If you VPN into Russia and check the Russia Ministry of Defense website (https://eng.mil.ru/), they post daily and weekly reports on the progress of the SMO. If you add up all the Ukrainian troop deaths in their report from 22 – 28 June 2024, you get 13820 deaths in the week, which averages to ~2000 per day. Russia also lists a bunch of armored vehicles and aircraft they blew up, I do not know if casualties from them were included in the troop death counts.
From 22 June to 28 June 2024, the Russian Armed Forces have carried out 17 group strikes with high-precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles. Enemy energy facilities, infrastructure of military airfields, logistics centres for storing weapons delivered by Western countries to the AFU, as well as assembly and storage facilities for attack unmanned aerial vehicles and uncrewed boats.
Temporary deployment areas of AFU troops and foreign mercenaries have been also hit.
Over the past week, the units of the Sever Group of Forces continued to advance into the depths of the enemy defence and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of three formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one marine brigade, and three territorial defence brigades.
The AFU losses were up to 1,560 Ukrainian troops, 12 armoured fighting vehicles, and 43 motor vehicles.
In the course of counter-battery warfare, 33 field artillery guns, including seven foreign-made howitzers, three Nota electronic warfare stations, Bukovel-AD, and two U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar stations have been eliminated.
The units of the Zapad Group of Forces have improved the tactical situation and inflicted fire damage on four mechanised and two tank brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on two territorial defence brigades. Six counter-attacks of AFU assault detachments have been repelled.
The AFU losses were up to 3,230 Ukrainian troops, four armoured fighting vehicles, 40 motor vehicles, three Grad MLRS combat vehicles, 24 field artillery guns, six of them were U.S.-made.
In addition, three U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 and AN/TPQ-37 counter-battery warfare radars, as well as 11 field ammunition depots have been destroyed.
The units of the Yug Group of Forces have liberated Razdolovka (Donetsk People's Republic) and seized more advantageous lines.
The strikes have been delivered at manpower and hardware of the three mechanised, two airmobile, and two air assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The AFU losses were up to 4,410 Ukrainian troops, two tanks, eight armoured fighting vehicles, 48 motor vehicles, and 39 field artillery guns, including 11 U.S.-made M777 and M198 howitzers.
In addition, seven Anklav, Bukovel electronic warfare stations, and 25 field ammunition depots have been destroyed.
The units of the Tsentr Group of Forces have improved the situation along the front line and defeated units of four mechanised, two infantry formations of the AFU and two territorial defence brigades. Enemy 39 counter-attacks have been repelled in this direction during the week.
The AFU losses were up to 2950 troops, three tanks, six armoured fighting vehicles, including two U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 30 motor vehicles, and 42 field artillery guns, including six U.S.-made M777 howitzers.
The units of the Vostok Group of Forces have improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, three formations of the Territorial Defence and two National Guard brigades.
The AFU losses were up to 930 Ukrainian troops, six armoured fighting vehicles, 36 motor vehicles, and 19 field artillery guns, including six UK-made FH-70 howitzers.
The units of the Dnepr Group of Forces have defeated units of two formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and three brigades of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence.
The AFU losses were up to 740 Ukrainian troops, three tanks, two armoured fighting vehicles, 48 motor vehicles, and 23 field artillery guns, 11 of them were foreign-made.
In addition, eight Anklav, Bukovel electronic warfare stations, and six ammunition depots have been destroyed.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have destroyed six M142 HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system launchers, one M270 MLRS launcher, and one transport and loader vehicle together with foreign specialists who ensured their use, as well as three P-18 air target detection and tracking radars.
Air defence facilities have shot down two Ukrainian Air Force's MiG-29 aircraft, 589 unmanned aerial vehicles, six U.S.-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, eight U.S.-made Patriot anti-aircraft guided missiles, one U.S.-made HARM anti-radiation missile, and 61 U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, Czech-made Vampire and Olkha projectiles.
Over the past week, 56 Ukrainian servicemen have surrendered on the line of contact.
In total, 615 airplanes and 276 helicopters, 26,777 unmanned aerial vehicles, 533 air defence missile systems, 16,446 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,357 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 11,020 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 23,049 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
That's a fuckin meatgrinder. I had no illusions, i knew things were bad, as they usually are in war, but damn.. this makes libs wanting the war to go on make my blood boil even more
"Losses" does not mean deaths. Losses includes wounded, even those that will fully recover fairly quickly, right? If you blow out someone's eardrums for example, they are "lost" as a soldier on the battlefield, because they are no longer available to the enemy.
And the phrase "up to" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially when it comes to troop numbers. That means the absolute maximum possible by their account. Like if they hit a building with artillery and their estimate is that there were 30-50 Ukrainian troops there that will count as up to 50 lost troops, despite the fact that they know very well that they probably did not wound/kill everyone in the building.
The real number of dead will be significantly lower. The number of wounded/sick/deserters will be high, but it is anyone's guess exactly how high.
It's not "significantly lower" but it is lower. It is correct that when the MoD writes "losses" they are referring to the combined number of sanitary (wounded) and irretrievable (dead) losses. But we know from a lot of reporting that for Ukraine that ratio is not good, they are having significant trouble getting medical help to their frontline troops in time and often they just leave them there. So if you just take half of that number from the MoD you already have a reasonable estimate.
You assume that they systematically over-report but the truth is you don't know that, and for all we know there could be systematic under-reporting happening to an even greater degree. A lot of Russian commentators have suggested that the MoD really only reports what can be visually verified as a hit, but there is a lot that happens that can't be directly observed. There are a lot of spotter drones, but not everywhere and seldom for strikes in the rear on logistics and such. And as you say, all of this is before you include losses from non-combat related causes.
So far the MoD numbers have tended to be very reliable, or at least composed according to the best information available to them. Insofar as they have reported on Russian losses they have also tended to agree with the estimates of pro-western organizations like BBC's Mediazona which while biased at least try to have a somewhat decent methodology.
So yes, take any numbers that the MoD puts out with a grain of salt, but at least they are not the inverse opposite of reality like in the case of the nonsense that Ukraine claims.
Where do you get that figure of 2000 a day?
If you VPN into Russia and check the Russia Ministry of Defense website (https://eng.mil.ru/), they post daily and weekly reports on the progress of the SMO. If you add up all the Ukrainian troop deaths in their report from 22 – 28 June 2024, you get 13820 deaths in the week, which averages to ~2000 per day. Russia also lists a bunch of armored vehicles and aircraft they blew up, I do not know if casualties from them were included in the troop death counts.
Here's the full report if anyone's interested:
That's a fuckin meatgrinder. I had no illusions, i knew things were bad, as they usually are in war, but damn.. this makes libs wanting the war to go on make my blood boil even more
You have no idea... There's very little patience left for them because of shit like that
"Losses" does not mean deaths. Losses includes wounded, even those that will fully recover fairly quickly, right? If you blow out someone's eardrums for example, they are "lost" as a soldier on the battlefield, because they are no longer available to the enemy.
And the phrase "up to" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially when it comes to troop numbers. That means the absolute maximum possible by their account. Like if they hit a building with artillery and their estimate is that there were 30-50 Ukrainian troops there that will count as up to 50 lost troops, despite the fact that they know very well that they probably did not wound/kill everyone in the building.
The real number of dead will be significantly lower. The number of wounded/sick/deserters will be high, but it is anyone's guess exactly how high.
It's not "significantly lower" but it is lower. It is correct that when the MoD writes "losses" they are referring to the combined number of sanitary (wounded) and irretrievable (dead) losses. But we know from a lot of reporting that for Ukraine that ratio is not good, they are having significant trouble getting medical help to their frontline troops in time and often they just leave them there. So if you just take half of that number from the MoD you already have a reasonable estimate.
You assume that they systematically over-report but the truth is you don't know that, and for all we know there could be systematic under-reporting happening to an even greater degree. A lot of Russian commentators have suggested that the MoD really only reports what can be visually verified as a hit, but there is a lot that happens that can't be directly observed. There are a lot of spotter drones, but not everywhere and seldom for strikes in the rear on logistics and such. And as you say, all of this is before you include losses from non-combat related causes.
So far the MoD numbers have tended to be very reliable, or at least composed according to the best information available to them. Insofar as they have reported on Russian losses they have also tended to agree with the estimates of pro-western organizations like BBC's Mediazona which while biased at least try to have a somewhat decent methodology.
So yes, take any numbers that the MoD puts out with a grain of salt, but at least they are not the inverse opposite of reality like in the case of the nonsense that Ukraine claims.