I would be interested to know who your sources are that claim that Ukrainian losses are higher than Russian
First, note that I didn't say they are necessarily higher, rather about even, but suggested that the possibility exists (that they are, in fact, higher). I actually had a good source stating that they are taking heavy losses (ie worse than the Russians), but it looks like it is no more:
Which is why I started attaching the posts rather than just providing links to those posts. Sorry, mate. It was a post by a (real) Ukrainian fighting in Kursk (infantry), which grew into a bit of a discussion joined by others, no less real Ukrainians on the frontline, including other infantry men and drone operators. The message was pretty clear. This was… gotta be a couple of months ago, give or take. Interestingly, and not unexpectedly, the drone operators disagreed to some extent with the op’s claims. I should have taken screenshots as I usually do nowadays (I checked, I didn’t). I follow 4 of the guys who participated in the discussion. I am not surprised one bit the tweet is gone. I was surprised the discussion took place to begin with the way it did. But anyway, take it as propaganda, I guess, since I have no proof at the moment.
However, let’s just consider the facts and some calculations made by others. Here is a number Tatarigami had
suggested recently: the average irrecoverable losses ratio in this war is 1:1.87 (1.87 Russians are lost for every Ukrainian). It should be stressed that the number is average for the entirety of the conflict (beginning in 2022). First, this number indicates a pretty poor
average performance by the Ukrainian forces provided that Russians are on the offensive most of the time and the number includes events such as Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar, etc. Clearly, things are not as advantageous as they are usually claimed to be and it sheds light on why there is an acute shortage of manpower in the Ukrainian forces in comparison to the Russian counterparts.
To this let’s add some facts. One would be a an advantage in drone department on the side of the Russians. Even if the amount of drones is taken to be equal on both sides, Russia had/has a clear advantage with a widespread of fiberoptic drones in that section of the front in particular. In addition, the reports suggest that they brought their best drone pilots to Kursk in the past few months. Two would be the glide bombs. If I recall correctly, 20% of the bombs were dropped on a rather small area in Kursk occupied by Ukraine. Here, I looked up the proof for the number before posting, haha::
And apparently 10% of all artillery. To note, he is tracking the UA General Staff reports, which may or may not be the actual numbers. That’s a lot of bombardment for such a small area.
Three would be the reports that Ukrainians have never really dug in and ket trying to attack, even if these attacks mostly failed and many were unreported. Here are a couple of the most recent (today or yesterday) claims:
Those are both real Ukrainians. The first is probably familiar to all who follow the war on X. The second is a legit Ukrainian soldier who has been in Kursk since the beginning to the end. He had contributed quite a bit to this recent article in the Financial Times:
‘Our problems started long before,’ says Ukrainian soldier after seven months in occupied Russian region
www.ft.com
Four would be the issues with Starlink reported from the very beginning of the Kursk: The Ukrainian Adventures. Thankfully, it is mentioned in the article cited above and I don’t have to look for sources:
Kariakin said soldiers also had to deal with unexpected setbacks such as the realisation that Starlink, a key tool for communication, did not work on Russian soil.
Five would be that evacuation of the wounded personnel has been extremely difficult to nonexistent for the past 2-3 months. There were reports by the Ukrainian troops that the wounded weren’t evacuated for days and sometimes weeks. Note that this seems to be the usual occurrence for Ukraine through out the war in similar situations. The article somewhat mentions it as well:
“Day X” came in late December, when a vehicle on the single remaining supply road was hit by a Russian drone, Kariakin said.[…]
From that point on, swarms of drones would target anything that moved on the road, Kariakin said, making it extremely difficult to resupply troops. Medical evacuations soon became almost impossible, he said, and ground forces got stuck in trenches for weeks on end, unable to rotate.
Moreover,
By February, the situation seemed increasingly untenable. “It was getting worse and worse,” Kariakin said. The single road was now under constant Russian fire, and slow and muddy back roads through fields were also getting hit. “Making the journey was always 50-50, and unfortunately not everyone made it,” he said.
I saw some Ukrainian troops reporting the “50-50” to be more like “25-75”, where 75 stands for not making it - that is, only 1 in 4 vehicles would make it to the destination.
Six would be the ridiculously increased payments to the troops fighting in Kursk that were discussed here previously. That was enacted mid-November and I am sure not because everything was dandy. If it was, there would be no changes to reimbursement and it would be equal to the troops fighting elsewhere. In addition to bonuses, the relatives of those Ukrainian troops perished in Russia would receive a whooping $360,000 (at November exchange rate). Not to leave myself hanging again without a source, even though it was discussed previously, here is a source:
The update applies primarily to those currently involved in combat in Russia's Kursk Oblast.
kyivindependent.com
Seven would be the reported equipment losses, which I believe I cited a couple of days ago (maybe?). If not, here is a sample:
I would think the numbers will be more or less equalized on the next update as this did not include the sudden and somewhat chaotic withdrawal after the collapse.
And so on. I believe all of the above combined strongly suggests that, at the very least, the Russian losses are not significantly higher than the Ukrainian losses in Kursk: perhaps, about equal would be a more realistic assessment; possibly worse would not be an out of this world possibility either. It clearly appears that “hold at all costs” is what really happened and the costs were high.
Then what I mentioned about the quality of the personnel lost. First of all, to get it out of the way, the North Koreans that are highly unlikely, in my opinion, to fight in Ukraine. So that’s a wash. Second, the Russians fighting in Kursk were quite a mix and rather subpar at the early to (at least) mid stages of the saga. Ukriane, on the other hand, had committed and has been committing their best, which was reported numerous times and discussed here previously. Remember Bakhmut, where the Ukes lost something like 8K, while Russia lost 20K or so, according to the reports? As I discussed here back then, and showed that Jack Watling (of RUSI) had the same opinion, Ukriane lost big time due to the quality of the losses, which are not always reflected by the absolute numbers. Well, here it could actually be worse. Or not. Who knows. One difference is that in Kursk it was fully self inflicted. Bakhmut they could have given up and then do the same in the next town (Chasiv Yar and more would probably be long gone, for example). Here? This is what the FT article cited above says:
Kariakin said he believed the Kursk incursion brought some benefits: it gave Ukraine time to build up its defences in the neighbouring region of Sumy, and capture Russian prisoners of war that were then exchanged for high-profile Ukrainian fighters.
Building defences in Sumy is self inflicted because they now need those in case the Russians will decide to keep moving after liberating Kursk. Like I said a few days ago, one of the reasons provided for the invasion was that the Russians were going to invade Sumy. That was clearly not the case at the time. The defences could have been built if deemed needed without the offensive. I would even add that that is a ridiculous view. Capturing Russian prisoners is just as ridiculous, provided the significant losses and the number of Ukrainian POWs captured in the past few days and likely continuing to be captured as I am writing this (and in days to come).
Last thing I want to add to the Tatarigami’s post cited above. He says that because population of Russia is at least 3 times as large as Ukraine’s, ideally they need a ratio of at least 1:3, not 1:1.87 (that he says may look as favourable to some). Well, even on a good day, way before the war, he is suggesting that population of Russia is “at least” 120M. In reality, today, the favourable (or rather equal) ratio he is looking for is at least 1:5 or 1:6. This does not account for mobilization and recruitment issues in Ukraine. Taking those into account, the ratio would likely increase to 1:7 or (likely) more in order for this to work in Ukriane’s favour.
