One would think that as a war goes on, that each side would become more adept and would become better at preventing losses to their troops. This has certainly been the case with Ukraine.
Ukraine has adapted its style of fighting to reduce the number of casualties and preserve its most precious commodity – its soldiers.
Russia, on the other hand, has not mastered that concept. Russia is sustaining losses at a greater rate today than it ever has during the entire war.
In fact, the last week was the worst week for Russian soldiers in the almost five years of fighting. Russia has sustained 1,570,540 casualties so far in this war.
From October 14-20, Russia sustained some 13,190 casualties. This is the single greatest weekly casually report for the entire war.
This war has gone on some 1,700 days now. That is approximately 243 weeks.
If Russia had the same casualty rate for the entire war as it did the last week, the casualty count would be over 3,205,000, over double what the current rate is.
And the irony of this number is that during its most costly week in the war, Russia actually lost territory.
Putin is trying to complete his conquest of Donbas. He has set numerous dates for the complete conquest to be completed. Only the Red Army has been unable to meet any of those dates.
And in fact is currently losing parts of Donbas that it had previously captured. But the size and extent of the losses seem to have no impact on Putin.
Soldiers are fungible to him.
He believes, erroneously, that if one soldier is killed or injured, he will merely fill that position with another. This is becoming a lot more difficult than he realized. Be casualty rate for the last week is unsustainable by Russia.
Even with foreign troops, prisoners, and recruits, Russia cannot replace 13,000 soldiers in one week. If the casualty rate continues, Putin will soon find himself unable to function as an army. You will not have the manpower to carry out all the operations that need to be carried out.
Then we’ll have to scale back his aspirations for his conquest of Ukraine.
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