Russia-Ukraine Flash Report - 3/26/22 11:45 PDT - Calculating KIA & WIA

Competing comedy acts.

On Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported 1,351 servicemembers have died in the first full month of the "special military operation."

Compared to other conflicts fought by modern militaries in the last 30 years, this is still a very high number. We also know this is well below reality.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that 16,000 Russians have been killed since the start of the invasion. We also know this is number is well above reality.

NATO estimated that killed in action was between 7,000 and 15,000 and total losses, including missing in action, could be as high as 40,000. the Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defense have shared estimates in the last week within those ranges. 

Now that both countries have completed their propaganda efforts, and outside parties have thrown darts, is there a way to figure out reality?

Short answer - no.

Counting killed in action in war is incredibly difficult, even in 2022. War is messy, the fog of war is real, and war is violent. Explosions can bury bodies, liquify them, or vaporize them. If a military vehicle is destroyed it isn't as simple as deciding - tank destroyed - tank has a crew of three - three killed. Done. When you consider helicopters and APCs, it gets very complicated.

For example, a BTR-82A is a common armored personnel carrier used by Russia. There are multiple variants of the BTR-80 and BTR-82 configured in near-endless ways. Both sides in the war use these vehicles.

The BTR-82A has a crew of 3 and can carry up to 7 soldiers. Its purpose is to deliver a squad into an area receiving light arms fire safely, deploy them, and provide cover fire and support. Then depart the area. (in the most basic configuration, yes there are a lot of roles and missions)

If I'm a Ukrainian field commander and I report to the General Staff, we destroyed two BTR-82As today. How do you count the casualties? Six? Twenty? None?

Was it manned with its standard crew of three? Did it have additional troops inside? If so how many? Could there have been more than seven because others squeezed in? Was it abandoned and empty?

The number of dead on paper could be three to ten per BTR-82A.

That's why we see estimates such as 7,000 to 15,000 killed in action.

Here is how we estimate killed in action and wounded in action.

We take Russia's official number, we take Ukraine's official number, add them together, and find the average. 

1,351 + 16,000 = 17,351 / 2 = 8.675.5 (insert joke about Russian colonel run over by tank here)

We'll round that number up to 8,676.

So our estimate is 8,676 Russian troops were killed in action in the first 31 days of the invasion.

Now, how do we get to wounded in action?

Since World War II wounded in action is 3X to 4X the number of killed in action. Due to battlefield medicine and vaccines, disease-related casualties (like on Guadalcanal for the United States) are a lot rarer. Modern militaries don't lose thousands of soldiers to malaria anymore. Wounded in action is defined as a soldier requiring medical treatment that required them to disengage from their duties. It could be as short as a day, it could be a lifetime of disabilities.

Wait, it gets even harder. It is very possible for the same soldier to be wounded in action more than once. It is possible for a soldier counted as wounded in action, to return to their unit, and then be killed in action. Ahhh, but now they got double counted by the opposing side. There is no way to know that we shot Bob two weeks ago but it was superficial (wounded in action) and then Bob stepped on a mine two weeks later (killed in action). In a perfect world, the wounded in action total would drop by one, and then killed in action total would go up by one.

A military is going to want to accurately count that Bob was both wounded in action and later killed in action for their military records. The opposing military doesn't really care that Bob was wounded and two weeks later died.

This is why we end up with ranges, estimates, and to the outside world, ridiculous claims.  Back to the original question - how do we calculate wounded in action? 

We use a factor of 3.3 and we don't try to jump through any hoops to calculate previously wounded and later died.

How did we come up with that number?

For every combat vehicle lost by Ukraine, according to the Oryx database, Russia losses 3.3. 

8,676 X 3.3 = 28,630.8 - we'll round that up to 28,631.

Now we have a rough, but incomplete casualty number.

8,676 + 28,631 = 37,307 Russian troops killed or wounded in the first 31 days of the Russia-Ukraine War.

Now, something amazing just happened. On Thursday, NATO put the estimate of killed in action, wounded, and missing in action at 40,000 Russian troops.

This provides us with a fact check, not just for NATO but for ourselves. None of this is absolute and we have no idea what the Russian missing in action number is. (POWs are not counted as casualties) 

So our best estimate using Russian and Ukrainian reports, and accepted formulas for estimating killed in action and wounded in action, is 35,250 to 39,250 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since February 24, 2022.

The estimated casualty rate, without missing in action, is 19.6% of deployed Russian forces, including added reinforcements since the start of the war (190,000 estimated in country). This does not include Chechen, Syrian, or PMCs.

In the simplest of terms, a Russian soldier in Ukraine has a 1:5 chance of being a war casualty in the first month of the campaign. You don't need to be a military expert to conclude, these are unsustainable losses.

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