Originally Posted by
Uberteknik
Bit optimistic there,
During the conference, at one point he revealed Russia currently has a total of 617,000 troops in Ukraine. He also claimed that on top of 300,000 people called up for service last year, another 486,000 have signed up voluntarily as contract soldiers.
Doing the sums: (300,000 + 486,000) - 617,000 = 169,000
That is of course if one believes the 486,000 volunteers and 617,000 fighting in Ukraine.
A classified US intelligence report estimated this week that 315,000 Russian soldiers had been either killed or wounded since the war began - which it said was almost 90% of Russia's military personnel at the start of the invasion.
Reported on the BBC website.
I can't follow your logi. You seem to be saying, as I understand it, that only troops who joined the Ru army in 2022 onwards have been/are involved in this conflict. This is clealy impossible because Russia inducts conscripts twice a year: Spring (
April 1 to July 15,) and Autumn ( October 1 and December 31 ) so the Spring intake didn't exist in Feb 22 when the SMO started. There is also the fact that , legally, conscripts are not to be used outside Russia, although this was flouted ( supposedly by mistake ) during 2022 Volunteer numbers would also have been very small, since Russians typicallly do everything possible to avoid the army, and there were not the now much higher salaries which have significantly increased the number of volunteers. .
This means that the initial invasion force of 300 000 men consisted of regular Russian troops ( and conscripts ? ) but in any case, of men who are unaccounted for in your workings.
EDIT: The following link ( 3:58 ) also concludes that the invasion force was entirely from the Russian regular army and consisted of 360 000 of their best troops, of which 315 000 (87% ) are now "lost"