Robin Horsfall
Dec 6, 2023
Various media outlets have given considerable coverage to Putin’s edict to conscript more men for his war in Ukraine. Conservative estimates of Russian casualties now stand at 332,000 killed or wounded and an average daily loss rate of 800. If the current rate continues Putin’s new recruits will only last about 200 days. It is likely that new troops will be replacing casualties rather than increasing the size of Russian forces.
It is inevitable that many potential recruits will once again run for the border. In 2022 more than one million Russians fled before borders could be closed. Although it will be difficult, long Russian borders offer many opportunities for escape. People in vital industries will hope to be exempted, but Russian administration being what it is, local officials will meet targets regardless of the long term consequences. Prisons will once again be a source of supply, but with so many prisoners already used up on the battlefield Putin will be looking to coerce anyone with a minor offence into his army.
Large sums of money are being offered to volunteers to join up, but stories of unpaid wages, high death rates and terrible conditions are seeping home despite state controlled media systems. Money will not cure Putin’s manpower problem.
All this recruitment reduces the workforce and undermines Russia’s ability to sustain its failing economy. Unemployment is running at 2%, a level unheard of because there are insufficient people available for work. Inflation is estimated to be rising to 40% pa, and queues for basic food items have returned to the towns, a situation not seen since the end of the Soviet Union. Russia’s wealth fund is estimated to become empty in another six to twelve months. Russia is being forced to sell oil and gas to China and India for Yuan and Rupees which are hard to use on the international market. This makes their balance of payments look healthy but they can only spend it in China and India.
On top of this, the declining Russian population has been a concern for many years. It is hard to imagine how a drop in childbirth rates will be resolved when all the young men are coming home in boxes.
It is important for Ukraine’s allies to up their game now, increase their support, double down on weapons manufacturing and ensure that Putin understands that he has no choice. He must be convinced to take what is left of his troops and go home.
Slava Ukraini!
Who Dares Shares
Robin Horsfall
Thank you for that Robin, I needed cheering up.
A borderline troll named Adam Gornall, commented:
This is a dire summary of events for Russia. May I ask what your main source for these figure are please? 🙏🏽
Robin replies :
Adam, my sources are manyfold. I spend about two hours a day scrolling through the debris to find the gold. The best economics source I have is Joe Bloggs on Youtube. Check him out. MOD and Pentagon reports are thorough but repetitive. Often I state what is obvious only to have it confirmed by higher authorities a week later. I also have contacts on the front lines who update me when they can. There is no single main source but a persistent accumulation of information. A lot is of course, false from both sides and put out as clickbait for monetary reward or for propaganda purposes.
James Hughes:
Putin has plenty of bullet catchers at his disposal, and he can afford to burn through those numbers for quite some time until things start to get uncomfortable. Ukraine on the other hand can’t. Their conscripts and resources of professional soldiers have been on the front line since the start. Anyone really motivated to help has already volunteered, and what’s left don’t want to be there.
Reply from Patrick James Christian PhD:
@james Hughes this is not helpful. Many/majority of these ‘bullet catchers’ are conscripted from the ethnic minorities of the many national republics that have been under Moscow’s control for well over a century. The federation’s soldiers have been voluntarily surrendering individually and in small groups at an unheard-of rate…. okay, small numbers relatively, but between willingness to surrender, refusal to fight, and working to subvert Moscow’s commander’s intent, this does add up. Conscripted prisoners conduct their individual and small unit combat tactics like a crime gang attacking police or civilian targets, rather than professional battle-hardened combat soldiers. For many of us here, we are more worried about our Ukrainian soldiers’ mental health as the level of ‘enemy’ losses at their hands is like nothing most have never experienced. This aspect is mitigated by Ukrainian soldiers attempts/willingness to help federation conscripts defect and surrender on one hand, and on the other, the sheer brutality of the federation’s prisoner-soldiers towards the Ukrainian civilian population (families of Ukrainian soldiers), also alleviates some of this trauma of serving as the proverbial ‘meet-grinder’ of federation attack waves.
Putz Pascall:
All that may be very true. But talking numbers, the arithmetic is decreasing on both sides against an imbalanced initial human reservoir. The day will come where the smaller barril will be empty. This very simple calculus is to the advantage of the kremlin. Dead russian bodies having no impact on the kremlin’s strategic decision making, decreasing numbers contribute to their theory of victory. The question is: is the collective West watching and allowing that to happen or not? As long as it takes?
Reply from Patrick James Christian PhD :
Putz Pascal everything you have said is very true and the MoD here is working to ‘collectives and democratize’ the recruitment process. Unlike the USA’s wars in faraway places, the war in Ukraine is … right here. Federation and Iranian missiles and drones are targeted at civilian infrastructure in a massive psychological warfare campaign to break the Ukrainian people’s will to resist. Last year, after the invasion, the highways were clogged with cars, busses, trucks, trains, filled with Ukrainians fleeing the war. Even last DEC, JAN, MAR, to MAY, the traffic here in downtown Kyiv was so light that I never saw a traffic accident…I began to think that Ukrainian people were just safe drivers?:) I could drive from Maidan square to Blockbuster mall in 5 mins! Now, month by month, these folks have been returning in large numbers, despite the constant air raids, bombings, etc. Kyiv is back to being crowded, the nightclubs are full of young people and the university classrooms are filling up again. Ukrainian’s are returning home despite the danger of being bombed and despite the national conscription. My wife is an MD/PHD and her 20-year-old college junior took leave and joined the territorial defense. Don’t believe all you hear.
Stefan Citak:
poor ruZZians going into military enslavement by their own dictatorship … 🙁
– frankly speaking, these are also the forgotten victims of this war – sent to fight for the empire which is simply using their human resources as the cheapest cannon-fodder … 🙁
the positive aspect is – that the more ruZZian “soldiers” perish (regardless of the fact that it’s sad that humans are dying on their side, too 🙁 … ) – the closer is another anti-government revolution in ruZZia, and the collapse of ruZZian war-machine.
the clock is ticking …
(in the meantime – we must keep supporting Ukraine !)
Regardless if they are fighting against Ukraine voluntarily or being forced, a good roach is a dead roach and the more dead roaches, the merrier.
A hundred thousand here, a hundred seventy thousand there, they are only numbers. Without heavy weapons and supplies, they are only rats to be stomped on. And, Ukraine’s efforts to destroy their heavy weapons and supplies is what should be facilitated.