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Russia-Ukraine War - News and Developments PART 2

This is what social scientists refer to as empirical field research.



Their relatives don't receive condolences from friends and comrades?



The BBC's team of investigative journalists didn't confine themselves to online content.



It's a measure of publicly confirmed troop deaths.



After verification the video I linked to is also saying losses, but assuming a wounded to killed ratio of 10 to 1 which is a relatively high one, several hundreds of thousands of casualties would imply at least 20.000 Ukrainian lost their lives.



Who says it was a very quick search rather than a series of extensive long-term surveys? Also it appears these weren't the only two criteria they looked into. They tracked any indication they could find. It's a valid estimate that offers a good approximation.

And finally,

BBC Russia concluded that the 5701 name as of August 19 is not likely the entire loss Russia suffer in Ukraine, it's likely up to 60% of the name are not included in that report


The journalists compiled the statistics based on reports from local authorities, the media, and relatives of the dead (while, as noted, heads of Russian regions are speaking publicly about the deaths of military personnel with increasing frequency). They estimate that their list contains 40-60% fewer names than the actual number who've been buried in Russia.
 
I can imagine that but Russia has the ability to do more and absorb far more losses. It will come down to motivation if they are willing to do that. In WW2 they were defending homeland and their independence against the Nazis who considered them subhumans. This time around no matter how much emotion they have, the motivation is not going to be the same as WW2 scenario, the existing Russian homeland is not in threat, if it was then Russia would've the motivation and incentive to fight to the last man.

I see your point but I do not think Russians were lacking in motivation.


Hundreds of Russian OFFICERS are KIA in this war. These men have reportedly led their troops from the front but lost their lives in battles waged across Ukraine.

Is this situation tenable for Russian forces? For how long? Conscripts are much easier to replace than quality OFFICERS, right?

Russia was a much stronger side than Ukraine. Russian military operation in Ukraine commenced on a brilliant footing with infiltration of latter from six different directions. I could not see any flaw in this Russian execution. This was the work of an experienced Russian side.

But Putin was in hubris (or misled). His advisors had convinced him that Zelenskyy is a comedian and a Western puppet in Ukraine. What does he know about war?

Well... Zelenskyy turned out to be everything but how Russians perceived him.

Courage by itself is not sufficient. Troops need competent OFFICERS to lead them. Secondly, the sight of Russian tank tops flying around will not help Russian morale.

American tanks are built for the offensive, Russian tanks not so much. I have argued this on a consistent basis here on PDF but too many takers of Russian hype in this forum and otherwise.

Advanced technologies are 'necessary' to fight a conventional war in current times. Russia has managed to produce some good weapon systems but it is unable to keep up with technological sophistication of the WEST.

Russian forces managed to infiltrate and disrupt Ukrainian ICT infrastructure but Elon Musk provided Ukranians access to its state-of-the-art Starlink system. Russian cyber warfare was checkmated in this manner.

NATO is also providing increasingly sophisticated weapon systems to Ukraine. These supplies have made it possible for Ukraine to counter Russian tanks, UAVs, helicopters, jets, and even ships.

Americans are making it possible for Ukrainians to fight a conventional war with Russia on many counts.

Russia also have industrial limitations and limited economic opportunities due to tensions with the WEST.

USSR was a bloc of 16 like-minded states and had ample manpower at its disposal in times of WW2. It also had support from USA and UK in these times. Military forces were also not very technology-driven back then.

But much has changed for Russia by now. Let us see.
 
It's getting worse, I was watching a Channel 1 news segment, they started to swing it like this is a DNR/LPR war, they largely blame the DNR/LPR people for the loss, they didn't even mentioned the name Russia on that program (maybe once or twice)

seems like they are trying to isolate Russian involvement from the war. It's not "Their" war, they were just there to help the Russian speaking brothers. And then turn around and blame them for not holding the line.

Man, I think it's just a matter of time either DPR/LNR people turn on them or the Russian drop these people...
It is just a matter of time (perhaps a few more months) before DNR/LPR will run out of fighting bodies. The majority Slav people in Russia have played very little (proportional) loss in this war so far. Their turn is next. Perhaps then, they will feel the burden of loosing their loved ones for this delusion of a mad man :coffee:
 
It is just not.......As I said, this is at most a probe

In social science it's classified as research.

Research is when you have empirical evidence to support something, this is nothing but a stab in the dark.......If this is science, then this is quack science.....

The report is based on empirical data.

Again, there are many other ways or reason why no one was contacted or no condolence message was sent, even if they can crawl thru ALL OSINT, there are still private data that is not going to be available to the "BBC Researcher".
And again, you are not talking about a proportional casualty, as in how many of those are being notified or griefed, there are still many other factor that was not involved and therefore not recorded.
Just think of it like this, you need a handle to do any online communication, that is the one that you can look up.
Ask yoruself this, how many Russian soldier have online handle to begin with?

To reiterate, condolence messages were merely one of multiple sets of data surveyed.

Unless these "BBC researcher" have access to the official roll of Russian Military (which I highly doubt they will) the people they know are deceased are only limited to people who are available on open source.

Hence my statement that it's a measure of publicly available data on fallen Russian soldiers.

It doesn't matter if that is message, condolence or whatever, they won't have access to the entire database and I don't think the entire Russian Military roll call are being put on the internet so everyone can look up.

Chances are that for the bulk of Russian forces fallen in the conflict, there's going to be some accessible indication among the multiple types of empirical sources investigated by those BBC journalists.

See above response.

Redundant retort, addressed already.

You are talking about "several hundred thousand" casualty in a "several hundred thousand" Army. In America, your unit is labelled combat ineffective if you have 20% of casualty, the reason behind this is you will need another 20% of men to look after the 20% casualty, which mean your unit is down 40%. Let's say it's 200,000 on a 900,000 force, you are talking about 22% casualty, and there is no way Ukraine would have 900,000 personnel. More likely between 6-700,000

Yes and 2-300.000 casualties out of 6-700.000 thus far is a realistic figure.

And again, I watched the original interview, it has been taken out of context.

Fact is the Ukrainian general thinks Ukrainian forces have had several hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Dude, just because Ukrainian have 6-700,000 troop in Ukraine vs 300,000 Russian, that does not mean they have superior in number, Ukrainian are defending their entire country, which mean they would have to put troop in fronts that are not active, to anticipate an attack.

Russians fielded more like 200.000. Ukraine proceeded with general mobilization. And their troops are all assigned to the same conflict regardless of the exact front section they're stationed at, whereas most units of the Russian armed forces aren't, they're stayin in Russia where there's no war going on.

What the hell are you talking about??

If you have less troop defending an area, you either buckle or get slaughter, in either case, you will lose all your troop, either killed, wounded or captured, and you will also suffer casualty more proportional to the attacker. Less defender, less attacker casualty, you don't lose the same amount of attacker to say 100 soldiers defending an area to 10,000 soldiers defending the same area.

You lose less defenders if there are only 100 of them versus if there are 10.000 assuming identical outcome i.e. enemy conquest of defended location.

And I am NOT talking about the number, I am talking about the proportional lost.
If and when you retreated, that mean you lose more people to the attacker in proportional, the number may be smaller, say if I have a force of 100,000 to attack and you have 500, you lose all 500 but I lose 1000 taking your position, yes, I lose more than you in number, but you lose more than me proportional to the attacks. Because you lose your entire unit, I lost 1%

The sources I cited are dealing with absolute numbers, not proportional loss!

Again, your video, according to you, are taking what that general said out of context.

And I don't know what value the BBC "research" has......

See above.

And yours are substantiated?? I don't know counting internet post is a method to gather casualty information....

Condolence messages, obituaries, funeral notices, news reports in Russian media and more.

We can all guess, but again, it would not make sense to have 5700 loss in a 6 months war with nil or neglectable progress. Again, that casualty number need to fit the actual circumstance of the war. Either all the loss Russia suffer is bloodless. Or that is not a valid number.....

Or most Russian losses occurred when they were conducting maneuver warfare in the early stage of the war, which allowed them to seize large swaths of territory. And then, they deliberately switched tactics and began focusing on artillery in order to reduce their casualties. Which is confirmed by the chronological breakdown of Russian KIA statistics in the chart I shared.

Dude, and you know??

I know what they accomplished supposes a whole group of people to partcipate in data gathering.

First of all, Russia has 157 million people. If you want to know in entirety, you will have to interview all 157 million people and see if they have lost any one in the war. That's 157 million calls. Let's say a standard conversation is 3 minutes. It will take 471 million minutes of call to make sure everyone was contacted, and I am already discounting people not picking up the phone, or line is busy, let's just say every call was picked up and spend 3 minutes to gather data. 60 minutes an hour, which mean it will take 7.85 million hours to contact them all, which mean it will take around 327,085 days to contact all of them because each day have 24 hours. 300 thousand days. Which mean if you have a team of 1000, they did nothing but keep calling Russian all day, 24/7, it will take them 300 days to interview all the people.

Now, I don't know how big you think BBC is, I would doubt there are 1000 worker work for BBC Russia and I would very much doubt they will do nothing but call people 24/7 for 300 days, which this war is still in day 202.

Unless, again, those BBC dude have access to the entire list of Russian Service Personnel, then they will not need to call Everyone in Russia.

They combed through a number of publicly accessible sources in which troop deaths are reported. This method represents a shortcut which allows valid approximation.

When you focus on an indication, you narrow that scope of the search.

Say if I focus on the estimation of ground force, then that number will not be representing the entirity of Russian Armed Force because you are ignoring the Navy, Air Force and other branch.

You are doing a broad-spectrum search, which mean you cannot use "Indication" as a starting point. Because "Indication" are passive.

As explained, the bulk of fallen soldiers are likely to leave some trace in either one of the data sets the BBC journalists studied. Especially in today's world where information circulates more intensely and is more readily available than ever, in a developed country at that.

And finally,

BBC Russia concluded that the 5701 name as of August 19 is not likely the entire loss Russia suffer in Ukraine, it's likely up to 60% of the name are not included in that report


Difference is that those 5701 casualties are documented, while everything beyond that number is subjective estimation and guesswork.
 
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I see your point but I do not think Russians were lacking in motivation.


Hundreds of Russian OFFICERS are KIA in this war. These men have reportedly led their troops from the front but lost their lives in battles waged across Ukraine.

Is this situation tenable for Russian forces? For how long? Conscripts are much easier to replace than quality OFFICERS, right?

Russia was a much stronger side than Ukraine. Russian military operation in Ukraine commenced on a brilliant footing with infiltration of latter from six different directions. I could not see any flaw in this Russian execution. This was the work of an experienced Russian side.

But Putin was in hubris (or misled). His advisors had convinced him that Zelenskyy is a comedian and a Western puppet in Ukraine. What does he know about war?

Well... Zelenskyy turned out to be everything but how Russians perceived him.

Courage by itself is not sufficient. Troops need competent OFFICERS to lead them. Secondly, the sight of Russian tank tops flying around will not help Russian morale.

American tanks are built for the offensive, Russian tanks not so much. I have argued this on a consistent basis here on PDF but too many takers of Russian hype in this forum and otherwise.

Advanced technologies are 'necessary' to fight a conventional war in current times. Russia has managed to produce some good weapon systems but it is unable to keep up with technological sophistication of the WEST.

Russian forces managed to infiltrate and disrupt Ukrainian ICT infrastructure but Elon Musk provided Ukranians access to its state-of-the-art Starlink system. Russian cyber warfare was checkmated in this manner.

NATO is also providing increasingly sophisticated weapon systems to Ukraine. These supplies have made it possible for Ukraine to counter Russian tanks, UAVs, helicopters, jets, and even ships.

Americans are making it possible for Ukrainians to fight a conventional war with Russia on many counts.

Russia also have industrial limitations and limited economic opportunities due to tensions with the WEST.

USSR was a bloc of 16 like-minded states and had ample manpower at its disposal in times of WW2. It also had support from USA and UK in these times. Military forces were also not very technology-driven back then.

But much has changed for Russia by now. Let us see.

You are just arguing for the sake of it and writing things that are not needed.

They obviously have some motivation as they invaded Ukraine for the last 7 months. But it's not the same motivation as WW2 when they defended their homeland. They lost ~15% of their entire population, still didn't give up and went all the way up to Berlin. I doubt an invasion warrants the same level of motivation.
Nevertheless an invasion still requires some motivation but it's not the same level that is shown in an existential threat such as the WW2 scenario.

The original point I was making with @PakFactor is that, the Russian dog has a lot of fight in it even after taking severe losses as they demonstrated in WW2. If the same motivation exists in Ukraine war (doubtful), the Russian dog still has a lot of fight in them even after heavy losses. It is yet to be seen how much motivation they have to win in Ukraine which will be translated to the fight they will put forth and commit to.
 
You are just arguing for the sake of it and writing things that are not needed.

They obviously have some motivation as they invaded Ukraine for the last 7 months. But it's not the same motivation as WW2 when they defended their homeland. They lost ~15% of their entire population, still didn't give up and went all the way up to Berlin. I doubt an invasion warrants the same level of motivation.
Nevertheless an invasion still requires some motivation but it's not the same level that is shown in an existential threat such as the WW2 scenario.

The original point I was making with @PakFactor is that, the Russian dog has a lot of fight in it even after taking severe losses as they demonstrated in WW2. If the same motivation exists in Ukraine war (doubtful), the Russian dog still has a lot of fight in them even after heavy losses. It is yet to be seen how much motivation they have to win in Ukraine which will be translated to the fight they will put forth and commit to.

Motivation is defending Russian speakers from Kiev army artillery. It's not as strong as WW2 when Germans butchered Russians but stronger than Afghan invasion in the 80s.
 
Difference is that there is evidence for those 5701 while everything beyond that number is subjective estimation and guesswork.

Not going to reply to the rest, because we are just dancing around the issue. But I will say this.

Just because they can confirm 5701 does not mean that's the actual death, in fact, that "Confirm" is still an estimation, because there is no way to know that 5701 name are really dead until Russian MOD acknowledge the death, there is a saying with Morturary service, you are not dead until the government said you are.

in the military, especially with Military Intelligence, there are ways better than "Count Condolence Message" to estimate enemy killed in action, I have already written a post on the other thread, check it out or not is up to you.

At the end of the day, if you believe in Russia only suffer 5701 KIA, then well, that's you, I cannot stop you from believing there were no Russian casualty if you say so. At the end of the day, fact remains, Russia are at the backfoot of this war, and that cannot be logically explain by that low amount of casualty.

It is just a matter of time (perhaps a few more months) before DNR/LPR will run out of fighting bodies. The majority Slav people in Russia have played very little (proportional) loss in this war so far. Their turn is next. Perhaps then, they will feel the burden of loosing their loved ones for this delusion of a mad man :coffee:
As far as I know, a lot of those people already resent Putin.

But yes, unless Russia itself can be isolated from the conflict, there are no steppingstone for Putin to step down. But doing so would put the entire blame on the separatist. But in the end, Putin care no one but himself, chances of him caring about those DNR/LPR guy are almost next to none. You have to be really stupid to think Putin is helping you because of Russian/Slavic brotherhood......
 
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