Conscripts are being deployed, contrary to Russian law. Quoting, “Vitaly says officers tried to force his son – serving mandatory military service – to change his status to a contract soldier, which would legally allow him to serve abroad. Conscripts in Russia are exempt from foreign service. ”
Hospitals in Rostov, Moscow, and St. Petersburg have filled to capacity.
Estimates of Russian deaths range from a Ukrainian high of 2000 to a low of 15, by unspecified human rights workers (Reuters). A Congressional Research Service report, “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics”, provides figures for American conflicts of possible comparative value. An average ratio over recent wars with some similarity of character is roughly 3.5 non mortal wounds per conflict death. With the assumption that every Russian soldier observed to be evacuated from the battlefield is optimistically counted by the Ukrainians as a mortality, an estimate of 600 Russian deaths results. If the Ukrainians observe removal of corpses with equal efficiency and without distinction, the estimate becomes about 450 deaths.
This is an example of open-source analysis that anyone can do with only slight digging. It contradicts the popular notion that Russia has a competent, though small, professional volunteer army, capable of fielding even a small Ukraine incursion with the sophistication of recent U.S. battle doctrine. With the glimpse of medical logistics, it offers the picture of a sclerotically weak Russia. Perhaps this is why Putin keeps up the nuke talk.
But it is hardly a scoop. An active, international, cooperative framework of open source diggers, with some kind of clearing hub, could have provided the raw material for analysis some time ago.
Start digging and posting.