Reports compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggest that a number of key units of the Russian army fighting in Ukraine have seriously degraded; however, Russia has something Ukraine lacks: Manpower. It can afford to take heavy casualties and keep fighting.
Russians historically have absorbed heavy casualties in battles they have fought as far back as the Napoleonic Wars, and have been undeterred. In the fight against Napoleon, Russia lost at least 200,000 men. In World War I, Russia lost 1,451,000 men and 11.4 million in World War II.
Thus far, intelligence estimates suggest Russia may have suffered 120,000 deaths and 180,000 wounded.
For Putin, defeat in Ukraine is unacceptable because he associates Ukraine with the heart of Russian civilization. He is willing to put Russians through the meat grinder to achieve that goal.
Russia Turns to Conscription to Replace Casualties
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced earlier this month that he plans to increase the size of the Russian military to 1.5 million men. Russia launched a conscription campaign to increase the size of the army by at least 300,000 men. Observers say that Shoigu’s goal is to militarize Russian society in a way that has not been seen since Stalin.
“I would not say that this is a reform. There really is no whiff of reform here,” Aleksei Tabalov, who heads the rights group School of Conscripts, said in an interview with Current Time. “There are two declared goals: to preserve the offensive operations in Ukraine and military opposition to NATO expansion. These are the two goals that are loudly declared and for the sake of which, in fact, the life of Russian society will be directed further.”
He added, “Militarization, an increase in the draft age, an increase in the army, an increase in military spending; everything is now subordinated to military purposes.”
Russia has also turned to forcing men in the occupied parts of Ukraine into service with the Russian army. The Russians consider the parts of Ukraine controlled by its forces as part of Russia in the wake of their annexation, and maps printed since the invasion show them as part of the country.
Reports have suggested that the soldiers being sent to Ukraine have been ill-trained and cannon fodder for successive Ukrainian assaults; however, the Russian military has been adapting and learning from its mistakes. At least one-third of Russia’s tanks have been destroyed since its invasion started in February 2022.
Russia Adapts Amid Losses in Ukraine
“Russia has made a number of relatively rudimentary but successful overall changes, including pulling its command headquarters out of range of Ukrainian surface-to-air missiles, placing its forward command posts farther below ground and behind heavily defended positions, and fortifying these posts with concrete,” Margarita Konaev and Owen J. Daniels wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine. “Russia has also found ways to ensure that communications between command posts and military units are more efficient and secure, including by laying out field cables and using safer radio communications. But communications at the battalion level and downward are still often unencrypted, and given their limited training.”
Russian troops in the area near Bakhmut have suffered from the dissemination of poor intelligence and inadequate artillery support, and have experienced a significant degradation in Zaporizhia where Ukraine has made significant gains, ISW reported on its blog.
Putin is determined to prevail in Ukraine and will not stop his assault. Reports about Russian casualties underestimate his determination to through an indeterminate number of Russians through his meatgrinder and should not be underestimated.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
