May 25th, 2026 Memorial Day

The war continues with few changes on the ground. But there are some developments, perhaps the most significant is in drone operations over the past several days.

Early in the morning of May 22nd one (or more) Ukrainian drone struck a building in Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast (Russian occupied Ukraine). Russia claims that it was a dormitory at the Luhansk Pedagogical College and that the occupants were college students. Ukraine denied this and insisted it only strikes legitimate military targets, and that the building they struck was a headquarters of an element of the Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies - which operates Russia’s most advanced combat drones. At least 21 were killed and 42 wounded. 

Following the strike Putin apparently ordered a strike on Kyiv, killing 4 and wounding 100. The strike included 1x Oreshnik IRBM, 30 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 2 Kinzhal ballistic missiles, 3 x Zircon missiles, 54 x Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles, and 600 x strike drones. The UAF claimed to shot down or defeated with EW, 54 missiles and 549 drones.

While it doesn’t seem to directly relate, this needs to be wrapped into a discussion of casualties.

I listen to a fair number of podcasts, YouTube videos and the like, about the situation in Russia and Ukraine, and the war in Ukraine. It's interesting how many of them appear to make little effort to sift through facts; they report the story coming out of Kyiv or Moscow with virtually no filtering. The use of adjectives and adverbs - one might say "the wildly hyperbolic overuse of adjectives and adverbs" in order to get into the swing of things - is a fairly reliable indicator that what you’re listening to is, in fact propaganda, not news, and certainly not analysis. Time and again ”analysts” talk about “The Ukrainians (or Russians) have just (done something) that has devastated the Russians (Ukrainians) and Moscow (Kyiv) has no answer.” 

To listen to these analysts is to believe that the enemy army (take your pick) is about to be rolled up and the war should be over by Friday morning. We have, for example, all seen the Ukrainian success with drones. But few understand that Ukraine has conducted very large drone attacks on Russia and Russian forces manage to defeat 90-95% of the Ukrainian drones - about the same percentage of successful intercepts as Ukrainian forces. Russia, of course suffers from being 28 times larger than Ukraine, making defense of any given spot that much more difficult. It’s also of note, in as much as Russia is sharing with China, that Russian electronic warfare continues to improve and the ability to misdirect drones is improving on both sides, but Russian capabilities are, perhaps, better than the Ukrainian and Western EW capabilities. Little of this sort of thing is discussed in most reporting. There are exceptions but they're few. And perhaps the most glaring example is the question of casualties. 

Before talking about casualties, it's important to note that no discussion of casualties is worth a tinker’s damn if there is no comparison between the two sides. If you talk about the Yankees and note that they are 31-22 so far this season but fail to mention how any other teams are performing, you in fact say very little. So, if you are going to talk about Russian casualties, you need to talk about Ukrainian casualties as well. It’s also important to note that there are certain ratios and relationships that roughly hold from one war to another - depending on the type of war and the quality of the casualty evacuation “system” in place and the medical care available for casualties. 

In Iraq and Afghanistan the US standard was “less than an hour” and, while that was not achieved in every case, it was in most cases. And the numbers show this: prior to the Civil War the ratio of killed in action (KIA) to wounded in action (WIA) ran almost 3 to 1. During the Civil War, there was a much greater effort to have ambulances ready on the battlefield and the ratio fell to roughly 1 to 1. By WWI the ratio was almost 1 to 2, almost 2 WIA for every killed in action. WWII was a bit more violent and the ratio fell to 2 to 3. Korea and Vietnam were both in the 1 to 3 range (I suspect the presence of helicopters helped that change).

In Iraq and Afghanistan, with complete air control, and with large bases at many sites within flying distance of nearly every battlefield, this ratio changed dramatically, jumping to 1 to 7 (1 KIA for 7 WIA).

In Ukraine neither side has air control and in many areas neither side even has ground control. All movement is difficult. There are few hard numbers on any of this, but the anecdotal reports suggest that evacuation of wounded - which is done almost exclusively by truck or IFVs, and some UGVs, is slow and wounded often wait many hours (and too often days) for medical care. This will mean that the ratio of KIA to WIA is going to be much worse (lower) than the ratio the US had in Iraq or Afghanistan. Any claim that it’s higher than Vietnam would require extraordinary proof to be believed. As I keep going over the numbers I’m increasingly of the opinion these numbers support an assessment that both sides are taking casualties at something perhaps a little better than WWI but not quite Korea or Vietnam (again, no helicopters are flying over the forward edge of battle). This would support something on the order 2.5 WIA for each KIA.

Russia, we are told - repeatedly - is suffering from truly tremendous casualties. Just recently Gen. Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian military, noted that Russia took some 80,000 irrecoverable casualties so far this year and some 140,000 others. He has also said the Russians took 39,000 irrecoverable losses in March, then said there were 39,000 casualties in March. The point is, the numbers keep changing.

But, we do have several decent statistics on Russian killed, and these come from “Mediazone,” the only organization (at least in the unclassified world) that has made a serious effort to go through every possible record in Russia and count up KIAs. They recently re-evaluated their numbers, having gained access to estate documents and probate courts across Russia, and the number now appears to be something on the order of 350,000 killed. Using the 2.5 to 1 ratio would support a total wounded count of 875,000. Of that number, it has been reported several times that 70% of wounded return to duty in less than 30 days, and virtually all others (30% of wounded) will not return to duty. This places “irretrievable losses” at 612,500 (350,000 + 262,500). In addition, Russia has some 70,000 deserters so, the number of true losses is on the order of 700,000.

It's worth noting that, apart from public statements about Russian losses which, again, are regularly inflated, Russian losses are remarkably flat, that is, while there are some brief spikes in casualties, a loss rate - KIAs - of about 6,000 - 7,000 per month holds for most months. And, severely wounded tracks at about 4,500 - 5,000 per month. While there have been spikes, any claim that is well above those numbers needs to be taken with a good deal of salt. And be accompanied by proof.

To recap, Russian numbers are on the order of:

350,000 KIA, 262,500 severely wounded (will not return to duty), 662,500 wounded (return to duty), 70,000 deserters, 8-10,000 POWs

There are no such public numbers for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government does not release casualty figures (just twice in the last 3 years), and there are several reasons to seriously doubt those numbers. The first is simply that the Ukrainian army has said that it is working to keep the army at 800,000 troops. They have also said - from President Zelenskyy on down - that they are bringing 25,000 to 27,000 new troops into the army every month. And have been for 4 years. That means well over 1.2 million conscripts brought into the army and with few exceptions, no one has been allowed to leave the army. Adding on the army at the start of the war and you have a total force of roughly 1.7 - 1.8 million (maybe more - the numbers for early 2022 appear to be deliberately fuzzy). If they are struggling to maintain 800,000 that suggest losses of one sort or another of 900,000+

300,000 are known to have deserted. There are perhaps 10-15,000 POWs. Note that Ukrainian army leadership says that some 70% of wounded return to duty. This leave some 600,000 as irretrievable losses. This would place Ukrainian KIAs in the range of 320,000, and severally wounded at 280,000 (with 520,000 WIA (return to duty) and 300,000 deserters and perhaps 10,000 POWs).

Is there anything else that supports this huge number?

Yes.

At the end of August 2023, 18 months into the war, a German company that makes prosthetics reported that since 2022 there was a demand for “more than 50,000 prosthetic devices” in the Ukrainian army. About a year ago a similar report noted that the demand had climbed to well over 100,000, and then clarified to make the point that “100,000 people in the army had had amputations.” This is a fairly steady rate - almost 2500, per month. Interestingly, there has been very little quantitative talk about amputations or prosthetics in Ukraine since, as if there is an effort to bury the numbers.

But what can we infer from those numbers?

As with other numbers of this sort, it’s possible to have variances. During the Civil War (1860s medicine) there were some 60,000 amputations, perhaps 1 for every 20 casualties, 1 for every 10 - 12 killed. By the time you get to Afghanistan and Iraq, US soldiers with amputations totaled some 2,000, with 6,800 KIAs and 52,200 WIAs. Clearly, the quality of CASEVAC in Ukraine is not comparable to that in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something closer might be WWI. Comparing amputation numbers to WIAs seems off (and the numbers are too high). Amputees who don't receive medical care don't remain wounded, they die on the battlefield. The relevant ratio is Amputees to KIAs. The best (lowest ratio) I can find (US forces in Iraq), gives 3.4 to 1. Rounding down to 3 to 1 would still mean that Ukraine already had 150,000 KIA by the end of summer 2023, and 300,000 KIA by spring of 2025, a KIA per month rate of roughly 7,500 - 8,000 per month (250 - 265 per day). That would place current Ukrainian casualty numbers at 380,000 KIA, 280,000 severely wounded, 670,000 wounded, return to duty, 300,000 deserters and perhaps 10,000 POWs as of this month.

That is a nearly incomprehensible number, especially for a country of 34 million. It might help explain 300,000 desertions, roughly 1 million military service aged men remaining outside the country and another estimated 1 million in hiding inside the country. But it matches roughly with the numbers from the publicly stated conscription numbers.

IF the prosthetics company was roughly accurate, the Ukrainian army has suffered tremendous numbers of casualties. IF there were 100,000 amputees as of a year ago, and someone insists they only had 55,000 KIAs, I would respond “prove it,” as that would make the casualty and loss statistics, and medical treatment statistics, unlike any war ever fought.

The Ukrainian government recently noted that the Russian losses since January 1st have averaged 1,021 per day, killed, wounded or captured. Something on the order of 145,000 total casualties. Total captured is less than 1,000 so, 144,000 KIA and WIAs. That would break to about 40,000 killed and 30,000 severely wounded (not returning to duty) and 75,000 wounded, returning to duty. That works out to 275 KIA per day and 205 severely wounded per day. As of the end of last year Russian casualties were running an average of about 200 KIA per day and 500 WIA per day (about 150 severely wounded per day). Could it have jumped some 43% in the last 5 months? Possibly, though there is something of the bureaucratic agenda here: there was a government announced goal to kill a certain number of Russians per month. The fact that Russian daily KIAs would then (barely) exceed possible Ukrainian KIAs seems bureaucratically convenient. Certainly, there will be a tendency to reach the right numbers no matter what is reported from the battlefield. 

Where does all this leave the war?

These numbers, horrible as they may seem in absolute terms, still need to be weighed against the losses suffered by the other side. And as demonstrated by the Russian response to the strike in Starobilsk, no one is saying, “Hold! Enough!”  Whether it was a school or a military facility - or both, the Russian response, and undoubtedly the Ukrainian response to the Russian response, will be more pointed strikes. Huge casualty counts on both sides: 0.4% of Russia’s population killed or seriously wounded and perhaps 1.7% of Ukraine’s population killed or seriously wounded (or maybe more), are not slowing down either side. Rather, they appear more determined than ever to continue the war. Hard to say either side is winning or close to winning. One might say both sides are losing.

v/r pete