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 compared with the calculation, using verified deaths.   

Russia: Casualty update. In previous posts, I have been following Russian casualty estimates from Mediazona, which in partnership with the BBC, lists names of Russians killed in battle, from a variety of sources incl obituaries, social media posts, funerals etc.

The only drawback with this method, was whether all deaths were captured. As time went by, more past deaths were recorded and the database most likely closer to the actual number. Even convicts had deaths recorded. Since June, Mediazona (which is sponsored and extensively quoted in the West) has also added an estimate made by another NGO, looking at excess deaths in Russia and assumed all such deaths are the result of the war. This increased the estimated deaths from 66000 to over 120000.
This methodology has been debunked in a blog post which explains it better than I can.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/bombshell-report-claims-russian-casualties

I would however, like to add the following points:
- If the same calculation of excess mortality is used for Ukraine, they would have 155000 excess deaths
  (more than the normally expected figure) in 2022. Clearly that is too high.

 - The backlog of unrecorded deaths was largely corrected in 2024. As Mediazona says, their deaths recorded in 2024, were much higher than actual deaths recorded in combat in 2024.
Against an estimated 5000 deaths from March to Aug 24, Mediazona recorded 21000, thus
eliminating an estimated most of their possible 25000 unrecorded deaths. 
  
- Based on excess mortality, a more likely number of deaths should be 80-85000, not 120000. The 120000 figure is based on a new unsupported algorithm by another organization.

I believe a credible figure is based on the following:
Verified deaths: 66471.
Estimated deaths in the Russian controlled part of Ukraine: 9000 
(pro-rata based on size of the Donetsk/Luhansk militia).
Lag in recording deaths in the last 2 months: 1000.
Unreported past deaths (backlog). 3000

Two seriously wounded (unable to return to combat) are assumed for every person killed.

In addition to 238413 dead and seriously wounded, there are an estimated 1500 Russian prisoners in Ukrainian custody and 7300 deserters, giving  247213 irrecoverable casualties.

There are different figures on deserters – mostly unsubstantiated Ukrainian reports. The most credible is from Mediazona which lists 7300 cases of desertion, during the Ukraine war, from serving soldiers.

Russia: Force generation:
I had analysed this earlier, but can now fine tune the numbers and validate it with units on 
the ground.
Russia increased the strength of its armed forces from 1 million to 1.17 million in 2023 and reached the 2024 planned figure of 1.32 million in June.  
Russia had mobilized 300,000 men in 2022. In 2023, about 350000 volunteers were recruited, with a further 180000 in the first 6 months of 2024.

Of the new recruitment of 830000 men till July 2024, my estimate is
- 320,000 are to increase numbers from 1 to 1.32 million
- 250,000 are to replace casualties and
- 135,000 are rolling over of contracts that ended and have re-enlisted.
  (1/3^rd of 405k men on 3 year contracts)  
- 60,000 are `rolling substitutes’ to replace men on leave.
- 20,000 are men from private military companies, signing contracts with the Russian army.
 -20,000 are conscripts signing contracts with the army at the start of their conscription.
- 15,000  in specialist training or rear area roles. (since the number of people needing training has
   doubled) since 2021.

This broadly corresponds to the total of 617000 personnel of the Russian army in Ukraine, by the end
of 2023, as indicated by President Putin, of which 470,000 were in combat formations.  

The total addition to Russian strength in 2023, was 292,000 ( 617000 – 325000* in Jan 23)
* estimates for Russian strength in Ukraine in 2022, varied from 298000 to 350,000.

Of the 650000 men recruited in 2022 & 23, the additions were derived from:

- 175,000 casualty replacements. (based on casualties till Dec 23)
- 292,000 increase in personnel in Ukraine
- 110,000 for new combat formations to be raised in 2024.
- 57,000  Replacement for PMC personnel, conscripts and men on leave
- 15,000  Trainers and specialist rear area roles.

The deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky, estimated a Russian combat strength in Ukraine of 462,000 (matching the Russian number of 470,000), while  Ukraine’s new army chief, Gen. Syrskiy, said in July ‘24, that Russia had 520,000 men in combat formations in Ukraine, which is consistent with the 470,000 figure of Dec 23, to which must be added 2024 recruitment.

The figures I list help validate the number of casualties Russia has so far.

At the end of 2023, the Russian army in Ukraine, had 16 Divisions and 32 brigades (Motorized rifle and tank brigades).  I have excluded artillery, air defense and special forces units, as its difficult to know which are part of a division and which are independent. This represented almost the entire combat strength of the Russian army. Most of the army’s remaining combat brigades were in sensitive areas like Kaliningrad, Moldovia, Armenia, Tajikistan and Syria and could not be redeployed.

By the end of 2024, the plan for the Russian army was to increase the number of formations in
Ukraine by 14 divisions and 16 brigades. This required an increase of 232000 men, of which 110,000
were recruited in 2023 with the balance 122,000 coming from the 180,000 who joined in the first
half of 2024.

Of the planned increase of 14 division and 16 brigades by end 2024, Russia has raised, or is in the process of raising 9 new divisions and 27 brigades whose identity is known. Their status is:

New divisions:
- 70 Motorized rifle Division (MRD).
- 104 Airborne division (VDV) which so far has 2 of its 4 regiments in place.
Both these are building in the Kherson sector – a quiet part of the front, so far this year

- 10 Guards MRD – One of its three regiments in place.
- 6 MRD. Mostly formed.
Both these are deployed in the Donetsk sector, as a reserve. 

- 69 MRD. Two of its three regiments in place. In action in the Kharkov sector.
- 72 MRD. One veteran regiment in place, One forming.
   Sent to the Kursk sector to stop Ukrainian’s unexpected advance there.

-55 Naval Infantry division
-67 MRD
- 44 VDV
All three divisions are not at the front and are believed to have either one or two, of their three regiments in place.

New brigades:
Of the 27 new brigades the Russia has formed over the past year, which have not been incorporated
into the new divisions I listed. The status is:

- Four brigades are fully equipped independent brigades already in combat.
- Three territorial army brigades and nine TA regiments. These will be light infantry units, meant to
hold quieter parts of the front. The difference between a brigade and regiment in the Russian context is that a regiment (smaller than a brigade, is not capable of combined arms operations, or acting independently. They rely on artillery support from an independent artillery formation, or a higher formation like the divisional artillery regiment in their sector. I estimate the total number of TA formations to be the equivalent of eight brigades.   
- One brigade for internal security in the Donetsk & Luhansk area.
- Three brigades from private military contractors (ex-Wagner group) and Chechen (Akhmat) forces.

These comprise the 16 independent brigades that Russia will raise by the end of 2024. All are currently
In Ukraine and in combat. In addition to this:

- 19 regiments of volunteer formations (BARS in Russian), grouped mostly by similar location or ethnic group. These will be incorporated into the newly raised divisions and are the equivalent of ten brigades 
- One brigade equivalent from air force personnel.

My estimate is that the 14 new divisions and 16 new brigades will be fully ready and equipped by the
end of 2024. In addition, two divisions – the 47^th Tank and most of the 144 Motorized rifle division, are resting and refitting after heavy losses and will also be at full strength towards the end of 2024.  

Russia’s long term plan is for an armed forces of 1.5 million. However, that is not likely to be achieved till 2026 at the earliest and will not impact the Ukraine war. due to a combination of:
- The pool of volunteers is diminishing. Numbers can be increased only by increasing the numbers conscripted, or by mobilization (where reservists have join when called up), both of which will not be
popular, will hurt the civilian economy and will reduce quality.
- From the end of 2024, a significant number of contract soldiers joining prior to the war, or volunteers who have served two years in combat will want to return home, particularly older men with health problems. Fresh volunteers will have to replace those leaving.
- There is a lag between recruiting additional numbers and equipping and training them. Most of the
additional 150,000 men will be earmarked for additional air force regiments (both fixed wing aircraft and helicopter) and a Dnieper river flotilla for the navy. The hardware of these do not currently exist. -
- The army units formed after 2024 will be part of the new Leningrad military district and be based on the border with Finland and the Baltic states (the role performed by Russia’s 6^th Army, which is now in Ukraine).

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has also estimated that Russia’s peak force generation in Ukraine will be at the end of 2024.

Ukrainian casualty update: Ukraine’s official casualty figures have been implausibly low and there is little effort to get a realistic picture in the mainstream media.

In previous posts in this series I have argued that Ukraine’s casualties are higher than Russia due to the higher volume of firepower (Artillery and air strikes) employed by Russia. Most casualties are caused by artillery and Russia’s volume of artillery has been an order of magnitude more. I have supported this view by one data point from the US (a statement to the US Congress – wrongly attributed to a NYT article) that Ukraine had lost 70,000 men killed by Aug 23. There was also Russia’s MOD reports and a study that derived losses from known casualties. Russian reports (incl the site which derives figures) were not credible to me.

On further research, I believe I have more a credible source for casualties, which can be validated by relooking other estimates.

The site ualosses.org lists names and details of those killed  - much like Mediazona does for Russian casualties. Unlike Mediazona, they rely on open source data, rather than seek it out from multiple sources. The site says upfront that the actual dead are likely to be significantly higher.   

On 3^rd Sept 24, ualosses.org listed 60644 dead.
Losses since April on this site have been low, though this period coincided with an increase in
losses as Ukrainian forces retreated across the front. Adjusting for the last five months, there would
be an additional 5000 dead.
Some regions of Ukraine have reported very low figures. Since there is conscription, all regions of
Ukraine (barring Russian occupied ones) should have roughly the same level of recruits in the army and therefore the same number of casualties per 1000 people. If the casualties of the low reporting cities
were normalized, there would be an additional 9,000 killed. There are also approx. 6000 Ukrainian prisoners in Russia.
In addition, there are 42,000 people listed as missing – there is a central register in Ukraine for all
those who are believed to be missing, excluding children. Most are from the army. They also exclude
cases where the missing person was known to have deserted, is a prisoner, or dead and the body identified. The Ukrainian Red cross reported that 100,000 people had provided DNA samples to 
trace missing relatives.  

Another source of irrecoverable casualties is desertion. The Ukrainian army had 6000 desertions in
2022, which rose to 16000 in 2023 and 4700 in the first two months of 2024. 
(Source: Ukraine’s Obshchestvennoye media outlet)
Update: A CNN report cited 19,000 cases of desertions or abandoning positions, in the first 4 
months of 2024.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/08/europe/ukraine-military-morale-desertion-intl-cmd/index.html 

As example of `missing’ is the battle of Krimki – where most Ukrainian bodies could not be recovered, Ukraine was believed to have lost the better part of two marine brigades. The official dead in the battle was 262. However, another 788 were reported missing, from just two brigades. They would almost certainly all be killed. As Ukrainian forces retreat continuously across the front, making bodies more difficult to recover, the number of missing will go up. It is reasonable to assume that most of the 42,000 missing are in fact dead. This gives us 60644 + 5000 + 9000 + 42000 missing = 116644 dead. With 233,288 seriously wounded 6000 prisoner and assuming half (21000) of those deserted were not listed as missing (because families know where they are and a request to be in the missing list was not made) there are an estimated  377000 irrecoverable casualties.

The Russian site wartears.org has the names of 58523 Ukrainian dead of the 219000 names in its database. 2926 are officers (compared to 4282officers in ualosses). The problem with this site is trying to extrapolate verified numbers to a theoretical total, assuming that the Ukrainian army outside its database has the same proportion of dead.

Wartears also lists 16000 Ukrainian prisoners in  Russian custody, though Russia recently listed about 6000. The balance could include those who have been exchanged in prisoner swaps (there are also 1500 Russians in Ukrainian custody), foreign fighters who will not be listed as POW, or deserters who chose to live in Russia.    
 
Russia’s Ministry of Defense lists total Ukrainian casualties (dead + wounded) at 732560.
These are termed `sanitary’ losses. While I had assumed this total was overstated, the definition of wounded is not an `irrecoverable loss', but a `sanitary’ loss. This is defined in Russian, as any kind of wound (incl. non-combat) which puts you out of combat for at least one day and where medical care was administered. Thus most sanitary losses will return to combat. 
In modern conflicts there are 6 wounded for every soldier killed. (It was 4 : 1 in WW2)
50% of all wounded return to combat within 72 hours.

For Ukraine, it would probably be 5:1, because the injured are older (40+) and they often have to wait for days, in the cold or a damp environment before being evacuated.
Assuming a 5:1 ratio, the Russian MOD numbers would imply  122426 Ukrainians killed.
(fairly similar to 116000 calculated from the UAlosses site).

Other validations of Ukraine’s losses:
For regular Ukrainian formations, Russian MOD data corelates closely with UAlosses.

For e.g. Ukraine’s 14^th Mechanized brigade showed 548 killed in UAlosses, while Russia
listed sanitary losses of that brigade at 3539. (In 2024, it was withdrawn to a quieter part of the front and Russia stopped reporting data at the brigade level).

Ukraine’s 10^th mountain brigade shows a high no of KIA – 874, but a lower level of sanitary losses
for 2023 (1448) that Russia reported. That is because the bulk of its casualties have been in 2024.

Territorial army units list low casualties in ualosses.org This is probably because personnel in territorial army units are civilians with no experience, who have joined the unit after a brief training period and barely know the other men in their unit. There is little `esprit de corps’ in the unit to try and find a body of someone missing from his position, particularly under fire.

Officer deaths: ualosses lists 4282 Ukrainian officers dead.
In the Mediazona report on Russian casualties, there are 3974 officers dead, among the total of 66471 killed. The structure of units on both sides are the same. Ukraine’s NATO trained units have fewer officers but more NCOs. Based on known officer losses, the total of 60644 deaths is conservative.
Many territorial brigades show less than 50 killed (average killed per brigade is 500) which appears to
be an undercount, with deaths more likely to be recorded as missing.

Russia's MOD figures, when broken down by brigade and da, have an average of 10 sanitary losses
per brigade per day, or two deaths per day. There is an increasingly amount of video footage from 
drones destroying vehicles and bunkers and pictures of bodies, which substantiate these figures.  
Quieter sections of the front report fewer casualties, as do quieter periods in the fighting. 

Casualty trends and kill ratios
What is interesting is the trend in casualties reported by the Russian MOD (they have no reason to falsify that, unlike casualties, particularly after the new Defense minister spoke out against `optimistic reports’ in his ministry.

In 2022, Ukraine had sanitary losses of 13557 per month
In 2023, it was  21330  per month
In Jan-Apr 2024, it was 27763 per month
May-Aug average was 56096 per month (excluding desertion)

Russian casualties have moved in the opposite direction. Using the same 1:5 ratio for dead to wounded
Russia had sanitary losses of 55800 per month in the first three months of the war, which have reduced to 4200 per month in the last 3 months.

From 2024, the Russian MOD started reporting daily casualty figures of Ukraine, not at the brigade level, but for each sector (the front has seven sectors, each 10+ brigades). UAlosses also started reporting losses at the battalion level and not always for brigades. This is probably because losses and frequent changes in location have caused Ukrainian brigades to lose their ability to get info from all subordinate formations. Sometimes, a brigade is barely the equivalent of a battalion, or a brigade HQ functions from a subordinate’s battalion HQ, or there is a lag in information, possibly due to a shortage of people. In Ukraine’s Kursk attack for e.g. there are men from as many as 11 Brigades (barely 1000 men per brigade, with units often mixed up with each other).

While Western analysts have look at the initial loss ratios to show that Russia was losing badly – and based their strategy on that assumption, the last three months show that Ukraine’s losses and the loss ratio have crossed (in my view) a tipping point for Ukraine. Between Nov 23, when Russia began attacking, to Mar 24, Russia was able to capture just one major town – Avdeevka and less than 100 sq km of territory. Since March, Russia, with very little difference in the Attacker : Defender ratio, have been able to advance in every part of the front (Kursk notwithstanding), taking more territory each month, though it is attrition of the Ukraine army that they are focused on, the capture of territory happening as a result of that.

There is an interesting article from Prof Glenn Diesen as to why casualties intensify for the losing side,
towards the end of a war like this:
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/the-increase-in-ukrainian-casualties

Ukraine’s force generation:

Ukraine’s mobilization was in four stages:
1. Standing army and national guard: 240000 + 100,000 people, at the time war broke out in Feb 22.
    Most of the National guard were former soldiers who had been fighting in the 2014-15 civil
    war in the Donbass.
2. Volunteers with military experience.
3. Volunteers with no military experience  experience.

Around 600,000 were recruited, in stages 2 & 3 in addition to the 340,000 standing armed forces, 
giving a total force of 940000 million, excluding casualties.
The breakup, according to Ukraine’s defense minister was:
- 780,000 in the armed forces (of which 740000 were in the army)
- 60,000 in the border guard
- 100,000 in the national guard.

Ukrainian forces outnumbered Russian forces in Ukraine, till the beginning of 2024.

4. In Dec 23, it was proposed to mobilize between 450,000 and 500,000 people in order to, as the army     advised, fill gaps in existing formations and prepare a reserve for a future counter-offensive.
    At this stage, as I had calculated in a previous post, Ukraine had neither volunteers, nor experienced        people, resulting in `forced conscription’.  

The new wave of mobilization was enabled by lowering the age for compulsory conscription from 27 to 25, disallowing exceptions that had hitherto been allowed and moving some men from rear area roles to the front – replacing them with women. That increased the recruitable pool by around 300,000 and this recruitment was expected to have been completed by June 2024, albeit through coercive recruitment
and inadequate training (as per prisoner testimony). Ukraine has also started recruiting prisoners, something Russia was derided for doing earlier. The total number to be recruited, was also reduced to
300,000 partly due to the difficulty of increasing this number. 
The Ukrainian army has an average age of over 43. The average age of casualties is 37.9 (compared to
35 in Russia).  

Ukraine’s order of battle:
Ukraine increased the number of their brigades from 78, a year ago, to 109.
However, this apparent increase, masks two shortcomings.

The official strength of each brigade has been reduced from 4000 to barely 2500 currently.  At the start
of 2023, a Ukrainian brigade comprised five battalions. Currently brigades are down to three battalions and battalion strength has also reduced. The frontline strength of Ukraine is therefore around 220,000 people.

41 brigades are Territorial army or national guard brigades (incl. three police brigades). These are of limited value, without adequate artillery and armored vehicles and lacking the ability to conduct combined arms warfare. The equivalent Russian units are comprised of volunteers (Ukrainian TA units have a high proportion of conscripted men) with more artillery support.
   
12 brigades classified as `Assault’ or `Mountain’ have a limited number of armored vehicles.
Another 15 brigades have taken high casualties - replacing a large proportion of their 2022 personnel with conscripts and facing a shortage of artillery and armored vehicles.   

During 2022 and most of 2023, soldiers spent two months on the frontline before being rotated for a month of rest. For the past year however, units have been in continuous combat. The fatigue, coupled with the age of the men (over 40) and the fact that most did not have military experience, or did not volunteer, has seen a drop in unit effectiveness.

Irrecoverable losses in 2024 will most likely equal the 300,000 men conscripted during the year, so Ukraine will end 2024 with the same number of men as Jan 2024, but will lose a larger proportion of experienced or volunteer manpower (to a point where they have a negligible numbers in each brigade) and their men will be more exhausted, fighting over a year, without a break and after months of losing ground to Russia.

Ukraine’s missing army:
If , as per Ukraine’s mobilization figures, they have mobilized 1.24 million men so far, from which 100,000 are in the border guard, Air force and Navy and have 377000 irrecoverable casualties,
they should have 763000 men in the army or national guard.
However, the most likely estimate is 500,000. That is 250000 men in combat formations and a similar number in support roles. It would imply that irrecoverable losses are 640,000.

One reason for the disparity would be an increase in the border guard, mandated by Ukraine in
Apr 24, by 15,000 men. Brigades along the border with Belarus -12,000, and more people required
in support functions, to manage multiple types of weapon systems from NATO and for training
new recruits. That would give a balancing figure of irreplicable losses of 600,000, rather than my 
estimate, based on available data, of 377,000. 

Apparently this disparity confused Ukraine's army chief back in Feb, when he felt there was no need to mobilize more men, as there were 300,000 men unaccounted for in the army, who were not at the front. 

Ukraine’s Kursk attack. A case study

This has been analyzed in detail by these blog posts from writers who do a far better job:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-8824-day-three-of-kursk-attack
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/back-to-the-bloodlands-operation

Putting the Kursk operation in context:
A point a lot of the media, or amateurs, do not get, is the objective of each side.
Russia’s initial objective in Feb 22, was a demonstration of force, to get Ukraine to the negotiating table. They actually succeeded in this, except that the Istanbul talks were called off, on the assumption that Russian losses in that operation, coupled with sanctions would cause a Russian defeat and regime change. Russia’s plan B, was what Putin clearly stated – the demilitarization of Ukraine (not the occupation of territory). Russia’s strategy was a battle of attrition, which, based on superiority in firepower (artillery shells per day being the biggest factor) and manpower reserves which were a multiple of Ukraine’s, it could not lose.
Ukraine’s objective was the reoccupation of territory under Russia’s control.

Every operation Russia has undertaken – barring the first two months, has been with the objective of ensuring a favorable exchange ratio. Russia traded space for time – in the summer of 2022, when holding on to territory in Kharkov, or West of the Dnieper may have meant losing disproportionately more men.
Even in Bakhmut, where the exchange ratio was roughly the same (which favored Russia) it was an exchange of Russian convicts for Ukraine’s regular soldiers.

Thereafter, every operation has resulted in an increasingly unfavorable exchange ratio for Ukraine. Russia attacks when they have overwhelming firepower superiority in places that Ukraine cannot leave undefended, either because they are key parts of Ukraine’s defensive line in the Donbass – which Russia was supposed to bleed against, or for reasons of prestige.

In the latter part of 2023, after the failure of the Ukrainian counter offensive, it did not make sense for
Russia to try and capture territory, if it meant an adverse loss ratio (as it happened to Ukraine with their
counter offensive). The equivalent of 80 Russian brigades, attacking against 69 Ukrainian brigades (excluding artillery brigades on both sides), who were heavily dug in and with no surprise – a dense network of satellites and drones, would spot any Russian troop movement miles from the front and
would have meant disproportionately large Russian casualties.

As the ratio of forces moved against Ukraine, basic military strategy required that Ukraine shorten
their front rather than being spread too thin defending a large frontage. There are parts of the front like the area east of the Oskil river and the bulge around Sversk that are vulnerable and tie down a lot of Ukrainian forces that cannot be used elsewhere.

When Russia moved into the area north of Kharkov, it has the limited objective of creating a buffer zone protecting the city of Belgorod. Russia used a small force to tie down a larger Ukrainian force – when the reverse should have happened. `Repelling the bid to capture Kharkov’ was a false characterization of the situation, as was the objective of trying to push Russia back – which would have taken resources Ukraine did not have.

The Kursk operation:
A precursor to the Kursk operation was Ukraine’s occupation of Krimki, a village on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, near Kherson. The crossing of the Dnieper (by a force too small to put Russia in any
danger) was a PR victory for Ukraine, as was the perceived Russian failure to push them back. In reality the bridgehead was very difficult to supply and the Ukrainians achieved nothing occupying it. No constrained by time pressure, the Russians could build up a force at leisure to ultimately throw back the attacking force, in the process destroying both elite marine brigades of Ukraine used in the operation.
This has happened again at Kursk. 

Ukraine attacked with a disparate force – about 12,000 men from 11 different brigades. Some of these brigades were split, with half remaining in place to defend against the Russian advance in Donetsk – Russia is successfully advancing, so neither part of the split brigades would have done the job assigned to them. It also showed that Ukraine had no intact reserve brigade for this operation. Ukraine’s advance
was stopped on the second day and it has since lost ground and taking heavier casualties than the defending Russians who are bringing up uncommitted reserves.
Ukraine’s objectives behind the raid (not really an invasion) failed.
Only 1 brigade – the 810 Naval infantry was moved from the neighboring Kharkov sector (and unimportant sector) to Kursk. 
The occupation of Russian territory (as per the pre 2014 border) has boosted enabled the use of conscripts to defend Kursk and made Russia refuse any talks. It therefore does not improve Ukraine’s
negotiating position, but by making statements that it intends to hold on to territory in Kursk, it has
foreclosed the option of retreating and will make supply of the forces inside the Kursk costly and at the
cost of other threatened sectors.

The forces defending Kursk include the new 72^nd Motorized Rifle division (1 regiment so far in action), the 144^th MR division, rebuilding after being moved out. Three new territorial defense regiments which
are slowly being battle trained and the 200^th Arctic brigade, newly arrived in the area. Once they are strong enough to push out the Ukrainian force – and perhaps advance into Ukraine threatening Sumy,
these units will be combat veterans, while previously experienced Ukrainian units would have been bled white, as it happened in Krimki.

Russia’s other ongoing offensives. 
Apart from the offensive towards Pokrovsk, Ukrainian lines are buckling east of the Oskol river,
in two places in the south (Robotino and Ugledar) which threatens the entire line and in Chasiv Yar.
I had suggested in my previous blog that Russia will apply pressure at multiple places, which is what is happening, with losses in territory happening at a faster rate. 

What next: By the end of 2024, the Russian army would have 30 divisions and 48 brigades in Ukraine, for a strength of 550,000 men. (The Ukraine army estimates total Russian strength in Ukraine at this time, including support troops, to be 690,000). Against this, Ukraine will probably have a frontline strength of under 200,000 men, most of whom will be conscripts with no prior experience.
This will give Russia a 3 : 1 superiority that is a pre requisite for launching a serious offensive.

By the end of 2024, the irrecoverable casualties for the year, would equal the 300,000 men the Ukrainian army conscripted during the year. Thereafter fresh recruitment will be a struggle and numbers in the front are likely to reduce, unless the compulsory conscription age is further dropped,  more women are conscripted, or police units are sent to the front (all of which will increase social unrest, as the time when Ukraine will be almost without power and gas in winter – due to increasingly successful attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid. The collapse of the fortified lines Ukraine constructed since 2014, will also allow Russia to attempt larger scale warfare involving tank and mechanized forces, helped by frost hardened ground, which will enable armored vehicles to move off road. Ukraine’s air defenses will also be further degraded – Ukraine is losing anti-aircraft missile batteries at a faster rate than likely replacements.  

As we have seen, Russian forces will be at full strength by the end of 2024, while Ukraine will be at its lowest in terms of quantity and quality. 

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