(Note by the Saker: Tatzhit Mihailovich submitted this article with *many* embedded photos and videos and I asked him to replace them by links to the media in order not to overload the page and to make the formatting easier. Make sure to check his YouTube and LiveLeak channels which are chock-full of very good stuff!)
Seeing through the doublethink: Primary evidence on losses of the combatants at Donbass
ABSTRACT (SHORT SUMMARY)
Both sides in the Ukrainian civil war hugely overestimate enemy losses and conceal most of their own. Therefore, there is pressing need for a fact-based estimate of the loss of life.
Lostarmour.info database lists over 1000 destroyed and captured UAF armored vehicles. In previous similar conflicts (Chechnya, Syria, Iraq) the number of soldiers killed per armored vehicle destroyed was between 10 and 30. Therefore, we can conservatively estimate nationalist losses to be about 14 thousand KIA. There are also about 4 times this number of wounded, about a third of which will be severely permanently disabled. This is far greater than the (widely discredited) official Kiev claims of around 1500 KIA and 4500 WIA.
Rebel losses are lower, but probably closer to Kiev estimate of ~8000 KIA than to the rebel claims of 1000-1500 KIA; can be roughly estimated to be 5500 KIA and about 4 times this number of wounded.
Civilian losses due to direct enemy action are not concealed by either side and the estimates of about 5-6 thousand are probably correct.
INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE
Recently, the Washington Post published a piece estimating the real inflation of Ukrainian currency to be 272%, 10 times higher than the Kiev government admits to (28%).
Unfortunately, unlike hard facts about prices and currency exchange rates, there is no easy way of seeing when casualties are underreported, especially when all mass media is controlled by the government and warzone reporting is tightly controlled by military officials.
Video: Ukrainian Journalists Protest Against ATO PR Department
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEN0-BwdkXI
It’s not that true statistics are known and concealed by the government; it’s that at best, they are not interested in them at all, and at worst, working to falsify them.
Here is some evidence that losses are in fact reported incorrectly:
There is of course a plethora of primary evidence from the troops and sources close to the fighting, like this video –
Video: Pro-Kiev volunteer Yuri Kas’yanov on real losses at Debalcevo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTIKvBMAe8
Transcript: “A lot more people died that the General Staff, Security Council, and the President say… I have people that I trust 100%, that have been there, that tell me things. One of my comrades-at-arms, he just got out of the hospital, he was breaking out with a column of a hundred men. I read the [government] reports – 19 KIA [out of entire 3,000-strong battlegroup]. He tells me out of a hundred of them, only 14 got out. All others are dead…”
Politicians say the same: Congressman Lyashko, who came 3rd in presidential election and heads 5th largest party in Rada, states the government concealed over 8,000 losses by September.
Video: Lyashko’s – Poroshenko burned our boys to hide the losses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs0TLPVLYVA
Ukrainian majority party MP Olinik states he was told not accepting official casualty figures makes him the “opposition”, so now he has to choose – if he is in opposition to the Poroshenko government, or in opposition to reality
Translated statement:
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/01/kolomoisky-camp-accuses-poroshenko-of.html
MP Filatov writing to Poroshenko – “When you are talking about six killed in Debaltsevo, you are ruining the confidence in you and in the state. … Read what the people who are collecting the corpses in the fields are writing. We can handle the truth. Don’t make us live in a lie.”
Translated statement:
http://adam1baum.blogspot.com/2015/02/filatov-asked-poroshenko-stop-lying-6.html
All of the above politicians are hardline nationalists and Russophobes, by the way. Opposition politician Shufrich claimed similar figures – one of the few things both sides agree on.
Untranslated, Shufrich claimed real losses were 14,000 by November
http://vesti-ukr.com/donbass/79012-shufrich-zajavil-o-14-tysjachah-pogibshih-za-vremja-ato
There are also hacked government documents saying losses are underreported tenfold, unconfirmed but from a previously reliable source:
http://rt.com/news/227071-ukraine-troops-hide-losses/
Of course under-reporting is widely exposed in various media, even in some pro-Kiev outlets that have a measure of independence:
However, we can not use rebel claims either: most of them tend to be wildly exaggerated when it comes to enemy forces, as is always the case in war, and being split into several loosely connected groups means rebels can not even give a reasonably complete account of their own losses.
Video: LPR brigade commander Mozgovoi on casualties of war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff0sfod-qCQ
From the video above, famous LPR Brigade commander Alexei Mozgovoi: “Neither side will ever report true casualty figures. Losses are colossal on both sides.”
So, there is obviously a pressing need for a reliable, data-based estimate of the real loss of life in this conflict.
PREVIOUS ESTIMATES
Let’s see see what numbers have been reported so far:
Kiev government estimates their losses around 1550 KIA
http://odnako.su/news/politics/-292490-v-donbasse-s-nachala-ato-pogibli-1549-voennyh-poroshenko/
(varies depending on source, General Staff tends to quote noticeably higher figures than President and Security Council – although should be the other way around, because General Staff does not normally report paramilitary losses).
UN estimates the death toll at around 5000 people total.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/23/us-ukraine-crisis-un-idUSKBN0KW13P20150123
DATA AND ANALYSIS
It is hard to get primary data on casualties as bodies are normally quickly removed from the battlefield and buried, usually by multiple sides (UAF, DPR, LPR, “recovery” NGOs, local civilians), and often identity or affiliation can not be determined with any degree of certainty.
Therefore, it is much more reliable to count destroyed military vehicles: they often stay on the battlefield for weeks, their affiliation is easily identified via model, external markings, and position, and they are much more conspicuous and commonly photographed than human remains.
Lostarmour.info is a website that catalogs destroyed and captured vehicles from all sides of the Ukrainian conflict (also some artillery, planes, MLRS, etc., but the collection is not so exhaustive).
It only lists vehicles that have been captured on video/photos and conclusively identified; there are viewable photos of every vehicle, unique IDs, most are mapped, etc.
Links to “destroyed” and “captured” databases
http://lostarmour.info/armour/
http://lostarmour.info/spoils/
Unfortunately there is no English version (I tried to make a translation for them, they took it, but never had the manpower to put it up and maintain). However, the website is easy to understand, here is the key showing what the various sections are:
http://oi58.tinypic.com/34zk7zb.jpg
*as a side note, under the “Off-Topic” section there is also the “Шушпанцеры” (WeirdPanzers) section, which collects pictures of various civilian vehicles armored for military use and light armor with weird weapons bolted on. 381 vehicles so far – basically looks like “Mad Max:Road Warrior” times 50. Highly amusing:
http://lostarmour.info/shushpanzer/
http://lostarmour.info/media/images/id799-01.jpg
But for the purposes of this article, we are just interested in the numbers of standard armored vehicles lost by UAF and the Donbass militias, easily counted by anyone using just the flags in lostarmour.info database (be sure to click “show all vehicles” if you just see a few out of ~680 destroyed and ~340 captured).
As of March 3rd, 2015, a total of 627 destroyed UAF armored vehicles were caught on camera, and 76 destroyed militia vehicles. Also, 376 UAF vehicles were captured, while 27 rebel vehicles were captured back.
———— UAF / Donbass militias
Destroyed 627 / 76
Captured 376 / 27
Based on these numbers and data from previous conflicts with more reliable reporting, we can extrapolate a rough estimate of the real number of casualties in the conflict.
To get relevant data from previous conflicts, we need to find similar armies – armed with outdated Soviet equipment and Cold War-era Soviet tactics, poorly led and trained.
Article on Ukrainian army shortcomings:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c73_1423004519
Obviously, the prime example would be Russian army itself, circa 1993 – first Chechen war; then countries like Iraq and Syria.
First, let’s determine the absolute minimum ratio of personnel losses to armored vehicle losses in a military campaign under these conditions.
Russian losses in Chechnya in 1993 and Iraqis in 1990 are ideal for that: both armies had a lot more armor than Ukrainian forces (where there is a constant lack of running armored vehicles – e.g. complaint by Poroshenko’s advisor http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=baa_1422989162 ), and a lot better conditions for losing armor – one, by running unprepared into an insurgent army that spent 3 years training and arming to destroy tanks, the other, by facing overwhelming enemy air power in a desert.
Iraqi KIA losses in Desert Storm are variously estimated between 25.000 and 100.000 KIA, with 5-6 thousand armored vehicles lost. This gives us (using middle estimates for casualties) roughly 10 Killed In Action per destroyed Armored Vehicle (termed “KIA/AV”).
Russian losses in Chechnya are not well reported, since both sides tended to conceal their losses and Russians would usually evacuate their destroyed armor from the battlefield; a variety of sources lead me to believe a 15KIA/AV estimate is reasonable, although it could be much higher (though the siege of Grozny involved mass armor losses, the subsequent counterinsurgency campaign did not). The absolute lowest possible KIA/AV in any war is probably the Russian armored/mechanized troops that entered Grozny and were ambushed from all sides; for example, the hardest-hit Maikop brigade reportedly lost 800 men and 100+ armored vehicles, giving us a ratio of 8 KIA/AV.
On the other hand, Syria is a disorganized civil war, much like Ukraine, where both sides often rely on lightly-armed paramilitaries but the government has many armored vehicles, also like Ukraine. Although obtaining good estimates from the disorganized fighting is impossible, it is clear that the KIA/AV ratios are higher: for example, government losses are estimated at 40-80.000, whereas the estimates of destroyed government armor are at around 1800, giving us KIA/AV of about 30.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-to-take-out-1-800-tanks-in-two-years-74ecd413cb93
Based on this, we can now make an estimate of Kiev regime losses.
It is obvious that KIA/AV in Ukraine is higher than the absolute minimum of 8-10, as the government forces are not using as much armor as Iraq-1990 and Russia-1993, nor are the rebels as adept and well-equipped for destroying tanks as US Air Force or prepared tank ambushers in Grozny.
On the other hand, Ukrainian civil war is less violent than Syria – it does not have as much of the sectarian violence aspect (with the exception of a few hundred Jihadists working for Kiev http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1425325987), so the crews of disabled or surrendered vehicles are often spared, at least when it comes to the rebel’s treatment of forcibly conscripted government soldiers. Accompanying infantry are likely spared as well during mass surrenders (in video below, government soldiers surrendered 6 tanks and were reportedly allowed to leave riding 2 BMPs).
Video: Surrendered Nationalist Tanks at Starobeshevo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNJ7pr_OXIc
This makes for fewer dead soldiers per destroyed vehicle, and far fewer – per each captured one. Unfortunately, Kiev government usually orders its soldiers not to surrender armored vehicles even when they are fully surrounded (Ilovaisk encirclement, Debaltsevo encirclement, etc.), so more often than not many men die before the rest surrender the heavy weapons.
Video: Breakout Attempt at Ilovaisk (see video description on Youtube for details)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IY5FbVHVE0
Article: Report from Debaltsevo, plus strategic overview of the winter campaign
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=95a_1424388153
Overall, a conservative estimate would be about 20 KIA/AV per destroyed armored vehicle, and 5 KIA/AV per captured one.
Based on just the vehicles in lostarmour.info database by March 3rd, 2015, that gives us a figure of 14,420 KIA for the nationalist forces.
Interestingly enough, this figure is in the same ballpark as the above-mentioned claims of Congressmen Lyashko (at least 8000 “hidden” plus 1000 official casualties by September) and Congressman Shufrich (14000 dead by November).
As not all destroyed vehicles have been filmed and some heavy fighting has happened since the Congressmen’s estimates were given, the real figure is likely somewhat higher by now. The highest estimate that could be considered remotely feasible is probably the “24,000 nationalist KIA” figure put forth by the DPR spokesman Eduard Basurin.
Another interesting estimate was put forth based on the number of heavily wounded evacuated from the frontlines to central hospitals in Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov, as well as Odessa and Kiev.
http://m.rusvesna.su/recent_opinions/1422278960
By compiling records on the number of heavily wounded soldiers paid for by the army, the author arrives at the figure of about 12,000 UAF medevacs by late January, and at least the same number of lightly wounded who went to local hospitals.
Due to poor medical care, the proportion of heavily wounded to killed is about 2:3, so 12,000 medevacs corresponds to about 8,000 KIA. However, this figure does not include several thousand injured paramilitary fighters, who are not on state’s payroll, nor does it account for UAF soldiers that were left in encirclements and were impossible to evacuate. We can get an idea about the number of abandoned soldiers from the fact Kiev sources routinely say that 6-8 thousand UAF soldiers are missing in action – KIA likely make up a sizeable part of that (even if the majority are deserters). Overall estimate ends up in the same 12-15 thousand KIA ballpark.
The reason this more direct estimate was not used as the focus of this article is that WIA numbers were apparently obtained confidentially and could not be independently confirmed, unlike the easily verifiable public database of lostarmour.info. The reason that this estimate was still included is that it’s rather conservative, much lower than the rebel claims, and competently written, implying that the author really knows Ukrainian hospitals.
This analysis and official data both imply that on top of ~14 thousand KIA, the human cost also includes 20+ thousand severely disabled nationalist soldiers (and if we include those with less severe disabilities and mental health issues, the number is likely several times greater).
As far as the rebel losses, extrapolating them from the low number of armored vehicles they lost would be a mistake: the rebels had little armor all up until Minsk-1 truce, and even in the winter campaign, tended to use it more cautiously and competently than UAF. Their salvage/repair crews also seem to do a lot better job (as salvage is their major source of vehicles and spare parts), also they do timely retreats instead of being encircled, etc. Basically rebels rarely lose armor, so their KIA/AV can be 50 or higher.
A better estimate can probably be based on UAF losses: although the outnumbered rebels tend to perform better than the UAF due to a combination of higher motivation and better leadership, they still take comparable losses, likely around one-third those of UAF during the summer (when they were mostly defending urban terrain against a poorly trained army) and one-half those of the UAF during the winter (when they were attacking dug-in UAF troops; the losses during the advance were likely closer to 1:1, but eventual victory enabled the rebels to wipe out a lot of the opposing units). Therefore, we can estimate the total rebel losses to be around ~ 14,000 * 40% = 5600 KIA.
Remember that the rebels are outnumbered and have a hard time replacing their losses, so a much higher estimate than ~6000 KIA (and ~12000 disabled) is not logical – simply because the rebel armies are ~35,000 men total, so if they took say 12,000 KIA it would mean more or less every rebel was killed or wounded. Much lower estimates, like official figures of ~1000, do not match the number of lost armored vehicles or widely reported “heavy casualties” in some large battles like Donetsk airport and Debalcevo.
As for the civilian casualties, deaths due to direct enemy action are easy to estimate, as the sides have no incentive to conceal them. Poroshenko’s estimate of “5638 civilians killed’ meshes well with DPR’s Human Rights Deputy data of “2251 dead in DPR alone”” and Pushilin’s figure of “7,000 dead, 80% of them civilians”.
Untranslated links: Poroshenko and Pushilin
http://www.interfax.ru/world/421579
One final very important category, excess deaths outside the frontlines, is not estimated here.
However, deaths/shortened lives due to over a million people being made homeless, economic ruin (average pension in Ukraine is has been reduced to about $50/month, and IMF-imposed utility price hikes mean over half of it may go towards utilities), lack of imported medications, huge increases in crime, etc. etc, although less visible, may represent the greatest loss of life in this conflict.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
Conflicts not referenced:
USA /Western losses in recent wars are not relevant because the vast majority of the time US was not fighting an armored war, but suppressing local guerrilla movements, not to mention US army’s far better training compared to UAF.
For reference, US losses in Iraq are about 20 KIA/AV (as armored vehicles were rarely used), and 7 wounded per KIA (great medical care).
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3513955
Moldovan, Georgian, Azerbaijani losses in post-Soviet civil wars, though obviously extremely similar to Ukrainian conflict in terms of training and composition of the sides, are not referenced because both sides generally had little armor, so armor/KIA ratios would be very high. In addition, much like Ukraine, reporting was extremely unreliable and biased on both sides.
LostIvan:
Worth noting that following the success of LostArmor, nationalist activists launched the website LostIvan.com, purportedly to track Russian soldiers in Donbass. Although there are certainly plenty Russian citizens fighting for the self-defense militias, and possibly even Russian soldiers, the website is a poor resource as it is plagued with fakes, insufficient information, and trying to pass off private citizens / retired veterans as soldiers.
Typical “source” for LostIvan:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28a_1411685822
For example, in the first few listings I just randomly inspected, one soldier’s presence in Ukraine was “confirmed” by the fact he posted one (1) photo of a… pack of Ukrainian cigarettes. Considering the number of Russian troops on Ukrainian border and in Crimea, similar “evidence” can probably be found for tens of thousands of soldiers. In short, they really need a decent moderator team.
On Russian troops in Donbass:
I did not talk about “Russian Army” KIA, as there is no way to distinguish Russian veterans who left the army years/months/days ago from active service members, especially since there are plenty of sources making fake “Russian soldier in Ukraine” social network accounts, pictures, etc.
There is a shadowy force called variously “Northwind”/”organized volunteer”/”vacationers” that could be either organized veterans trained in Russia, soldiers who left the army to volunteer in Donbass, or straight-up Russian army units. The difference may be more of a legal technicality since Russia (like most countries) doesn’t have a law against citizens participating in wars abroad (only against getting rich doing so, or committing war crimes), so technically even soldiers on leave would be within their rights to go fight for the Donbass militias.
Western volunteers in Syria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_rebel_fighters_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Western_countries
Zaharchenko actually said that a few of the 3000-4000 Russian volunteers in the Donbass are soldiers on leave (interview was widely misquoted by the likes of The Telegraph to say there are 3-4 thousand Russian soldiers in the Donbass http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/angela-merkel/11060559/Serving-Russian-soldiers-on-leave-fighting-Ukrainian-troops-alongside-rebels-pro-Russian-separatist-leader-says.html ).
Another reason is that Northwind, whatever they are, take little losses: They are only committed in surgical strikes against weak points, are much better trained than nationalist fighters, and prefer to fight at a distance. If we go by the widely publicized Dordzhi Batomunkuev’s interview (which was published in an extremely pro-Western source, looks severely altered, and may be fake), his battalion only suffered 4 WIA / no KIA in the battle for Debaltsevo, and considering the scale of the engagement, it would have been the biggest/only Russian unit participating. Overall Northwind losses are probably in the range of several dozen WIA/KIA.
Chechnya:
Before anyone gets triggered by this word and makes the inane statement that Russian actions in Chechnya are no different than those of Kiev government in the Donbass, let me point out the basic difference: Russia’s mythical “right” to Chechen soil was never the reason for the first or second Chechen campaigns.
In fact, Russia did NOT invade Chechnya when it declared independence, or seriously try prevent its nation-building.
The war started 3 years later, and the reasons for it were genocide of ethnic Russians in the republic (~20,000 killed, the rest had to flee), crime-based economy of the region preying on Russia, strategic concerns over oil transit and production, and supporting the constitutional government in its civil war against dictator Dudaev.
Also, while Russia’s methods in Chechnya were often deplorable, compare Chechnya 12 years after Russian invasion to Iraq 12 years after American invasion… or even Ukraine one year after nationalist takeover.
Excellent.
The mass media talk exclusively about the OSCE 6000 number (which is never meant as an estimate, just an absolute minimum – counting actual bodies and taking the numbers for Kiev from err Kiev).
When talking to people who don’t see straight nowadays I concentrate on telling people that there are 50 000 dead in ukraine, not the 6000 they keep being told. And that when they finally get hear the true numbers, remember just how they accepted all the other bullshit they’d been told.
more bodies discovered by the day, eg Donetsk aeroport
Thanks! As for the “real” number, it may never surface. Even if it does, would be much too late.
PS. A few people on other platforms called this post an “unproven theory”.
Well, it’s impossible to “prove” a theory, we can only disprove one.
For example, if things start floating around tomorrow, we’ll know that the theory of gravity has been wrong.
If we find a conflict where 1,000 destroyed armored vehicles (and several times this number trucks/jeeps) correspond to 1500 KIA, we may consider official claims in Ukrainian war less outrageous.
Although that would still leave the matter of eyewitness evidence and many notable figures saying that the statistics are hugely falsified.
A very good work, Tatzhit. I would like to see corrections to these numbers, if and when you receive more information. I am sure you have done your best with available information.
In spite of tremendous losses on both sides, Putin and Russia saved over 1 million Ukrainian
citizens, most importantly children and women. This is an incredible human potential and
except for Igor I. Strelkov ,who tries to do something for their survival on a decent level, I
did not see much written about them. Any statistics and reliable info about these refugees?
Regards, Spiral
Refugees are not the focus of my work (although one of my closest collaborators helps them in Russia), but my understanding is that the ones in Russia are doing more or less OK. They do receive state permission to stay and work, sometimes subsidized housing, help from humanitarian organizations. Most of them are spead around Russia at this point, each city receives some; I don’t know if there’s anybody staying at the temporary camps anymore. It’s not glamorous by any means, but nobody’s starving or getting shelled.
The drive is really to help people in Donbass (which, by the way, is what Strelkov is doing – I don’t know if his foundation does much work inside Russia). Russian official aid comes but a lot of it is stolen, especially in the LPR; there is a lot of bitching about that.
Smaller humanitarian enterprises seem to get through just fine. If you do to my Liveleak channel (link at the top of this article, or http://www.liveleak.com/c/Tatzhit ) you will find a few recent posts about aid to Pervomaysk by Evdokiya Sheremeteva’s group. Also one of my collaborators living in Germany delivered some aid to Donbass as well.
https://www.google.com/#q=human+kindness+and+sympathy+from+europe+to+donbass
Seeing through doublethink: Hats off for the scholarly analysis and thanks ! So Putin has cancelled his trip to Kazakstan? Smart move. Sometimes one can lead the charge and sometimes one needs to stay in the bunker. Yep…. JFK was told not to go to Dallas. A. Lincoln was martyred AFTER his work was done and so the counter revolution in the South of the USA began but at least history took that step forward. Sometime you are the man and sometime your importance is the position destiny has chosen you to fill.
If the militia lost this many men, it was mostly during their own counter-offensive. They would have never been able to take those losses early or mid-summer meanwhile taking the ground they won to secure the Southern Cauldron.
Clearly, the lack of accurate accounting is not just good military practice, disinformation. The war is hellish artillery and armored warfare with catastrophic loss when projectiles hit human targets or groupings.
And many locations have cross-fire of artillery, mortars, GRADS, et al. The devastation is beyond horrific.
What we do know is the Ukies can’t field a substantial army. They can’t fight well across the front.
They do their best work against civilians.
“They do their best work against civilians.”
Isn’t that what the Yankees, Israelis and the Limeys are very good at? Killing civilians throughout history? Even the limited one in modern day Israel?
Seeing thru doublethink: So it appears that low estimates for Kiev is 14,420 KIA and for Donbass in soldiers 6,000 and in civilians 7,000 or total 13,000. Since the war is being waged in the populated areas of the Russian speaking East, this way of looking at it makes it seem like a horrible parity. Yet if there were no resistance or a feeble one, the civilian loss would have been even more atrocious.
Reuters keeps hammering away with the ‘it was a BUK and only a rebel BUK’ that shot down MH17, though their newest version admits Ukrainian front lines were barely 5 km away from the new ‘witnesses are sure this time’ launch site, which is further away from the field near Torez they were previously stuck on.
Also that the witness says Kiev forces fired the BUK then changes her mind off camera. Seems this is pushback against the Colonel Cassad story pointing to pieces of alleged R-60 fragments in photos of the wreckage. BUK SAM kill would not explain how the Dutch investigator blurted out that a few doomed passengers near the front (where presumably the whole fuselage not just the cockpit would’ve been splattered with lethal shrapnel) managed to get their oxygen masks on. That detail is much more consistent with smaller warhead and less shrapnel air to air missiles hitting the plane, though the fanatical NATO/MH17 trolls keep insisting R-60s are ‘heat seekers’ that could not have hit MH17’s cockpit head on with their proximity fused-explosives killing the pilots instantly.
A critical missing piece of the puzzle remains the Malaysian pilot autopsies, one wonders if we’re going to see a leak from the Malaysian side soon that the pilots’ bodies injuries were consistent with air to air shrapnel and cannon fire. No doubt the Ukro-trolls and their .gov handlers will be dusting off their talking points that the Malaysians can’t be trusted and perhaps the NAF shot up the pilots bodies to make it look like cannon fire.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-ukraine-crisis-airliner-idUSKBN0M81XF20150312
If Malaysia leaked the truth, the Evil Empire would simply ramp up its regime change activities, although their chief stooge, Anwar Ibrahim, is back where he belongs. The lies are getting ever more impudent. One freak claimed on radio here recently, that ‘We know it was a BUK and ONLY the pro-Russian ‘terrorists’ had BUKs’. Naturally the MSM presstitute ‘interviewing’ did not point out that this was ‘incorrect’ and that the Nazi junta also had BUKs, whether through pig ignorance or mendacity, who knows.
The very idea that Reuters have found a witness in March 2015 to an event in July 2014 is a complete joke. No way has anyone sat on that kind of info that long – the whole world has been looking for a BUK trail.
The joke was just as stupid back in december when someone else (or was it Reutres again) found such a “witness”.
The BBC found a witness to jets chasing a civil aircraft days after the event – 100 times more credible (and I don’t believe that either).
Reuters does not name the “reporter” so I would assume this article comes direct from CIA or similar agencies propaganda department.
Also claims a BUK missile was used the day before to chase away Uki planes?
American Kulak:
Thank you for linking that article. It is very interesting, especially the part where Igor contends they fired at an SU25 30 minutes earlier with a BUK. If the same BUK had also fired at MH17, it would then be missing two missiles and so wouldn’t be the BUK the Ukr’s passed off in the video in Lugansk supposedly missing one missile.
Now, do you suppose Reuters will go to Zaroschcehnske 12 miles to the east and ask the villagers what they saw on July 17 from the Ukrainian BUK battery positioned south of their village?
I notice Reuters still thinks that you shoot down a jet and it just falls straight down. Its 25 km from where they claim this BUK might have been to the first crash debris, and it was 10 km up. It took 3 minutes to fall and the debris covers an area over 10 km long. The plane would have continued forward at least 10 km with momentum as it crashed, and it would have needed to be acquired as a target before firing. The flight time to impact would have been around 40 seconds, which puts the plane back another 10 km from the supposed firing location. MH17’s location would then have been 45 km out at the moment of firing, which is beyond the radar capacity of the individual BUK unit.
Remember that Russian radar (or other detection) picked up the presence of BUK radar component in region held by Kiev forces, in advance of the shootdown. Peculiar since rebels had no airforce. This radar was an aid to tracking the airliner for the fighters.
The detection of the presence of this radar was discosed at the Russian military’s presentation of its evidence about the shootdown.
The “rebels” had captured an SU-25 a few weeks earlier, and flown a mission with it on July 13, using cannon fire against a tank column. (It was the only time they used it, I imagine partly because they’d not captured any ammunition to go with it).
Kiev blamed the loss of at least two of their planes on being shot down by RUSSIAN planes, although they carefully claimed it was from over Russian territory. However if they had a BUK and could bring one down into Ukraine, they could claim it was in their airspace to start with, giving them a good “proof of aggression”.
So Kiev had some reason to be using AA radar at least.
I don’t think they found new witnesses at all.
If you read the story very carefully, it nowhere sways they just interviewed them. It says it is now possible to go there. The only location they give a time for is the field, which they say they went to in February but found no signs of a missile launch (as you’d expect, after 8 months anyway).
These are rehashes of old statements, right down to the “afraid of the rebels” and the “saw it blow up” (which was the AN-26 days earlier). They quote a “top rebel commander” saying ” we, the rebels, did not have…” which is not what a rebel would say about himself… and they’re unaware the person they’re quoting is Minsk negotiator and deputy Prime Minister, not just some commander.
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Oxygen masks? nobody was wearing one. ONE SINGLE BODY had an oxygen mask STRAP on it, no mask. With the bodies being tossed and spun around at high speed, this is more likely tangling than deliberate “putting on”. But a person who was strapped in at decompression, may have had time to don a mask (but it would not have had a oxygen in it because the pipes torn by then).
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The pilots and a few passengers sitting at the front left had shrapnel in them. One passenger and the pilots were taken for further investigation of this. No results have been published. WHY? WHY? this is where they start to go quiet. The issue is not the injuries. The issue is, they have 25 pieces of actual shrapnel, from which they can trace what kind of weapon they come from. The rebels (or anybody else) would not have aircraft cannon to shoot any bodies with on the ground. Remember it’s not a “what it looks like on a photo” question, it is a they actually have the shrapnel/bullets question.
This was excellent analysis – unbiased and well-researched. BRAVO!
This reminds me of a comment made by John Dos Passos as he waited through the siege of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (from memory):
The newspapers of course are full of victories; after all, there is a war on.
To Russia with Love…
Tatzhit, thank you for an extraordinarily thorough and informative report. I especially found interesting the comparisons to other wars.
I’m going to break with the westerner consensus here. The junta force loses are probably a lowball figure. The Novorossian are probably a highball figure. Lyashko’s bitch about the 8000 boys dead (last Autumn) is probably only about his fellow faggots in the nazi units. Someone else, claimed about 14k junta cannon fodder dead about that time. Likely that was the nazi faggots and the Ukraine regular army conscripts combined. The zionazi offensives since have added several thousand more orc deaths, both nazi faggots and regular army conscripts.
The Novorossian casualties from reported accounts, compared to orcs, were about 1 to 3 in the worst situations, most of the time, the ratio was much lower. I would guess (and like the figures used in this article, this is only a guess) that Novorossian soldier deaths are about half what this article claims. IE: less than 3k, not 5-6k.
BTW, regarding the German ‘intelligence” figures claiming 50k deaths in the Ukraine, of both orcs and Novorussians. This same German spook outfit is basically, to put it politely, jailhouse bitches of Mossad and CIA. What those quislings say is about as factual as the Mossad and CIA scum say.
BTW2, the German nazis and fascists are now quislings of Israeli zionazis and ziofascists (forget America – it’s Conchita Wurst on steroids), how’s that for role changing.
Whow. Nazi faggots, zionazi orcs, fascist quislings. I say whow.
Regarding the BND 50K number, it was leaked to support the idea that this crazy war must be stopped, contrary to US intentions.
I don’t think every single BND guy is loyal to CIA, even less so Mossad.
Lumi
Whow. Nazi faggots, zionazi orcs, fascist quislings. I say whow.
Regarding the BND 50K number, it was leaked to support the idea that this crazy war must be stopped, contrary to US intentions.
I don’t think every single BND guy is loyal to CIA, even less so Mossad.
Rather defensive about your friends, eh. Both the online network variety and in the BND. An attempt to derail the conversion with a troll about terms, rather than discuss the material presented. IE: attack the messenger, rather than discuss the issue – a ubiquitous zionist trolling method, such as from this crowd of sayanim:
sayanim central – deep thinkers division
Well, anyway, thanks for your “honesty”, Lumi. ;D
I am not proud to be on the same side as you, sir.
Dixi.
Tatzhit Mihailovich
Attempting to derive casualty figures from the number of armoured vehicles lost is a seriously flawed approach. Especially in a war between irregular forces on one side and mostly regular forces on the other. Each conflict is different, a statistical approach that looked accurate describing one, is no guarantee it will have any accuracy for another.
Not only does this approach fail to model the armour discrepancies of the opposing forces, it fails to account the requirements for the different types of armour used, their tactical usage with other troops, training of the force, the varying terrain it’s being used in, etc. The approach also fails to accurately take into account what the infantry and artillery forces are and how they are being used. Their training, tactics, their use of the terrain involved,etc. It also misses the air support aspect of the conflict entirely and what effect this has on casualties.
In other words, there are so many unaccounted for variables in such a simplistic statistical approach, such as you are using, that the results can only reflect reality by a random chance.
1) I agree that the approach is seriously flawed, but it’s the best available to us at the moment.
2) In case you did not notice, I did NOT use armor losses to calculate militia casualties, for the exact reason that you mentioned (see article above). However, UAF, which uses a lot of organic armor, can be calculated this way.
3) As we can not accurately estimate many variables, additional factors will likely only confuse the issue. We pretty much just have to accept that our estimate is going to be hugely inaccurate, to the tune of +/- 50%.
HOWEVER, such an estimate still shows that there is no way an army can lose 700+ armored vehicles (a full mechanized division by Soviet standards! with UAF levels of armor availability, probably 2-3 divisions) and only suffer 1500 KIA. That is the main point of the article, and it is data-based.
4) Any further adjustments are based on who you believe, and neither side knows the real figures. Most of the time, this war is fought with artillery at a distance, and both sides are rather loosely organized. Therefore, both enemy and own losses are not known precisely, and data-based approaches are going to be much more reliable than most official reports.
Tatzhit Mihailovich
but it’s the best available to us at the moment.
No it is not. The best available method is still the old fashioned way of counting losses and estimating before and after differences in unit material and manpower amounts. Well, unless one has intelligence operatives on the other side with access to the correct figures, of course. Your method simply tosses random numbers together. No more useful than simply multiplying admitted losses by one side by a random multiplier.
In case you did not notice, I did NOT use armor losses to calculate militia casualties
That’s a rather pedantic. You used “armored vehicles” most of the time, and “military vehicles” at least once. What do you think armour is? Just MBT? Armour covers the lot, from MBT, APC to any military vehicle that has any armour on it.
As we can not accurately estimate many variables, additional factors will likely only confuse the issue.
That is rubbish. If one cant account for the variables, then excluding them does not provide a better answer. Just a different one. The answer itself will still be a random amount whose relation to reality will still be a matter of random chance. That old computer programming truism “garbage in – garbage out” does not become “less garbage in – bingo, working program”, it becomes “less garbage in – garbage out”.
HOWEVER, such an estimate still shows that there is no way an army can lose 700+ armored vehicles (a full mechanized division by Soviet standards! with UAF levels of armor availability, probably 2-3 divisions) and only suffer 1500 KIA. That is the main point of the article, and it is data-based.
I was under the impression your essay was an attempt to formulate rough numbers of the casualties for both sides. IE: “Both sides in the Ukrainian civil war hugely overestimate enemy losses and conceal most of their own. Therefore, there is pressing need for a fact-based estimate of the loss of life.” Your own words introducing the piece. As for what banderastan claims about their own losses, well, nobody who still has access to their own grey matter takes that silliness seriously.
4)
That paragraph does make sense. But plugging random numbers into a randomly formulated equation is not going to give one a way around these problems, it just gives random figures. So one’s understanding is not better, it is no better than than before.
No it is not. The best available method is still the old fashioned way of counting losses and estimating before and after differences in unit material and manpower amounts. Well, unless one has intelligence operatives on the other side with access to the correct figures, of course. Your method simply tosses random numbers together. No more useful than simply multiplying admitted losses by one side by a random multiplier.
If you see my other posts here, you’ll notice a few reasons why I think this is wrong, e.g.:
“… there are reasons I did not go with counting losses by destroyed formations, versus other primary evidence:
– Ukrainian army units are usually seriously understrength to begin with, and don’t get me started to paramilitaries (some of their “battalions” actually have fewer than 20 men)
– Of the available men, many/most don’t want to / can not fight. So brigades usually form 2-3 “battalion tactical groups” which basically means “whatever running vehicles and unlucky men we can scrape together”
– These “tactical groups” aren’t used all at once, but rather distributed piecemeal over the frontlines, sometimes even in platoon or company sized pieces
– For a nationalist unit to lose combat capability, it does not have to take 100% KIA. It may take 10%. Or 1%. Or rumors of Russian tanks – Krivbass deserted without ever coming in direct contact. Not to mention “destroyed” units mostly end up captured or desert to Russia / home, or are let go upon abandoning their heavy weapons.
So, basically, if one hears of “79th brigade surrounded and destroyed”, there is no way to know how much of the brigade was surrounded – 1500 men, 500, or 50, how much of it was actually KIA versus captured, deserted, let go.”
That’s a rather pedantic. You used “armored vehicles” most of the time, and “military vehicles” at least once. What do you think armour is? Just MBT? Armour covers the lot, from MBT, APC to any military vehicle that has any armour on it.
Exactly, but if you read the actual article above you will see that I say militia units had little armor before (and have varying quantities even now), use it more cautiously, and repair/salvage more, so estimating militia losses from armored vehicles is a bad idea.
So I estimated militia losses as 40% of UAF losses, which may be on the high side by as I’ve said, militia reports we see of “100 UAF killed, we have one wounded in pinkie” are also biased. Plus one has to take into account various homegrown militia units like the kids that died in Lisichansk, the unorganized resistance in Mariupol, etc.
That is rubbish. If one cant account for the variables, then excluding them does not provide a better answer. Just a different one. The answer itself will still be a random amount whose relation to reality will still be a matter of random chance. That old computer programming truism “garbage in – garbage out” does not become “less garbage in – bingo, working program”, it becomes “less garbage in – garbage out”.
Yes, but having fewer poorly estimated variables likely doesn’t make the answer any worse, while making the formula simpler.
As for the “random relation to reality” that is obviously not true. We know that ~1000 destroyed/captured AV can not be equal to 1000 KIA, or 100,000. Then in this ballpark, we can estimate how other armies did. Yeah my numbers can be off by 50%, maybe as much as 100%, but still way better than relying on belief in random “sources”.
I was under the impression your essay was an attempt to formulate rough numbers of the casualties for both sides. IE: “Both sides in the Ukrainian civil war hugely overestimate enemy losses and conceal most of their own. Therefore, there is pressing need for a fact-based estimate of the loss of life.” Your own words introducing the piece. As for what banderastan claims about their own losses, well, nobody who still has access to their own grey matter takes that silliness seriously.
Well. those are ROUGH numbers. And they are the best available to us at the moment. BTW, this is nothing unique – try finding out how many aircraft US lost in Vietnam vs how many it admits to, for instance.
That paragraph does make sense. But plugging random numbers into a randomly formulated equation is not going to give one a way around these problems, it just gives random figures. So one’s understanding is not better, it is no better than than before.
It is. For starters, we understand that if the entirety of previous experience on armored warfare is to be believed, official figures are not plausible.
Well, Ukraine is run by Russia-hating zionist oligarchs, and hollywood nazi boneheads serving them. Plus normal conscripts, Chechen jjihadists, western h-nazis, and more.
I agree that BNDs/FAZs 50,000 revelation could have been an honest attempt to tell the truth (or something closer to it, than the mythical 6,000 number).
There seems to be tendency to exaggerate military losses of every war. I have found this tradition becoming even more stronger now than in early 20th century combats when data was always lacking behind. Vietnam War is good example. Please read the pdf-report of that study made by Charles Hirschman, Samuel Preston and Vu Manh Loi. Then there was Rudiger Overmans overclaims of German military losses of WW2 and likely some new studies of Soviet losses of WW2 might have same disease (e.g double counting, using not primary sources…)
Saker, honestly, don’t trust too much on personal losses/ lost vehicles. You know those official Soviet loss figures of tanks and soldiers of 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945 and the rate trend was getting lower towards 1945.
See above – I agree that the estimate is very imprecise, but this is the best we can do under the circumstances.
One question – what do you think Soviet loss ratios signify? I would think it rather logical that tank/soldier loss ratio was getting lower because Soviets transitioned from masses of light armor to smaller quantities of medium/heavy armor.
I think the article underestimates the Ukr losses.
Ukraine is now on its 4th mobilization without creating an appreciabbly larger force structure. This makes you ask where the other three mobilizations went?
The losses in the Southern Cauldron and Illovaisk and Lugansk Airport were in the end horrific. Entire Ukraine Army Brigades (3000+ men), or 2 of 3 Battallions (1000+ men each) in a Brigade would be trapped in these pockets, and only a few hundred men would walk out or surrender by crossing into Russia. This happened to the 1st, 24th, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 79th, 80th, etc. plus the 3rd and 8th Spetsnasz Battalions. You can Google Wikipedia to see who these formations were ands the maps on Kot-Ivanov and Dragon First showed which ones got trapped. At one point last fall, the Ukraine was forced to committ its final reserves – the 17th, 28th, and 92nd, who had seemingly been held out for political reasons (they hailed from Kharkov, Odessa, and Kryvvi Rih)
With the fight in Donetsk Airport and Debaltsevo this winter, the Ukraine Army was reduced further by losing much of two of its last effective fighting units, the 93rd and 128th.
The brigades still operating at relatively full strength are the Artillery and Rocket bridges. Hence the relentless shelling and launching of missiles. Its all they can do.
I suspect their losses are closer to 40,000. 30,000 was being reported last fall already.
My article may very well be underestimating losses. Obviously, this is a ballpark figure, and I could be off by a factor of 50% quite easily – the point was more intended to show that official figures are completely insane.
However, there are reasons I did not go with counting losses by destroyed formations, versus other primary evidence:
– Ukrainian army units are usually seriously understrength to begin with, and don’t get me started to paramilitaries (some of their “battalions” actually have fewer than 20 men)
– Of the available men, many/most don’t want to / can not fight. So brigades usually form 2-3 “battalion tactical groups” which basically means “whatever running vehicles and unlucky men we can scrape together”
– These “tactical groups” aren’t used all at once, but rather distributed piecemeal over the frontlines, sometimes even in platoon or company sized pieces
– For a nationalist unit to lose combat capability, it does not have to take 100% KIA. It may take 10%. Or 1%. Or rumors of Russian tanks – Krivbass deserted without ever coming in direct contact. Not to mention “destroyed” units mostly end up captured or desert to Russia / home, or are let go upon abandoning their heavy weapons.
So, basically, if one hears of “79th brigade surrounded and destroyed”, there is no way to know how much of the brigade was surrounded – 1500 men, 500, or 50, how much of it was actually KIA versus captured, deserted, let go.
I think our losses are 1 to 3 or 4.But a few days ago one of the Novorossian sites I read.I believe it was on “Defender of the Fatherland Day (2-23) said that our sides losses in the militia were around 7000.Now I have no idea if he was right or not.But he is in Donetsk.So I’m thinking he might know more than I would about that.Whether its 3,5,6 or 7 thousand.Those people died as heroes defending their peoples from the fascist evil destroying their homeland.Its likely they will lose more before total liberation comes.Hopefully,they may be few.
Vehicle losses
If taken only from lostarmour.info the numbers are understated. It is a crowdsourced site. They take published images and identify the vehicles (location, damage, markings etc).
so there would be plenty not photographed, or they didn’t see, and too damaged to work out what it was. The actual number would be a lot more. Some are recorded as having changed hands several times.
People losses
In a normal single command situation, some commander knows who he sent into a particular battle or engagement, and knows at least who came out alive. Simple arithmetic tells him how many didn’t make it, but not necessarily the reasons. Forces generally under report their own losses and exaggerate the enemy’s losses, although that is something they may know nothing about.
* In distant combat eg rockets at a fortified location, there is no way to tell what happened to the others unless the fort gets over-run.
* in closer combat, if the enemy can drag away his people (and sometimes they’ve called brief ceasefires for this purpose) it may be possible to count, at a distance, roughly how many they’re taking
* if the enemy is routed, it would be OUR people pickling up the dead and wounded, in which case they’d have a more accurate count than the enemy himself has.
* in a longer situation the enemy may have conducted burials, which have to be unearthed and added to surface finds (but may have already been included from visual counts when they happened).
Here we have, especially on the Kiev side, situations where multiple command lines exist,k and one will take no care or responsibility for the dead of the other he’s fighting alongside. It is then up to NAF to try and find and return the bodies. The involved groups may not count or announce losses at all.
Agree. I did not dwell too much on the percentage of destroyed armor that is photographed, simply because it will vary wildly and we have no reliable way of estimating that.
Looks like anything at/near cities will be filmed almost 100% of the time, whereas something out in the field, like in Southern encirclement of the summer, may never get caught on film.
This article was intended to be more of a rough estimate, since the 20 KIA/AV figure was also a very rough approximation. It’s basically intended to show that say UAF losses are likely in the 10-20 thousand KIA range, or maybe even somewhat outside that, but the official figure of 1550 KIA is batsh*t insane.
Hello. Here my info-graphic from lostarmour.info website data:
1. Armors lost by days;
2. Heat-map of armors lost (70% of armors has identified position on map);
3. Special application for Windows to parser and analyze lostarmour.info data (russian version) (you can sort, filter and group data; also you can analyze and create graphics);
Thank you!
Alot of analyses, but the numbers seems far off.
Just the first 4 qualdrons alone gave those numbers.
I have more trust in the german source who calculated about 50.000 dead (total with both sides and civilians). That was before minsk.
And the rebels captured most of their armours before minsk, not after. (Not counting the Debaltsevo).
Rebels only captured limited armors after minsk1 (considering the active warface and all the qualdrons was before minsk1).
Imo i think the ratio was maybe 1:5 before, but closer to 1:2,5-1:3 in latest actions, due to novo quickly going full front on Debaltsevo ukr-stronghold (city-battles).
(In KIA novo:ukr).
But at same time there were reports on ukr sending several bigger attempts to unblock the debaltsevo-hills.
Reports from ukr troops of batallions beeing slaughtered (first trying to attack, then beeing heavily bombed,and ukr infantery after loosing vehicles tried to go on foot over fields, but again beeing bombarded with artillery from several directions. Of very few beeing able to escape.
Almost annihilations.
Some of the pictures (drone pictures from above) seems very interesting. Almost like scorced earth, see artillery hit area for many kilometers almost side by side all the way. Must have been hell to bee under that rain of fire.
The CyberBerkut and other groups has also operated with higher numbers, from stolen documents.(But i have not payed attention in last months, but i doubt the numbers has decreased).
Referring to the ‘Invasion of Chechnya’
I regard that as equivalent to the western-viewed ‘Invasion of Afghanistan’.
The then-UN recognised and legal government of Afghanistan invited Soviet forces to help them defend themselves against what was then referred to by western media as ‘freedom fighters’.
That’s not an invasion, not legally. Never was, never has been.
As usual, what was the western powers best mates soon became their best ememies.,
Timothy Ozman. Mujahadeen. ISIS. La-de-dah.
As has been said many times before, the first casualty in war is the truth. And the leaders of the western world have considered themselves to be at war since WW2. For their own sake, not for yours or mine.
Nice try, but you are just extrapolating from armor losses. I generally agree with your numbers, but a more precise analysis can be done, based on historical research and statistic analysis. The Saker copied it in my blog but was very rude when I pointed out he made the error of mistaking “casualties” with “dead”. Still waiting for an apology.
For those interested in more precise numbers, check out this thread. There are analysis on casualties and strength of junta forces, and by now we have hard evidence on the admission of the Ukrainians that they had thousands casualties
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150775