Russian losses in Ukraine mount to 90,000, Tampons used to treat wounds

 PJ Media:

“Irrevocable losses,” Russian-language news site iStories claims, “may amount to more than 90 thousand people.” That’s according to iStories’ inside sources, reportedly “a former officer of the Russian special services, the second is an active FSB officer.”

iStories was founded in neighboring Latvia two years ago by Russian journalists in response to the Kremlin’s growing crackdown on independent news.

An irrecoverable loss, as detailed by the report, is a soldier “who died, went missing, died of wounds or injured that prevent them from returning to military service.”

If iStories is correct, Russian losses are approximately half of the estimated 190,000 men sent into Ukraine on strongman Vladimir Putin’s order on February 23.

Then there are the material losses, but maybe those are a subject for another day.

Just two weeks ago I would have told you that 90,000 KIA/WIA was crazy, but with Russian forces actively digging in for the worst in most places that they aren’t retreating, I have to give today’s report serious credence.

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Supplies are so short, particularly for Russia’s recently drafted “mobiks,” that the UK’s Ministry of Defense released video last month that “appears to show a staffer instructing soldiers to use tampons to plug wounds.”

Intelligence and defense expert Philip Wasielewski examined the issue back in April:

The modern ratio of 1:3 or 1:4 for killed-to-wounded may be inapplicable because Russia’s demonstrated inadequate logistical system means not only the inefficient delivery of supplies to the front but also a similarly inadequate delivery system of wounded to the rear. Therefore, poor medical evacuation capabilities and loss of the “Golden Hour,” the first hour of emergency medical treatment for wounded soldiers, for many Russian wounded could mean a killed-to-wounded ratio of 1:2.3, which is consistent with the ratio of losses by Soviet forces in the Second World War.

If we go by the old Soviet ratio, Russia might have suffered at least 39,000 KIA with another 51,000 or so permanently out of action.

But here’s where it gets tricky. If 51,000 are too wounded to recover, there must be thousands — maybe tens of thousands — more whose wounds aren’t so bad. That would make today’s 39,000 KIA figure perhaps the new low estimate.

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The Russians are not varifying these losses and I suspect they would not even if the figure is accurate.  But it already looks like they are losing based on the loss of ground they occupy within Ukraine. 

The US developed a system of medivacs that could get a wounded troop to a field hospital in a matter of minutes in some cases.  I do not think the Russians are using choppers for that in most cases.  They are apparently running short of medical supplies because of all the wounded.  If that is the case they could soon be short of tampons too.

If this is true, there is little wonder that many of the men the Russians are trying to mobilize are reluctant to serve.

See, also:

Russia’s brutal strategy of war is failing

The atrocities and civilian casualties are only rallying Ukrainians against their enemy