What shape is Russia's military really in? The reports from both Russian and
western sources aren’t painting a good picture.
Russia's casualties have been staggering. Casualty reports are
typically kept highly confidential during the height of fighting,
and both Russia and Ukraine have kept their casualty figures classified. For both nations,
it's a matter of morale- but for Russia it's even more critical to hide the truth about the real
cost of its special military operation from both its military and its people.
Most estimates place Russian casualties at around 100,000, with 25% of these being killed in action.
Recently, the EU estimated that Ukraine itself had also suffered 100,000 casualties,
and its estimate is believed to have been based on some level of intelligence gathering. Ukraine
was quick to protest and the EU quickly redacted its report. However, if there's any truth to it,
then there is no conceivable way that Russian casualties aren't significantly higher than this.
For most of the war, Ukraine was on the defensive. Simple battlefield arithmetic
states that between peer adversaries, the side on the offense is going to take more
casualties than that on the defense. So if Ukraine has suffered 100,000 casualties,
Russia is likely to have taken anywhere from 50% to 100% more by the simple nature of the war.
Further exaggerating Russian casualty figures though are non-combat injuries and deaths.
Ukrainian forces started out this war relatively poorly armed and equipped,
with only some Ukrainian units being properly equipped. However,
after a massive rallying effort by the west, the average Ukrainian unit is better equipped
than its Russian counterpart- and it's not just weapons we're talking about.
Famously, Russian units assaulting Kyiv complained about a lack of food and water. Russian invaders
were seen looting food and drinking water from stores, and when Ukrainian units defeated Russian
forces or forced them to retreat, they often discovered inadequate and expired rations.
To an outside observer that should raise some red flags, considering that there's plenty of websites
selling authentic Russian military rations online. As usual, deeply rooted corruption is to blame,
but food and water haven't been the only casualties of bad Russian logistics.
With winter setting in both sides require winter gear in large quantities. The west
was anticipating this need and was able to fully supply Ukraine with all the winter kit
its troops would need. When Russia went to ship winter gear to its own troops,
it discovered in early October that as much as 1.5 million winter uniforms had been 'misplaced'.
State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulev was quoted as saying, “It is still unclear to me where the
1.5 million sets of uniforms that were stored at the points of reception of personnel have
gone. Today we have problems with the form, then with something else. It was all there,
where did it tdisappear to? No one anywhere can explain this in any way!”
Gurulev however should have not been as surprised as he appeared to be, given that corruption in
the Russian army is rampant and stealing supplies is basically a tradition. During
the wars in Chechnya, Russian soldiers would strip their own vehicles of valuable wiring
and sell it in local markets. They would even steal large amounts of ammunition, grenades,
even RPGs, and sell them at local markets- even though most of that equipment would end up being
used against their comrades. Any missing gear would simply be chalked up to clerical errors
or destroyed in combat, with armory personnel fully in- or intimidated into- the grift.
There is some concern that Russian soldiers are not properly equipped or fed for wintertime
conditions. One video making the rounds from a Ukrainian drone shows strong evidence of what
might be hypothermia amongst Russian troops. In the video, the Ukrainian drone drops a grenade
onto a mass of sleeping Russian soldiers, who are huddled together for warmth. When
the grenade explodes though, only one of the soldiers attempts to get up out of the hole,
with the rest barely showing any signs of life. Many observers have pointed out the poor quality
of winter gear the soldiers are wearing in the video, and that it would take something extreme,
like hypothermia, to simply not react to a grenade exploding literally right next to you.
As winter intensifies, a lack of protective equipment is going to
take an even greater toll on Russian soldiers, especially as Vladimir Putin
and his generals plan a major offensive to try to knock Ukraine off its heels.
Russian equipment isn't faring much better though. Shortly after the start of the war,
it became clear that Russian incompetence and corruption had taken a serious toll on its
equipment stockpiles. Vehicles were famously abandoned on the side of the road because of
one fatal flaw: their tires. Many captured vehicles displayed clear sign of tire rot,
which is caused by the rubber weakening when exposed to the sun. In order to avoid this,
vehicle maintainers rotate vehicles regularly, so that one side of the vehicle isn't always
facing the sun. But low quality chinese made tires also took their toll on Russian vehicles, with one
particularly famous incident of a multi-million dollar air defense vehicle abandoned because its
tires went bad. Turns out, many Russian vehicles were using cheap Chinese tires that were not
rated for the vehicles they were installed on, and unlike western manufacturers, their
tires were not x-rayed and analyzed for structural defects that would jeopardize their performance.
This isn't a case of the Chinese just making bad tires though, as they manufacture perfectly good
tires for their own military vehicles, but rather a clear cut case of Major Corruptavich simply
pocketing the difference between purchasing the intended, high quality tires, and the cheap ones.
Russia's once-feared tank forces have also fared extremely poorly in Ukraine. Russia's
tank losses are estimated at around 1500, an absolutely apocalyptic rate of tank loss for
any modern force. Current estimates predict that if sanctions were lifted tomorrow,
it would take Russia as much as ten years to fully rebuild its armored forces,
while it would take much less time to field less capable, but much lighter forces. It's
important to remember when talking Russian reconstitution that the nation is still the
world's second largest arms exporter, and has great industrial capacity to rebuild.
But that itself is contingent on many factors, not least of all is the fact that sanctions have
taken a deep bite out of the Russian economy, with the economic fallout only set to worsen over time.
Russia's GDP is expected to shrink by 3% this year alone, and its inflation rate could hit 14%
or higher again next year. Even more troubling, the EU has imposed a ban on most Russian energy
exports, and capped the price of Russian oil at $60 a barrel. While the rest of the world is not
beholden to this cap, many who are closely aligned with the west are expected to abide
by it. Even more importantly though, anybody who imports Russian oil via western infrastructure,
or on ships insured by western firms, is legally beholden to this price cap. The move is going to
take a serious bite out of Russia's finances, who's economy is disproportionately dependent
on the energy sector, with as much as 60% of the government's revenues coming
from the sale of energy exports. Further, sanctions on technological goods needed for
modern weapons makes reconstitution of forces a more difficult, and much lengthier affair.
The problem with Russian armor though isn't limited to the difficulties in
replacing them. Russian tanks have proven to be fundamentally flawed when facing modern
threats. Today's anti-tank missiles typically attack in a top-attack mode,
meaning they pop up into the sky when fired and come down directly on top of
the tank's thinner turret roof armor. This is a significant problem for Russian tanks,
as their autoloaders use a carousel mechanism to store the ammunition that rings the turrent,
meaning a direct hit that penetrates the armor will explode all of the ammunition,
instantly disintegrating the crew and sending the turret flying. This may not be as big of a problem
when facing enemy tanks, but the propagation of modern ATGMs in today's battlefield has made
Russian tanks deathtraps for their crews. Ironically, a Russian tank today may be
safer facing off against a peer tank than light infantry precisely because of the ATGM threats.
Russia's issues with tanks also highlights another major problem with Russia's military which has yet
to be addressed. Long believed to be a capable, modern combined arms army, Russia has proven
that it is in fact incapable of fighting using this modern doctrine. At the start of the war,
Russian tanks operated unsupported by friendly infantry, which left them extremely vulnerable
to hunter/killer anti-tank teams. Since then, things haven't improved very much, and the influx
of 300,000 poorly trained conscripts isn't going to make Russian doctrine change anytime soon.
Russia pretended to be a combined arms army, but today the illusion is shattered and Russia ca no
longer keep up this facade. This means that ironically, Russia's forces are faring better
today than they were six months ago. Playing to its true strengths, Russia has reverted back to
its old doctrine of using artillery to blast an opponent into submission, and here Russia
has held a significant advantage during most of the war. Ukrainian estimates have placed
Russia's advantage in artillery as high as 20 to 1 when the fighting started, with many soldiers
reporting that for every one shell they fired at the Russians, they responded with dozens back.
But that ratio seems to have equalized. Today Russia is engaged in fierce fighting around the
small town of Bakhmut in the east. The fighting around this town has become the source of most of
our insights into the current state of Russia's capabilities. Here, the Wagner private military
company is leading the charge, and is largely responsible for the difficulties Ukraine has had
in defeating Russia's attempted offensive. Better trained and equipped than their regular military
counterparts, Wagner mercenaries have performed a great deal better than the Russian military,
and Russia has been happy to lean heavily on them in an attempt to take Bakhmut from the Ukrainians.
Despite this though, reports from Russian military bloggers themselves indicate that
Russia's artillery advantage is rapidly eroding. It's not that they're running out of guns, though
certainly their artillery forces have suffered greatly with the introduction of American M777s,
excalibur precision rounds, and HIMARS. Rather, Russia is running out of ammunition. Both sides
are expending thousands of shells a day, but Russia has suffered catastrophic losses in
equipment thanks to western intelligence and precision HIMARS strikes against its
ammunition depots. When the weapon system was introduced into the theater in mid summer,
the Ukrainians scored some very high profile victories by destroying massive ammo dumps used
by the Russians that were situated well behind the front lines. Out of range of
conventional artillery, HIMARS' range of up to 40km put these ammo dumps at risk.
Now Russia has learned from its mistake and split its supplies up into smaller,
more widely dispersed dumps. This has slowed, but not stopped, Ukraine's use of HIMARS to destroy
them though. Try as they might, Russia cannot hide its logistics from the vast intelligence
gathering apparatus of the United States and its allies. The loss of hundreds of thousands
of shells has directly impacted Russia's ability to use overwhelming firepower to crush Ukrainian
forces, and the more widely dispersed nature of Russia's current smaller ammo dumps has slowed
down the rate of resupply and thus fire missions. When you factor in modern counter-battery radars
provided by the west, Russia's vaunted artillery forces are having extreme difficulties retaining
their advantage on the battlefield, and providing the badly needed support Russia's forces need.
The Russian air force and navy both have performed abysmally during this war,
with the navy specifically performing so poorly that its ships are in effect forced to remain
close to friendly harbors for fear of being sunk. Famously, Russia's Black Sea flagship,
the Moskva, was sunk by two anti-ship missiles, with evidence pointing to the
fact that part of its air defense system was either not turned on or not fully operational.
The use of drones against Russia's navy has also been devastating, and Russia has shown
that its naval operations doctrine is even worse than its ability to wage combined arms warfare.
Russia's aerospace forces though have been famously missing from the fight in Ukraine,
with many wondering why that is. Despite having the world's second largest air force,
Russia has been unable to establish air superiority over Ukraine, let alone air
dominance. This is largely in part due to the fundamentally flawed nature of Russian
air doctrine. Expecting to go to war against superior western air forces, Russian air forces
are designed to gain air superiority over limited parts of a front at once, and to operate with the
direct support of ground-based air defenses. This means Russia has two glaring deficiencies.
First, if divorced from ground air defenses, Russia's fighters cannot
guarantee security for Russian attack aircraft, or for the ground forces they
are meant to protect from enemy attack. This is not as big a deal in Ukraine,
as Ukraine's own air force is roughly on technological parity with Russia's. However,
against NATO's superior aircraft and avionics, unsupported Russian fighters are at serious risk.
The second deficiency in Russia's air forces though, is the inability
to conduct deep strike operations. While Russia is certainly capable of launching
long-range attack munitions from deep behind friendly lines, it's almost wholly incapable
of penetrating even Ukraine's air defenses to strike at targets in the enemy's rear
areas. This means that Russia is incapable of rapidly responding to threats as they appear,
and capitalizing on targets of opportunity the way the US air force is able to.
One reason for this is that Russia does not operate dedicated suppression of enemy air
defense aircraft. In the US, Wild Weasel aircraft and pilots are specially modified and trained to
hunt down enemy air defenses and wipe them out with specialized weapons. Russia does
not have a similar capability, leaving SEAD missions in the hands of average pilots who
must complete a very lethal mission without the right training and tools. This is again,
by design, as Russia never expected to use its air forces in deep strike roles against NATO forces.
Secondly, Russia lacks the ability to rapidly conduct target damage assessments. A critical
requirement for modern air forces, the ability to rapidly assess how effective a strike mission
was allows for quick follow-on attacks to finish the job while the target is vulnerable,
or to avoid wasteful expenditure of additional munitions. Ukrainian sources estimate that
Russia can take as much as 2 days to conduct a damage assessment on a target,
and has launched repeated volleys on destroyed targets on multiple occasions.
Russia's air force has in effect been reduced to airborne artillery,
lobbing long-range munitions from behind the front lines. Ukraine too is incapable of bringing its
air force to bear on frontline targets due to Russian air defenses, which is why this war has
been defined by World War I trench combat. Today, Russian forces seem to have slowed
Ukraine's counteroffensive down to a mere crawl. The influx of 300,000
conscripts combined with winter weather making the terrain too muddy to drive on,
and a necessary operational pause for Ukraine to regroup and rest its forces have given Russia
some breathing room. But Russia has been forced to send these conscripts into combat poorly trained
and unprepared, as opposed to the six months of so of training that Ukraine's own conscripts,
drafted at the start of the war, have completed under supervision of western training staff. To
make matters even worse, Russia has sent much of its own training staff to the front. This
means that what conscripts do get training are getting it from inexperienced trainers.
Poorly trained conscripts are not good for offensives, meaning that Russia will likely
be able to present significant challenges to Ukraine's continued offensive, but be
incapable of carrying out any of its own. It will have to rely on regular army units to do that,
and that means pulling them from the front to allow for reconstitution of forces and
to give them badly needed rest. With a second draft expected in January,
and strong indications that Russia will attempt another major offensive around the same time,
the next few months will likely decide the fate of the war- but one thing is for sure. As it stands,
Ukrainian armed forces are in far better shape to continue the fight than Russia's own.
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