From generals to volunteers: the loss of Russia in Ukraine by the beginning of June
- Olga Ivshina, Olga Prosvirova
- BBC
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BBC identified 3,052 Russian servicemen who died in the war in Ukraine. Although the Russian Ministry of Defense has not updated information on the dead since the end of March, soldiers, officers and those who have officially begun to be called “volunteers” are buried daily in the country. Far from all the casualties are reported to the environment – but many of the larders are in need of new casualties that the Russian army in Ukraine is demanding.
What do the graves and requiems tell about?
In each case, the minimum name and surname of the deceased soldier is found. So far, we have been able to obtain information about 3052 dead soldiers and officers.
This count cannot be accurate, since both the media and the authorities are far from all the dead, even if “cargo 200” has already been delivered to the region, and the body of the deceased has been buried. The idea of how many deaths were not included in the statistics provides information with the presentation of cemeteries.
In some cities, entire alleys have been allocated for the burial of those killed in Ukraine. BBC got acquainted with 11 cemeteries in Stavropol, Kazan, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Balashikha, near Ulyanovsk and in the Kaliningrad region.
In every cemetery found graves among the dead after February 24, 2022. In the public space, the names of not all the buried were called. To understand that before us are the graves of servicemen, it is incapable of work: the age of the dead is from 18 to 45 years, on the cross – photographs urgently, on the grave of local residents of the Ministry of Defense.
After the start of the war in Ukraine, 42 fresh military graves appeared at the Arkhangelsk cemetery near Ulyanovsk. Of their names, 21 of the dead were not named publicly and were not even mentioned in social networks. Only the availability of data from one cemetery is substantiated, that the error in the calculations is calculated in the case of a probability of 50%.
At the cemetery “Kurgan” in Kazan, previously unknown names – 30%. At the Mikhailovsky cemetery near Stavropol – also almost 30%. On the military alley of the Kopansky cemetery near Krasnodar – all 100%.
In early April, a video of the mourning event was published in the media, where 55 portraits of the dead paratroopers were exhibited. Of these, only 29 names were mentioned publicly. In the end, the journalists of “Mediazona” (the speed is recognized by a foreign agent of Russia), who also count the losses, managed to identify all 55 names with the help of additional search tools. Consequently, 52% of the names of the dead paratroopers with this memorial service were previously unknown.
Thus, we may raise suspicion that the list of excess losses that have been found in connection with the BBC may reveal at least 40-60% fewer names of the dead than are actually buried in Russia.
According to British intelligence, by the end of May, Russia had lost about 15,000 people in Ukraine. According to the General Staff of Ukraine, the death toll of the Russian military has exceeded 30,000.
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Over the past month, media and investigations of individuals have been increasingly mentioned among the dead “volunteers”, although they have not been written about at all. The real status of these people is not always clear.
By the end of May, the BBC discovered cases of discovery of at least 81 people named voluntarily. Some of them fought in Ukraine as part of some Cossack detachments, underwent several weeks of training at a special forces university in Chechnya and, apparently, signed a short-term contract with the Ministry of Defense.
30% of volunteers are people over 40 years old, ten people went to fight, got over 50 years old. It is possible that the status of a volunteer is circumvented by the limit of admission to military service that is valid in Russia until the end of May. To sign the first contract with the Ministry of Defense, one had to be under 40 years old. These restrictions have now been lifted.
Since the beginning of March, thousands of contract vacancies have been popping up on popular job search sites like HeadHunter. How excited the Russian service of the BBC, responding to the ad, you can get to the war in Ukraine in just a couple of weeks.
Despite this, the President of the Russian government and Vladimir Putin personally stated that only medical workers and contract soldiers are fighting in Ukraine.
Replenishment in the army of the collection and more discovery ways. There are now 500 vacancies posted on the Department of Defense website alone. In almost 30% of cases, selection for military transportation took place in the cities of Dagestan – in Makhachkala, Khasavyurt, Kaspiysk, Derbent and Buynaksk.
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In Dagestan, at least 176 residents are already known to have died as a result of the war in Ukraine. The Republic is a consequence of the growth of losses in this war. In Dagestan, there are only official reports about the “cargo 200” and publications in the media with reports as a keepsake.
Buryatia – the funeral of 136 prisoners was announced there.
In third place is the Volgograd region with 109 dead. With the closing of May in the regional center – at the entrances and in public transport – appeared leaflets calling on Volgograd residents to “take part in a special operation.”
Official documents refer only to those who previously served in the military. The promised salary is from 300 thousand rubles. The average salary in the city is about eight times lower.
For many regions of Russia where there are no elevator workers, there is almost the only service under contract in the army with the opportunity to earn money. By agreement with people without experience of participating in hostilities.
For comparison: it was known only about six deaths in the cities of Moscow, although in the capital almost 9% of the population of Russia.
generals
At the moment, the BBC knows about the upcoming trio of a general war with Ukraine. Until recently, cases of disastrous meetings became known in Russia, but on May 24 it became known about the meeting of Kanamat Botashev, a retired major general of the air force.
On March 22, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft was shot down in the sky over the Luhansk region, the pilot did not have time to eject. Former colleagues confirmed that the retired General Botashev carried out the task on the Su-25. Botashev is the highest-ranking pilot of all the dead killed.
As it turned out, it was in Ukraine, it is not specified, but his participation in air battles may indicate a shortage of highly qualified specialists in the ranks of the Warring Russian Army.
Earlier sightings of seven deaths were reported in Ukraine, but at least two of them – Magomed Tushaev and Andriy Mordvichev – have experienced live, rainy cases on video footage and continue in combat in Ukraine.
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“Crushing loss of officers”
Of the 3,052 Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine, 152 are the so-called senior officers (generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors). Another 405 are junior army officers. In total, more than 18% of the dead are officers.
Earlier, the BBC Russian Service specified that such a high percentage may be due to the fact that the bodies of dead officers are allowed home on a priority basis. But another reason is the structure of command in the Russian army.
Most of the assigned functions are taken over by the officers. While in the armies of NATO countries, many commissioners are responsible for sergeants, corporals and other junior ranks.
On May 30, this was confirmed by British intelligence. According to the British Ministry of Defense, Russia, in fact, requires crushing losses among junior and senior officers.
“Assigned as junior chief to lead tactical operations at the highest level, as the Russian army lacks the highly trained and empowered sergeants who fill this role in Western armies,” intelligence said.
These losses will add to the problems already existing in the Russian army, and even the battalion tactical groups that are in foreign regions in Ukraine from the remaining branches will be less effective – due to a lack of commanders.
At the end of May, the British Ministry of Defense also claimed that the number of deaths among military personnel in the first three months of the war in Ukraine most likely depended on a decrease in Soviet losses in the Afghan war. According to some reports, about 15 thousand Soviet soldiers died in that war.
“A combination of bad tactics, limited air closure, lack of flexibility and the ability of the command to eliminate unfortunate and repeated mistakes, realized to a high degree of loss, continued growth during the move in the Donbass,” according to Britain.
There are already more motorized riflemen dead than paratroopers
About 20% of all detainees served in motorized rifle troops. By the beginning of June, motorized riflemen had overtaken the Airborne Forces in absolute losses (although paratroopers still accounted for 19% of confirmed deaths).
Observers note that this may be due to the fighting that is currently underway in the Russian army. In the first weeks of the war, Moscow carried out several major landing operations. Now the Russians are fighting protracted battles on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk economies. In such exceptional cases, a significant burden usually falls on the infantry, and not just on the assault groups.
A very high level of casualties among paratroopers and motorized riflemen can also be associated with problems in emergency soldier first aid kits with severe first aid consequences and a poorly established system for evacuating the wounded from the front line.
Continue to receive information about the meetings of world pilots. By the beginning of June, it became known about the burial places of 37 military pilots (including navigators and flight mechanics of aircraft and helicopters). These are piece specialists and the elite of any army. The training of one pilot can take up to 10 years and costs from 3 to 7 million dollars.
The list of casualties that we managed to find included 119 employees of the Russian Guard, including fighters from the elite units Vityaz, Rosich and Typhoon. Among the dead are at least 53 soldiers of the GRU special forces and a lieutenant colonel of the FSB “Alfa” special forces. All these divisions are considered to be among the strongest in Russia.
How do we translate
In Russia, every day more and more new names of the dead and photographs from the funeral are registered. a number of names are called by the heads of Russian regions or representative regional administrations, local media and educational institutions where the dead, as well as relatives, previously studied.
The BBC and a team of volunteers are looking into this data and adding it to the list we have been keeping since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We have not studied the media about dozens of reports, and sometimes about hundreds of dead, if they do not contain specific information about names and surnames. We also did not observe the appearance of mercenaries, the so-called Wagner PMCs.
It is also clear that some losses are not publicly reported, so our list is clearly incomplete, higher than the losses of the Russian army and the National Guard in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the amount of data collected helps to make a basic observation and analyze what is happening with the Russian army fighting in Ukraine.
We continue to collect data on the dead. If you would like to share information on this topic, please contact us at link.