The talk show host’s ‘Cops’-style ride-along with Trump ‘border tsar’ Tom Homan is the latest step in the TV psychologist’s political rebranding
The talk show host’s ‘Cops’-style ride-along with Trump ‘border tsar’ Tom Homan is the latest step in the TV psychologist’s political rebranding
People conscripted into the Russian Armed Forces aren’t sent into the Special Military Operation Zone.
This has been the case in previous conflicts involving Russia including when Russian troops were sent into Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 during Donbas War with only contractors being sent in.
Heck, Most of Russian Armed Forces aren’t even in Ukraine, majority of forces in Ukraine are from irregular volunteer formations recruited from regions across Russia.
Hence why casualties amongst Russian regulars are low:
Motorized Rifles: 6,457
VDV: 3,257
Naval Infantry: 1,305
Tank Crew: 1,806
Artillery: 851
Special Forces: 736
Engineering: 291
Navy: 291
VVS: 265
Other: 957
Total: 16,216
Source: MediaZona
For comparison:
US losses from 2003-2005 mainly against insurgents: 5175
Source: Defense Casualty Analysis System
Neither can Ukrainians really without receiving a visit from the SBU.
You aren’t even allowed to flip off TCC enlistment officers in Ukraine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
The real info for anyone interested. The Russians don’t even report their dead properly. If they don’t cremate them, they’re left to rot and be eaten by wild animals or feral packs of dogs. They don’t inform the families of the deaths and don’t report true figures on the amount of dead. I think Ukraine refuses to give figures, which is at least more honest.
That’s why it made me laugh when trump said ‘Ukraine men are refusing to fight and deserting’ because Russian men did that all along. I remember the news of the rush for the border and the plane tickets being sold out etc. Not that I blame them. This poor guy didn’t answer about conscription but I’m guessing he was too young to run. RIP.
You only get substantially higher numbers if you include PMCs, irregular volunteer formations, etc.
Even your own wikipedia source uses Mediazona and shows this LOL:
According to BBC News Russian and the Mediazona news website, out of 97,994 Russian soldiers and contractors whose deaths they had documented by 13 March 2025, 4.9 percent (4,794) were officers, while 6.8 percent (6,636) were Motorized Rifle Troops and 3.3 percent (3,275) were members of the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV). In addition, 11.5 percent (11,265) of Russian soldiers whose deaths had been confirmed were people who were mobilized, while 16.4 percent (16,075) were convicts.
I don’t include ‘mobilized’ (which means BARS not conscripts btw) nor do I include convicts. My death totals only include the professionals.
My numbers is a little older than March 15:
hence: Motorized Rifles: 6,457 VDV: 3,257
Yeah, the death toll is likely higher, but the professional death rate likely not so much higher as they are better documented than those from irregulars.
I mean Mediazona also admits that irregular volunteer formations and convicts make up larger portions of losses than professionals:
"From early summer and into the mid-fall season of 2022, volunteers bore the brunt of the losses, which is strikingly different from the situation in the initial stage of the war: in winter and early spring, the Airborne Forces suffered the greatest damage, followed by the Motorised Rifle troops.
By the end of 2022 and the beginning of the next year, losses among prisoners recruited into the Wagner PMC increased markedly. They were formed into “assault groups” to overwhelm Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut.
By March 2023, prisoners became the largest category of war losses. After the capture of Bakhmut, there have been no cases of mass use of prisoners so far.
By September 2024, volunteers once again emerged as the largest category among the KIA. This shift reflects a cumulative effect: prison recruitment had significantly waned, no new mobilisation had been announced, yet the stream of volunteers continued unabated.
By March 14, the death of over 4,800 officers of the Russian army and other security agencies had been confirmed.
The proportion of officer deaths among overall casualties has steadily declined since the conflict began. In the early stages, when professional contract soldiers formed the main invasion force, officers accounted for up to 10% of fatalities. By November 2024, this figure had dropped to between 2–3%—a shift that reflects both evolving combat tactics and the intensive recruitment of volunteer infantry, who suffer casualty rates many times higher than their commanding officers."
The only time when professionals bore the brunt of the losses amongst Russian forces was in winter and early spring of 2022, they were quickly beaten by the blood that was shed from irregular volunteer formations in mid-fall, the death toll amongst irregular volunteer formations were eventually surpassed by prisoners in 2023 before irregular volunteer formations again emerged as highest category among the KIA.
If you read further the true figures are given. They give the Russian propaganda figures because it’s still valuable information to know what crap Russians are being told. It gives me hope that so many of the Russians on the street understood that they were being lied to. I guess they can share the truth and their real opinions in private (is there a word for ‘private’ in the russian language yet?).
So you said most of the conscripted weren’t sent to Ukraine. Are people being conscripted to do your job?
Again, Russian casualties are only significantly more higher (in the hundreds of thousands range) If you include PMCs, irregular volunteer formations, etc.
I am only including Russian professionals.
From your wikipedia link “Men from the poverty-stricken regions of Russia’s Far North, Far East and Siberia were overrepresented among Russian war casualties.”
Yeah, because irregular volunteer formations rely on their local regional government to supply them with weapons and equipment not the federal government. This is well shown by the Tuvan volunteers who come from the poorest region in Russia which shows in their equipment:
Link
So they rely heavily on donations:
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Thankfully Chechnya has recently taken on the burden of training and equipping them (why you see them being shipped from Chechnya) as shown here:
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Chechnya training and sending more batches of volunteers from across Russia to the SMO zone:
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All I’m hearing is Putin sends Russian soldiers into war without weapons, but with mobile crematoriums so the dead bodies can create more diamonds of death for his crown. We know the true numbers of dead aren’t been reported and mothers of dead Russian soldiers are complaining that they don’t even know what happened to their sons. They don’t even get an empty coffin to bury and idk, what do they get in exchange for their son’s life? A ribbon? A medal?
Question - Putin said the war was supposed to last for 2 days or 2 weeks or whatever. Do you think Putin regrets invading Ukraine? Do you?
It was US General Mark Milley who said that it would be 3 days/72 hours to Kyiv.
That does not mean that Putin thought that this war would last for years as he expected Ukraine to capitulate to his demands (which was almost accomplished) which is why the SMO was so half-assed.
Russia did not expect any resistance during the initial invasion of Ukraine. Russia had 170 BTGs fully composed of professional soldiers at the start of the war. Only 64-69 of these BTGs took part according to Ukraine and at half strength. Since these forces did not expect any resistance, they went in without their material technical support brigades which meant they had to rely on ad hoc supply units and looting. The material technical support brigades were only sent into Ukraine around a month after the invasion but Russian units had already sustained heavy losses by then due to the lack of ammunition and supplies. This was too little too late which eventually led to the Russian Armed Forces withdrawing from Ukraine and mostly being replaced by irregulars. For example, when Russian forces withdrew from the Kharkov region, they got replaced by 3rd Army Corps which was thrown into enemy lines to stem the tide.
If it was not half assed, Russia would likely have utilized lessons learned from when they sent in units during the Donbas War, meaning that they would have sent in drones to map out positions, bomb said positions to hell destroying entire Ukrainian brigades in minutes like what happened in 2014, then send forward units with their material technical support brigades actually attached and they would locate surviving Ukrainian units, and smash them into pieces forcing Ukraine to send in their reserves to the front to seal up openings which without reservists back at Kiev, would allow the Hostomel operation to succeed in its entirety by giving the VDV time to prepare the airfield in order to create an air bridge. Ukraine then quickly capitulates to Russia’s demands.
Putin in my opinion, probably regrets half assing the initial invasion. Now it has turned into a war of attrition. This means that Russia has to look for alternatives outside of the military such as private military contractors or volunteers to fight in Ukraine. This is because preparing hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in Ukraine would cause a large amount of unrest at home and would destabalize the economy. This is also why I think that Russia might be preparing to use a larger portion of its military this year in the spring. Zelenskyy seems to agree as he has been talking about Russia launching an offensive into Sumy from Russia and another one into Kyiv from Belarus. The economy has since adapted to the Special Military Operation meaning it would be less destabilized from a full-scale war. The population is suffering from war exhaustion despite attempts by Russia to prevent war exhaustion by using private military contractors and volunteers but Kursk might have increased public support for a full-scale war.
Its interesting how you pick and choose which questions to answer. I’ll answer for you - yes, huge regret but trying desperately not to lose face by trying to rewrite history.
Not as desperately as you tried to rewrite history regarding WW2 above using the same nonsense that neo-nazis used.
If it wasn’t obvious, I don’t think the invasion was particularly stellar. But without action, it would only embolden Zelenskyy to keep stamping down on the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s right to self determination.
Was invasion the best choice? Probably not.