The Russians have just admitted to suffering 1600 deaths of troops in combat in Ukraine. US News calls this “staggering losses”. For 30 days of fighting that’s only 53 deaths per day. US civil war battles could run up 10,000 casualties in a day or two of fighting. So 1600 deaths for a month of fighting is light deaths in my book, not “staggering” like US News and World Report calls it.
The Russians only listed deaths. Losses in combat are deaths, wounded (usually several times the number of deaths), prisoners of war, and “missing in action”. Missing in action means we don’t know what happened, the troop just wasn’t there are the battle. The Russian announcement only mentioned deaths, where as losses are usually 2 or 3 times the number of deaths.
NATO and the Ukrainians think Russian deaths are much higher than the Russians are admitting to. They call Russian deaths 7000 to 15000. As far as NATO and the Ukrainians go, the Russians are lowballing their combat deaths. The total Russian force employed is something like 250,000. So the Russians admitting to a death rate of 0.64%. The NATO and Ukrainian estimates yield a death rate of 2.8% to 6.8%.
I am still surprised at US News and World Report calling the Russian deaths “staggering”. I think the admitted Russian deaths are getting off lightly.
No comments:
Post a Comment