A destroyed Russian T-72B3 tank in Ukraine, via @GeneralStaffUA pic.twitter.com/TUxqNloMAe
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) April 16, 2022
The report estimates that around 40,000 Russian soldiers are either dead, injured, captured, or missing. It added that Moscow began its invasion with about 190,000 soldiers and has since brought in additional forces from Syria, Chechnya, and the Wagner Group. These losses may represent the cream of Russia’s combat troops in the field.
Russia itself has closely guarded its figures on casualties. The last time the country disclosed such information was on March 2, when they claimed to have lost only 500 troops with 1,600 wounded.
It also does not help that 8 Russian generals and countless high-ranking military officials have been killed in Ukraine. The message being sent to potential conscripts is that if high-ranking generals are being killed, what are the chances for those who have just joined the military?
Seeking Immediate Replacement
Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree last March 31 ordering 134,500 new conscripts for the Russian Armed Forces as part of Russia’s yearly draft.
The decree, which came five weeks after the start of Putin’s invasion, is reportedly not related to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
The annual draft will run from April 1 to July 15 and will target Russian males between 18 to 27 years of age, as written in the decree. Shoigu added that the new recruits would be sent to their assigned military camps during the latter half of May.
“Most military personnel will undergo professional training in training centers for three to five months. Let me emphasize that recruits will not be sent to any hot spots,” Shoigu said. Russian law prohibits sending conscripts with less than 4 months of service to an active combat zone after unknown thousands were slaughtered in the conflicts in Georgia and Chechnya in the 1990s. The Kremlin parse away the definition of a “combat zone” by calling it a policing action, peacekeeping or sticking to their line about it being a “Special Military Operation.”
However, if these conscripts were sent to Ukraine as they have previously done so, this would be highly counterproductive for their forces. Military analysts(including us) have said that Russian forces seem to have utterly failed to pull off a combined arms offensive, with a large majority of their troops being undisciplined and lacking in combat training. While this could be evidence of just how little the Russians train their soldiers, it can also be the case that conscript training is limited to the most rudimentary of training and their real training begins at their actual units. If that unit is fighting in Ukraine, raw recruits are getting On-The-Job combat training with the expected results.
https://twitter.com/pmakela1/status/1501826735754600448
That the Russians have real problems equipping and supplying their troops is now old news. SOFREP has reported that conscripts were using old Mosin-Nagant rifles, a phenomenon that was eerily similar to when the Russians sent untrained conscripts to Chechnya 20 years ago. Reports also surfaced that the conscripts did not know how to fire automatic weapons, which clearly shows the severe lack of skill and knowledge about the basics of combat. We also reported on expired rations and even 30-year-old rocket rounds being supplied to Russian units going into combat.
Various videos on social media have seen Russian soldiers captured by Ukraine claiming they had no idea they were going to war but were told they were on a training exercise, even as some were told Ukrainians would welcome them.
We have also seen conscripts (and Russian forces in general) manifest low morale by surrendering without resistance, abandoning armed and functioning vehicles, and piles of discarded uniforms by Russian troops who changed into civilian clothes and either deserted to Russia or Belarus or to defect to Ukraine.
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