The comparison and analysis of the names of the dead Russian military with the data of the Registry of Hereditary Cases allows us to estimate the total number of people killed from the beginning of the war to the end of 2023 at 75 thousand people. This is not an exact number, but a statistical estimate, depending, among other things, on chance, that is, the most likely value is within a fairly wide range — from 66 to 88 thousand people. Our method does not allow us to "see" losses in recent months, however, if their rate remains the same as in the fourth quarter of 2023 (approximately 3,900 people per month), the total value for two years of war will be about 83 thousand people.
Although the front line actually froze in 2023, the rate of losses not only did not decrease, but increased significantly. If in 2022 the number of deaths amounted to about 24 thousand people, then in 2023 it more than doubled, to almost 50 thousand. The losses reached their maximum values during the Battle of Bakhmut, in January —March 2023. According to our data, up to two thousand people per week died during this period, and most of them were former prisoners.
Even after the peak of the Bakhmut operation, the rate of losses in 2023 still remained at a high level. It exceeded the losses of the first days of the war, when Russian troops tried to advance on Kiev and were defeated almost everywhere. Having captured Bakhmut, Russia went on the defensive. However, the reflection of the APU offensive on the "Surovikin line" — that is, on seemingly protected positions — also required great sacrifices from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Probably, the increase in losses compared to 2022 is due to the fact that the number of troops at the front has increased significantly (if during the invasion it was estimated at 190 thousand along with the "people's militia of the DPR and LPR", now we are talking, apparently, about half a million people). The increased firepower of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which received Western weapons and ammunition, also affected the level of losses.
Recently, starting from about October-November 2023, the rate of losses began to accelerate again. You can even name a more accurate period of the beginning of the growth of losses — the second week of October. It was then that the Russian offensive on Avdiivka began. Dozens of videos have been published depicting the defeat of more than a hundred Russian armored vehicles. Now we have discovered that it was accompanied by huge losses of manpower. As we will see later, the losses and the APU, which tried to defend Avdiivka, jumped sharply. As a result, they failed to do so. And the battle for the suburbs of Donetsk, in terms of losses on both sides, may well turn out to be the "second Bakhmut" (but not enough time has passed so far to assess the losses from the capture of Avdiivka more accurately).
According to the affiliation of the dead to different units and groups of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it is possible to clearly trace how the composition of the army and the methods of its recruitment changed. The invasion was launched by a regular Russian army of more than 100,000 people (plus the "people's militia" of Donbass), consisting of contractors and officers; they accounted for almost all the losses in the first months of the war. However, by the autumn —winter of 2022, this category in current losses was almost exhausted. Many were killed and injured, which led to their retirement from the service. A significant part of them broke their contracts: This was not prohibited until the fall of 2022.
Once again, the share of "contractors" in losses began to prevail from the second half of 2023, when the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were staffed with "volunteers". This is what the Russian authorities call those who have signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense in private. According to Putin, by the end of 2023, almost half a million such people had been recruited. The figure seems to be overstated, but the very fact of changing the recruitment method to "volunteer" is confirmed by loss statistics: now "new contractors" are the largest group of dead. In total, by the end of 2023, about 22 thousand regular military personnel (12.5 thousand "volunteers") died in the war.
Since the summer of 2022, the proportion of former prisoners killed, as well as Wagner PMCs fighters, has begun to grow. Mercenaries — both recruited from prisons and volunteers — accounted for most of the Russian losses in the Battle of Bakhmut. On the loss charts, you can see how in the summer of 2023, the Wagnerians abruptly disappeared from the statistics - at the same time, the number of military personnel (primarily those "volunteers") increased again.
As a result, former prisoners make up a very important share of Russian losses. In total, we can estimate their number at 20 thousand out of 75 thousand people. Prisoners differ from other groups in that they are much less likely to leave a legacy — and therefore less likely to enter the RND. This is not a problem for our counting method: we take into account similar differences between groups. What is more difficult to take into account is the number of prisoners among those approximately 20% of the dead, information about which does not allow us to determine their belonging to one or another group of the military. In our assessment, we proceed from the proportional distribution of groups among such cases, but this approach may not adequately reflect the realities.
The retreats at Balakleya and Kherson in the autumn of 2022 forced the Russian leadership to urgently mobilize. The mobilized, many of whom were immediately thrown into support of the crumbling defense of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, already in the autumn and winter of 2022 took a significant share among the dead. On the graph, you can see the peak of losses among those mobilized on New Year's Eve 2022/2023 — then the AFU with HIMARS MLRS missiles struck the vocational school building in Makeyevka near Donetsk, where hundreds of newly conscripted military were stationed.
As a result, the mobilized make up the third largest group among the dead (after military personnel and former prisoners) — their share reaches about 16 thousand of the same 75 thousand. Since October 2022, this indicator in total losses has been stable: on average, about 250 men forcibly sent to the front die every week.
According to the graphs, we expect to see that the advancing troops are suffering greater losses than the defending ones. But this does not mean that to win the war of attrition, each of the opponents should prefer defense. The loss of territory, cities and important fortified areas negatively affects the psychological state of the troops and society of the belligerent country. And in the case of Ukraine, as we can see, failures undermine the support of the West, on which Kiev depends entirely.
Originally Posted by CosmoLady
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