In 2024, Russia Has Lost 350,000 Troops To Take .004% Of Ukraine
About those breathless reports of Ukraine's imminent collapse...The reality is that Russia is running on fumes. It's armor and artillery are depleted, it's military fuel stockpiles are down by over 33% due to Ukrainian logistics attacks, it's recruitment of new troops is declining - and its economy is collapsing while inflation skyrockets.
And in the meantime, its massive assaults on Ukrainian positions in the Donbas and Kursk have yielded...not much but more dead Russians. JL
Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:
Russia has seized a miniscule .4 of 1% of Ukraine as of this week. To take this area, Russia has lost over 350,000 soldiers this year. In 2024, Russia is often losing as many soldiers per month as they lost in 2022 and 2023 combined. Its military has shown no ability to do combined-arms advances needed to make a breakthrough/exploitation. And the Syrian collapse reveals that the impact of the Russo-Ukraine war denudes Russian strength everywhere else, as Putin desperately throws all the force he can against Ukraine. In global military terms, Russia is in a much worse state now than it was in 2022.
We’ve been hearing for a few weeks (actually months—most of 2024) now that Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. This is coming from major media reports, which portray the Russians as on the cusp of a major breakthrough and fast advance that will gobble up Ukrainian territory as the Ukrainians lose the ability to resist. Here is a BBC example of such a story from just over 2 weeks ago.
It uses Institute for the Study of War data, but then jumps to extreme conclusions—without putting that data in any context. Here is just one snippet. Notice that they present the raw data (Russia has seized 2700 sq km of Ukraine this year!) without saying how much that represents in relative terms. Also note, that the area of Russian advance that they have highlighted is so small, they have to highlight it in the smaller map by putting a box around it—which actually points out what a small area we are talking about.
So, Russia has seized 2700 square kilometres of Ukraine, a country that is 603,549 square kilometres big. That is an miniscule .4 of 1 percent. Its actually a smaller percent of Ukraine then I would have thought. And to take this area, Russia has lost over 350,000 soldiers this year.
The Guardian published a very similar story this week—which actually had such data, but then went on to make very strange conclusions. In an article headlined How Ukraine has Faced its Worst Month on the Battlefield, the Guardian relied on data which showed what a small part of Ukraine, Russia has actually taken this year. Here is some text.
Russian control of Ukrainian territory has increased from 17.4% in November 2023 to 17.9% as of 30 November 2024.
Yikes, a whole half of one percent of Ukraine in a year.
It also repeats the “collapse” narrative of the BBC story.
And at the same time, these stories never engage with the condition of the Russian army in any detail, or discuss its capabilities. Russia has shown absolutely no ability to do fast, combined-arms advances of the kind needed to make a breakthrough/exploitation. Mykola and I talk about this in the podcast, but Russia is cycling through so many soldiers, and losing vehicles at such a clip, that its very hard to imagine that they could manage to train, equip and supply a force with the skills to make a combined-arms advance. They have exhibited zero such ability—and indeed even when they launched an offensive with major advantages (think Kharkiv) they struggled to make any fast advances.
Not to sound like a broken record, but what we are seeing is the natural result of how the war has evolved and how Ukraine has been armed. Ukraine cant afford to lose soldiers at a 1-1 or even 1-2 rate with Russia. It also has no means to stop mass Russian firepower in small areas if the Russians use glide-bombs, etc. So what is happening is that they are trading very small areas of land for time. And they are taking a terrible toll from the Russians for this small territory. In 2024, for instance, Russia is often losing as many soldiers per month as they lost in 2022 and 2023 combined at the same time.
What is happening seems to be what we have seen for the last six months (which has picked up pace since Trump’s victory). Putin is sacrificing his own soldiers at a grotesque rate to take whatever territory he can on the assumption that the US will tell Ukraine that US aid is over unless Russia gets to keep what it has taken.
Look, the Ukrainians are not in good shape, but the one-sided Ukrainian collapse narrative that is being pushed is both illogical and deeply pernicious. It feeds an anti-Ukraine narrative that is being pushed on both sides of the Atlantic that Ukraine has no chance—and the logical implication of that is that Ukraine should probably be abandoned and Russia allowed to keep its conquests.
A very short story. People seemed to get very excited yesterday when Trump showed up for a meeting with Macron and Zelensky wearing a blue suit and a yellow/golden tie. See the picture at the top of the update if you want to check out the outfit.
Surely it was said, this must be Trump openly signalling his allegiance to Ukraine through sartorial solidarity!
Sadly, its silly season now and people are looking for signs where they almost certainly don’t exist. I reached out to a Republican source who has a pretty good idea of Trump’s thinking and they said there was no “relevance” to the claims. Maybe Trump likes the colors, or maybe he thinks the suit makes him look thin. Who knows—the idea that it represents a conscious message of support for Ukraine, is probably without substance.
Actually, far more interesting (and not comforting) was the stance Trump took openly on what is happening in Syria—and that is part of the last story.
Russia and Syria
Having access to military facilities in Syria is crucial to Russia being more than a regional power. The naval base at Tartus and the airfield at Latakia are arguably the most important Russian military facilities outside of Russia itself.
They are key facilities which allow Russia to project power into the Mediterranean and through MENA states (Middle East and North Africa). They are the only reliable warm water ports Russia has in the Mediterranean outside of Turkish dictation, and they have become a support and staging point to supply Russian operations throughout Africa for instance.
Without them, Russia strategic possibilities are much more limited.
This is why Russian control over them, which was gained through its support of the Assad regime, was seen as such an important step by Putin. Indeed, Russian actions in Syria have been key to the overall Russia-is-a-great-power narrative that has been circulating for almost a decade now. Russia supposedly honed its great military capabilities in Syria and by making the Assad regime dependent on it, extended its global reach in powerful way. If you want to see how important Syria was in the Russian world-view, take a gander (if you have the stomach) through some of the the Valdai Club (Putin’s incredibly well-funded in house think tank which pushes his narrative). Valdai publications regularly discussed just how awesome Russia’s performance was in Syria and what a great power Russia was. These themes are all tied together, for example, in a piece published by Michael Kofman and Andrey Sushentsov for Valdai, which makes Russia’s great power status clear in the title.
Kofman and Shushentov go to great length to portray Russia as a great power with China and the USA—and praise Russian military performance in Syria (which supposedly made Russia battle-tested). They even go on (see the page of the report below), and show their allegiance to the Putin-line, to claim that Assad “liberated” territory that he took back from Syrian rebels through the use of Russian airpower. The Syrian Arab Army mentioned below is Assad’s army.
Well, Great Power Russia (hint, it isn’t) has seen its position in Syria actually start to collapse in an incredibly short period—fewer than two weeks. Assad’s forces have seemingly fled from the cities of Aleppo and Homs, and are reportedly even fleeing Damascus as Turkish-backed HST rebels advance.
Another sign that things are bad, was that Putin basically tried to pretend it was no big deal (when he gets really embarrassed, he falls back on the “nothing to see here” defense). Indeed, Putin talked about working with Turkey (who is supporting those overthrowing Assad) to try and quiet the situation.
It didn’t work.
So this is a major strategic humiliation that could turn into a major strategic problem if Russia loses unfettered access to those bases. It reveals two things.
The first, is that the impact of the Russo-Ukraine war is to basically denude Russian strength almost everywhere else, as Putin desperately throws all the force he can against Ukraine. The second/third/fourth order effects of the full-scale invasion are not good for Russia (will write a piece on that this week). Basically, the Russians cant even protect a vital ally such as Assad because of their losses in Ukraine.
Sadly, however, Donald Trump yesterday tried to come to Putin’s rescue (reputationally) by pushing the narrative that Russia really doesn’t have strategic interest in Syria. Trump went out of his way to say it might be a good thing, “the best thing that can happen to them” to be “forced” out of Syria. There is no chance that Putin actually believes that—or that it is true if Russia really wants to be a great power. However, Trump is definitely trying to help Putin out reputationally.
It should be noted that other parts of Trump’s statement on Syria are not bad. The Obama Administration screwed up US-Syrian policy to no end, and the US should stay out of Syria now and let it play out. These are positions that are defensible and prudent.
One final point—what we are seeing in Syria also highlights one of the basic stories of this war so far. When Russia uses direct military force, it usually does so inefficiently and in some ways disastrously. In global military terms, Russia is in a much worse state now than it was in 2022.
On the other hand, Russian successes in infiltrating the political processes of western states and in waging information warfare, remain very successful (and growingly so). The fact that the incoming US president is basically acting to spread a pro-Russian narrative is as good an example of that as one can imagine.
As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance. Learn more...
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