2y ago

Russia has lost 87% of troops it had prior to start of Ukraine war, according to US intelligence assessment

www.cnn.com

Russia has lost 87% of troops it had prior to start of Ukraine war, according to US intelligence assessment | CNN Politics

Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.

Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable. A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.

The assessment, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday, comes as some Republicans have balked at the US providing additional funding for Ukraine and the Biden administration has launched a full-court press to try to get supplemental funding through Congress.

218 comments

To be honest, I didn't think Russia would make it to two years. I expected riots, revolution, putin getting killed, etc. It's pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is. That makes it even more scary.
- They did protest. And everyone was arrested. Then they protested the arrests. And everyone was arrested. Then people just silently stood in groups holding blank signs. And everyone was arrested.
  
  So only another military coup could free Russia from Putin's firm grasp.
  But that's why he kept his own military led by weak leadership. And the only paramilitary group he allowed to gain strength ended up attempting a coup against him.
  
  Only a very small minority did protest, that's why it didn't work.
- It’s pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is.
  It's identical in the US. 4 years of Trump and all we got was a pro Trump attempted coup.
  
  Trump is too narcissistic and up his own ass to deliberately export pure sadistic evil the way Putin does.
- They don't know the war is going badly. They don't know what Western society knows about the war. They're fed state approved propaganda and nothing more. They're also plastered constantly which kills motivation for political upheaval.
  
  Good thing Obama made propaganda legal and protected here in the US.
- Protest is met with swift arrest and long prison sentences.
- Well you know how it is. Everyone who knows what's going on left, everyone else just watches TV and believes them because why wouldn't they.
- While the army may be extremely disorsgnized, unfortunately, putin has made internal security extremely solid. Add to that the fact that a great amount of people in russia are politicaly passive or pro Z, I don't think a revolution is coming from the people anytime soon.
- Give it time. It took 3 years of war for the 1917 revolution to start.
- I feel like Ukraine needs to take the fight to Russia for that to work, but that runs the risk of galvanizing the population against Ukraine as well
- One thing I would add is that the Russian people do want change but any attempt at changing the leadership is met with poisoning and/or long prison sentences. I would highly recommend reading about Alexei Navalny or watching the fascinating documentary
- It's not indifference they are ok about it, it's called democracy.
  
  They'd have to have a democracy in order for it to be called a democracy
- You think that's weird, you should see how Americans ignore their corruption.
  
  Whataboutism is a moron's contra-argument.
If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we'd have a limitless supply of energy.
Imagine telling any conservative, during the Cold War era, that we could completely fuck Russia's military power and readiness, for years to come, by sending weapons to a relatively small country. They would be rushing to arm anyone and everyone they could, unintended consequences be damned. And yet, here we are with the GOP blocking exactly that sort of activity. And even better, there is a very real possibility that we aren't arming future terrorists this time around. Maybe that's the GOP's problem, Russia losing in Ukraine won't create an excuse in 20 years to kill more brown people.
- If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we’d have a limitless supply of energy.
  I had always thought the same thing about Nixon, after he sees what Trump gets away with.
  
  Ya, it's pretty bad when you can look at Nixon as a "stand up guy" compared to Trump. He at least had the decency to recognize that he had been caught in his bullshit, resign and go away.
- Ain't that literally why they supported the Mujahideen?
  
  Bingo! You get the prize :)
  
  Religious fanatics.
  Not religious fanatics this time.
- There*. Also, mind elaborating? Or are these wild cards pulled from your rectum?
- In the world of politics you never give something for free. The Republicans are asking for more stringent border security and more border funding. If democrats were truly committed to supporting Ukraine then they would have made those concessions all ready. The problem is democrats love exploiting brown people for their cheap sweat shop labor.
  
  The problem is democrats love exploiting brown people for their cheap sweat shop labor.
  You could build an IMAX theater with all that projection.
  
  Border security wouldn't stop migrant workers. The whole "invasion of the border" thing is never talking about those people, as was proven by farmers lamenting their absence in Florida.
  
  Bad news, Sparky: some of us actually lived through all the decades that conservatives imported exploitable brown people to boost profits. The shit you gargle from talk radio shows does not trump our lived experience.
  
  Bullshit. You pass a law because it's the right thing to help the country not because you got something for it.
  
  Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
  
  Or the Dems know that letting the GOP get their shitty ideas through just because Dems want something isn't a good idea and are going to try to do it without the traitors' party's help
  
  If democrats were truly committed to supporting Ukraine then they would have made those concessions all ready.
  They have been, some substantial compromises actually. The Republicans still wanting more, in a non-compromising sort of way.
  Personally I'm hoping the FBI actually does checks on everyone in Congress, to make sure they're not being compromised to vote in certain ways that certain countries wants.
  
  George W. Bush set the precedent that The US does not negotiate with terrorists. Even when those terrorists are in Congress. They should stop setting precedents they don't really mean.
  
  Or is it that the Democrats understand the rhetorical danger of equating an actual war in Europe involving a major nuclear power, with the ego driven pet project of a fascist demagogue?
  
  Oh yes, more money to fix the perpetual, nebulously defined "border problem".
  Sometimes compromise is not the solution. This is one of those times. I'm tired of Republican fearmongers getting rich off my tax dollars by funneling it into the border security slush fund.
Russia had a total standing military of approximately 900,000 active-duty troops
Of the 360,000 troops that entered Ukraine, including contract and conscript personnel, Russia has lost 315,000 on the battlefield, according to the assessment.
So roughly 87.5% of the initial troops was lost, like the article said so that checks out.
900,000 - 315,000 still means 585,000 troops remaining, and that's outside the conscription efforts.
Russia has announced plans to increase the size of the armed forces to 1.5 million.
Still a considerable force, as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
- Brutal numbers. Let’s not forget that Russia can’t just move all its troops west, they still need to protect other borders and regions.
  I really hope the US passes a proper aid, and even more so that EU gets themselves together and continues support. Infuriating to see that while Ukrainians are fighting for their lives (and unintentionally also for the safety of Europe), the politicians are haggling over fucking pocket change.
  The only way Russia can win if the west stops Ukraine’s support, and they grind them up over the next years. This would be a catastrophic strategic failure, and would mean the end of global US/NATO influence, motivating the start of many more annexations (definitely Taiwan as a start).
  
  Yes, for all the people saying "it's not that many", this is a huge number. No military campaign can withstand 80% losses. That's like the losses Napoleon took invading Russia. Or Hitler, invading Russia...
  Guys, I'm thinking this invading thing is hard in this part of the world.
- as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
  The amount of heavy lifting this clause is doing cannot b overstated
  
  The thing is, Ukraine has no real possibility of interrupting the supply chain, since it doesn't have the weapons to do so, or is not allowed to use on Russian soil in case of western weapons. All it can do is himarsing the last few dozens of kilometers around the front.
  And Russia can produce or dig up WW2-level shit from storage for a very long time.
- I can't even imagine what 300,000 human corpses does to a place. How do you even manage that over a short period and fairly small location?
  
  It's not 300,000 corpses. It's 300,000 casualties. That includes KIA, MIA, POW, Injured, etc.
  
  You build mobile crematoriums.
  Russian use of those is contested, but it is an efficient way to deal with a problem like that. There was some media buzz about those things about a year ago or so.
- But how many of the 585,000 are front line troops? I imagine most of them are support staff. It's like a 3:1 ratio or higher support to front line.
  
  Russia was putting its support troops on the front line.
- Estimates are they need to lose 500K before they even begin to falter.
  
  Mid 2024 then. They've been around 1,000 a day recently.
- how much of that 900000 is true?
- So, if i must believe this, those 13% left in Ukraine are very capable, very effective troops, able to move over that gigantic front in minutes, seconds even to fill the gaps. They must have some kind of teleportation device. It must be possible, since startrek's Chekov is Russian after all. He knows how it works.
  Or maybe these figures are just pulled out of someone's ass. Like everything else in this war.
  
  Russia has recruited many more troops since then. The proper way to interpret this information is that the majority of troops currently deployed in Ukraine were conscripted after the start of the war.
  
  If you knew how to read it's the number of active duty troops before they invaded. They have since conscripted more. And yes, that is still massive.
  
  If 45,000 are left in Ukraine and Ukraine is approximately 400 miles wide, that's still 112 Russian troops per linear mile to push west.
  Obviously they aren't spaced in one line across the country like that, but it gives some perspective on how many are left and how much space they could fill.
  
  There you have it, folks! The latest intel from the Russian front line!
  — Oh, I'm getting a report now. This. This is from the front... room... The front room at his nana's house. Yeah, that checks out.
You know, sometimes I feel bad about gambling some money away on the stock market and feel a bit like a failure. But then I come across posts like these and I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
- I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
  There is always Thomas Midgley, who invented leaded gasoline and Freon (CFC).
  
  Not only invented them, but poisoned the hell outta himself trying to prove they were safe.
  And then when he was too bedridden to do anything, he invented an automated bed to help him move around and strangled himself to death in the ropes.
  Truly an inspiration.
That's doesn't seem sustainable
- Frankly I don't care. The US wastes trillions of dollars on military spending. We have the most advanced military in the world by a mile but all too often it ends up using it to defend someone else's financial interests or to pad the pockets of people that make their money through a war economy.
  Russia can get fucked. Every cent spent on the defense of Ukraine is a fully realized fuck you to our enemy. Ukraine did what we could never do. They essentially removed Russia from the equation. Yeah they have many poorly maintained nukes but they know we will fuck their ass if they touch them. They will not be posing a real threat to anyone for generations.
  We aren't spending this money on the American people and we never were going to do that anyway. Our choices are we fund people actually fighting for their life or we allow that money to get sucked into the military industrial complex for no real return. They're already getting theirs out of this, the only question that remains is do you back Republicans that have made up a nothing burger about this money because they've arbitrarily decided this is the 96th hill they'll die on, or do you you want to see the money you pay in taxes actually get put to a meaningful purpose.
  
  Saying that it doesn't go to the American people isn't strictly true. It's not like it's cash shipped across the Atlantic. The money spent on weapons to Ukraine is injected into local American economies where weapons are produced, as wages that let people consume products which goes to the wages of people who sell those products wages in turn.
  
  It really is the cheapest way to destroy an enemy.
  You don't need to send your own men to die.
  You don't need to a full scale invasion, just let them bleed dry.
  Be the "good guy" in supporting Ukraine.
  There really is only win win for the US.
  
  We also got to see what Russia was capable of in a war, which was priceless.
  
  We spent 5% of our military budget to help Ukraine take out most of our biggest adversary's army, and the Republicans think it's not worth the cost.
  
  I think he meant not sustainable for Russia
  
  or to pad the pockets of people that make their money through a war economy.
  It's only about that. Inbetween was some "foreign interests" (called "oil") but that's history now.
  Well, that and kicking China.
  
  That money still goes to the military industrial complex. It’s used to buy US equipment and ordnance for Ukraine. And the government ain’t buying it at cost. People in the US military industrial complex are getting richer of this war.
- Depends on how many citizens you can threaten/coerce into replacing them.
  
  It's easier when you "recruit" from your prisons.
- Unfortunately it is
- It's certainly biodegradable.
An unfortunate fact is that we're never going to beat Russia primarily by killing russians. Russians should be killed when they try to steal and rape our countries and peoples in order to immediately stop them from doing that, but the only way to properly win this is to somehow get to the leaders or their wallets.
- That insight makes the large loss of life in this war even more tragic. Fuck war. Fuck Putin for sending these men to kill and die.
- While I agree with the sentiment, it's not like "we" are trying to beat Russia, right? Ukraine is defending itself. I'd imagine the story would be a little different if the goal was to beat Russia(like a full effort), rather than defend Ukraine.
  
  This can be both, and it's CHEAP.
  For less than 1/10th the direct cost of the Iraq war and at the cost of zero American servicemember lives we've set back Russia's military by decades, strengthened NATO, and actually done something positive for a change.
  
  Putin has declared that his "special operation" continues until all the goals have been met, and the goals are "demilitarisation, denazification and Ukraine's neutrality". The first two don't mean anything, and Ukraine doesn't want to do the third one. So if this stubborness continues, I cannot see any other way forward except "beat Russia".
  
  Exactly. The US technically can end the Russo-Ukrainian War any time it wants. All they gotta do is go "boots on the ground", but that carries problems of its own. Mainly that Russia is a nuclear power and Putin himself has said he's not afraid to launch.
- I think the hope is that eventually things get bad enough for Russia that a revolution starts within. Because of the threat of nukes, Russia will only fall from its own population.
Good, now let's make them lose the rest. Slava Ukraini!
- Heroyam Slava
- With amount of human reserves Russia has, it is practically impossible.
  This war simply can't be won by brute force and total extermination.
Due to putin's lack of qualms about sacrificing civilian men, these numbers may not be militarily very relevant if the professional army and cannon fodder are not segregated.
- Hmm, Ukraine must be in a really bad way if it's losing against militarily irreverent cannon fodder, despite all the advanced western weapons it's been given.
  
  Quantity has a quality all its own
This cannot be true lol. If it is, russians must be feeling this a lot more at home and international news hasnt reported the shock yet
- 0.2% of population and they have had mobilizations since then so it’s not that big a deal
  Like if 120 people died in a city of 60 000. Not really noticeable
  
  And most of that 0.2% are poor people from racial groups that Moscow wish didn't exist. So it's all working out.
  
  Of the total population it may be small but the deaths are not a random sampling of the population. They are almost exclusively young men. If we define fighting age as 18-45 Russia has roughly 25 million men. 315k casualties is 1.26% of that population. That alone is a massive amount to lose in such a short period of time. Even before this Russia was in a demographic crisis.
  And that 18-45 range is probably too generous, soldiers are usually young. In the us military like 45% of service members are under 25 and 65% are under 30. When you factor in the number of Russians who fled the country to avoid mobilization (~1 million) youre realistically looking at up to 10% of the men between 18 and 30 either dead or fled since 2021.
  
  Those 120 people have family and friends. A workplace or a school. So if 120 people die, nearly everyone in a city of 60000 would have known one of the dead.
- It's not hard to do body counts. Satellites don't have to do much for getting counts of troops. And counting the dead isn't hard either at this point with constant drones and videos recording 24/7. I'm sure you aren't arguing the numbers just being surprised, and it's more shocking that russians haven't overthrown putin at this point.
- They can't or won't leave. And even if they try, the die.
According to wikipedia they have ~1.2 million people in the military. that includes reserve, and paramilitary etc.
- Many of them are spread out garrisoning such a big country and its military facilities. Even if all of them would be engaged, there still would be 50% active military forces, while the other 50% would be the support and officer assets. So we're looking at a maximum of 5-600.000 soldiers actually fighting on the frontlines
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.
Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable.
A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.
Russia has been able to keep its war effort going despite the heavy losses by relaxing recruitment standards and dipping into Soviet-era stockpiles of older equipment.
“Since launching its offensive in October, we assess that the Russian military has suffered more than 13,000 casualties along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis and over 220 combat vehicle losses-the equivalent of 6 maneuver battalions in equipment alone,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson told CNN.
Russia has also leaned heavily on convicts marshaled to the fight by the Wagner Group and has increased the age limit for certain categories of citizens to remain in the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The original article contains 651 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
13% ...we can do it guys.
It is incredibly had to believe the news after yesterday they said if we don’t give money to Ukraine, Russia would win.
Wow, Ukraine must be really incompetent then, how else could they be losing to such a diminished force?
- What caused the force to become so diminished?
  
  Ah, I see. So Ukraine has taken similar losses then.
Good. Now we can stop flushing our money down this toilet.
- You're not. Neither is the USA.
  But you don't understand what money is, where it is going, or how this war or its possible results affects the USA.
- You do realize that the U.S. hasn’t spent an excess dollar on the Ukraine war, right? The budget was $700-some-odd billion whether that goes to shipping or storage costs.
Another 'defeat any day now' propaganda piece?
- You see, any normal country would have realized the war became way too costly and capitulated. But Russia is not a normal country.
  Saying "Russia is losing" a year ago was not propaganda. It was just a lack of understanding how little Putin cares about the life of his soldiers. We now know he'll just keep sending more no matter what. He literally can't lose this war and continue to be president.
  
  Russia wouldn't even have had to capitulate, a white peace and some empty diplomatic gestures from Ukraine (like signing a piece of paper in which they promise to "denazify"), would have been enough to get a peace that Russia can sell at home. The classic power play of "we're going home because we accomplished all objectives, we're definitely not running away with our tail between our legs". But Putin would rather see hundreds of thousands of Russians die, just so he can pretend one more year to never be wrong about anything.
  
  The worlds largest, most well funded, most highly advanced military in the world cant defeat a military more than half its size that uses old outdated weapons? The US doesnt want to win this war, it wants to prolong it.
- Could also be maga
  
  Dont like getting pointed out that you are and have been getting lied to by your 'lesser evil?'

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