Ukraine war - part 8. Casualties, force generation and recent operations
The last post in this series was back in Mar. Some of the observations made then have been quote accurate, particularly the swing in loss ratios and Russia's plans for a summer offensive. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2024/03/ukraine-war-part-7-after-2-years.html A note on casualty calculation: Both sides in this conflict have hitherto been silent on their own casualties, while inflating those of the other side, without validation. There is now more credible data which enables us to estimate casualties for both sides, using the following numbers: 1. Verifiable deaths. 2. Pro rata deaths based on (1) from regions not covered by (1). 3. Recent deaths not reported due to a time lag 4. Missing, believed killed 5. Deserted (I have listed 50% of these under missing) 6. Prisoner To validate this, we know the starting sizes of both armies, the number recruited and the current strength, based on the number of formations present. The number of casualties can be derived and compa