained to my friend how the Air Operation would work and some of the tricks involved, and he proposed work-arounds to give me realistic results.  Therefore, at the moment that NATO was at its most vulnerable, all of the air cover over the Schwerpunkt turned out to be Red, not the Blue that was intended.  Faced with a catastrophe, Blue’s moves were ludicrously out of touch, the perfect example of Col. John Boyd’s Observe, Orient, Decide, Act-loop going unrecoverably out of cycle.  Everything they did was increasingly out of synch with the reality on the ground and only made matters worse.  The exercise ended with a huge, smoking hole where NORTHAG used to be.

While SACEUR came to the Red Cell to shake our hands, thank and congratulate us on a successful exercise, I am doubtful he was much concerned about what happened on the map as the point was to stimulate conversation among the top NATO leadership.  However, the exercise was never repeated, so I might have gone a tad overboard in delivering a “realistic” enemy.

 

[1] See NATO STANDARD AJP-5 ALLIED JOINT DOCTRINE FOR THE PLANNING OF OPERATIONS Edition A Version 2 MAY 2019, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION ALLIED JOINT PUBLICATION, Published by the NATO STANDARDIZATION OFFICE (NSO) © NATO/OTAN; https://www.coemed.org/files/stanags/01_AJP/AJP-5_EDA_V2_E_2526.pdf  Accessed 12Feb23.

Alexey Navalny’s 15-point tweet

Just saw this on twitter, posted today by Russian Alexey Navalny from prison. I think it is worth repeating. From @navalny:

On the eve of the anniversary of the full-scale and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, I have summarized the political platform of mine and, hopefully, of many other decent people. 15 theses of a Russian citizen who desires the best for their country.

What was all this about and what are we dealing with now?

1. President Putin has unleashed an unjust war of aggression against Ukraine under ridiculous pretexts.

He is desperately trying to make this a “people’s war,” seeking to turn all Russian citizens into his accomplices, but his attempts are failing. There are almost no volunteers for this war, so Putin’s army has to rely on convicts and forcibly mobilized people.

2. The real reasons for this war are the political and economic problems within Russia, Putin’s desire to hold on to power at any cost, and his obsession with his own historical legacy. He wants to go down in history as “the conqueror tsar” and “the collector of lands.”

3. Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been murdered, and pain and suffering has befallen millions more. War crimes have been committed. Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been destroyed.

4. Russia is suffering a military defeat. It was the realization of this fact that changed the rhetoric of the authorities from claims that “Kyiv will fall in three days” to hysterical threats of using nuclear weapons should Russia lose.

The lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were needlessly ruined. The ultimate military defeat may be delayed at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands more mobilized soldiers, but it is generally inevitable.

The combination of aggressive warfare, corruption, inept generals, weak economy, and heroism and high motivation of the defending forces can only result in defeat.

The Kremlin’s deceitful and hypocritical calls for negotiations and ceasefire are nothing more than a realistic assessment of the prospects of further military action.

What is to be done?

5. What are Ukraine’s borders? They are similar to Russia’s – they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991. Russia also recognized these borders back then, and it must recognize them today as well. There is nothing to discuss here.

Almost all borders in the world are more or less accidental and cause someone’s discontent. But in the twenty-first century, we cannot start wars just to redraw them. Otherwise, the world will sink into chaos.

6. Russia must leave Ukraine alone and allow it to develop the way its people want. Stop the aggression, end the war and withdraw all of its troops from Ukraine. Continuation of this war is just a tantrum caused by powerlessness, and putting an end to it would be a strong move.

7. Together with Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and the UK, we must look for acceptable ways to compensate for the damage done to Ukraine.

One way to achieve this would be lifting the restrictions imposed on our oil and gas, but directing part of the income Russia receives from hydrocarbon exports towards reparations. Of course, this should only be done after the change of power in Russia and the end of the war.

8. War crimes committed during this war must be investigated in cooperation with international institutions.

Why would stopping Putin’s aggression benefit Russia?

9. Are all Russians inherently imperialistic?

This is nonsense. For example, Belarus is also involved in the war against Ukraine.

Does this mean that the Belarusians also have an imperial mindset? No, they merely also have a dictator in power.

There will always be people with imperial views in Russia, just like in any other country with historical preconditions for this, but they are far from being the majority.

There is no reason to weep and wail about it. Such people should be defeated in elections, just as both right-wing and left-wing radicals get defeated in developed countries.

10. Does Russia need new territories?

Russia is a vast country with a shrinking population and dying out rural areas. Imperialism and the urge to seize territory is the most harmful and destructive path.

Once again, the Russian government is destroying our future with its own hands just in order to make our country look bigger on the map. But Russia is big enough as it is. Our objective should be preserving our people and developing what we have in abundance.

11. For Russia, the legacy of this war will be a whole tangle of complex and, at first glance, almost unsolvable problems. It is important to establish for ourselves that we really want to solve them, and then begin to do so honestly and openly.

The key to success lies in understanding that ending the war as soon as possible will not only be good for Russia and its people, but also very profitable.

This is the only way to start progressing toward removal of sanctions, return of those who left, restoration of business confidence, and economic growth.

12. Let me re-emphasize that after the war, we will have to reimburse Ukraine for all the damage caused by Putin’s aggression.

However, the restoration of normal economic relations with the civilized world and the return of economic growth will allow us to do so without interfering with the development of our country.

We have hit rock bottom, and in order to resurface, we need to bounce back from it. This would be both ethically correct, rational, and profitable.

13. We need to dismantle the Putin regime and its dictatorship. Ideally, through conducting general free elections and convocating the Constitutional Assembly.

14. We need to establish a parliamentary republic based on the alternation of power through fair elections, independent courts, federalism, local self-governance, complete economic freedom and social justice.

15. Recognizing our history and traditions, we must be part of Europe and follow the European path of development. We have no other choice, nor do we need any.

It is also posted on his twitter site in Russian.

Alexey Navalny is the Russian investigative journalist, lawyer, activist and opposition politician who was poisoned with the Russian nerve agent Novichok on 20 August 2020 and then went to Germany for treatment. On 17 January 2021 he returned to Russia knowing he would be arrested. He is currently in prison.