And I’m still confused how 30,000 convicts armed with shovels doing charge of the light brigade style attacks managed to push the Ukrainians out of Bakhmut while sustaining an unfavorable 7-1 casualty ratio. Maybe it’s more complicated than that.
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There was a bit about it in that big article I linked to the other week, describing the perspective of the commander of one of the battalions posted there. Basically, he cites overwhelming numbers.
Syava’s battalion, which numbered about six hundred men, was posted on the edge of a village south of Bakhmut. The village was controlled by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization notorious for committing atrocities in Africa and the Middle East. For the war in Ukraine, Wagner recruited thousands of inmates from Russian prisons by offering them pardons in exchange for combat tours. The onslaught of expendable convicts proved too much for the Ukrainians, who were still reeling from Kherson and had not yet replenished their ranks and matériel. The commander of the battalion, a thirty-nine-year-old lieutenant colonel named Pavlo, said of the Wagner fighters, “They were like zombies. They used the prisoners like a wall of meat. It didn’t matter how many we killed—they kept coming.”
Within weeks, the battalion faced annihilation: entire platoons had been wiped out in close-contact firefights, and some seventy men had been encircled and massacred. The dwindling survivors, one officer told me, “became useless because they were so tired.” In January, what was left of the battalion retreated from the village and established defensive positions in the tree lines and open farmland a mile to the west. “Wagner kicked our asses,” the officer said.
Edit: This “wall of meat”, Ukraine’s decision to prioritize stockpiling for a summer offensive, and the specs of the military aid donated, means that Bakhmut battalions basically used up their reserves of ammunition and never got resupplied:
Ukraine appears to have forgone refitting debilitated units in order to stockpile for a large-scale offensive that is meant to take place later this spring. At least eight new brigades have been formed from scratch to spearhead the campaign. While these units have been receiving weapons, tanks, and training from the U.S. and Europe, veteran brigades like the 28th have had to hold the line with the dregs of a critically depleted arsenal.
The most advanced and expensive U.S. contributions to the war have been longer-range howitzers and missile systems that operate from the rear. The infantry on the front relies on rudimentary muzzle-loaded mortars, for which there is currently a dire ammunition shortage. The major in charge of artillery for Pavlo’s battalion told me that in Kherson his mortar teams had fired about three hundred shells a day; now they were rationed to five a day. The Russians averaged ten times that rate.
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For the ~fourth time, you’re ignoring relevant context from that article. For reasons I brought up but you ignored, it isn’t clear Danilov is talking about the war as a whole and is almost certainly not. The article is from March, when the Russians were desperate to take Bakhmut.
This article, also from March, has Danilov saying
In the battles for Bakhmut, the Russian aggressors lose seven times as many soldiers as the Armed Forces of Ukraine do.
Here’s the BBC, also in March, linking that article in a piece ABOUT BAKHMUT
Nato sources estimate five Russians are dying for every one Ukrainian in Bakhmut. Ukraine’s national security secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, says the ratio is even higher at seven to one.
JM is an exception but most people seem to understand the high numbers were about Bakhmut.
And if you guys agree with John that the 7-1 ratio is absurd then what the fuck are we even talking about here?
If this goes on much longer, maybe we’ll forget, but JM said 7:1 was what Ukraine and the media were claiming about the war as a whole. Not true. Is this kind of sleight of hand ok?
And I’m still confused how 30,000 convicts armed with shovels doing charge of the light brigade style attacks managed to push the Ukrainians out of Bakhmut while sustaining an unfavorable 7-1 casualty ratio. Maybe it’s more complicated than that.
It is. The ratio got better from Wagner’s pov as they got closer to their goal of capturing the city. There were lots of tweets/articles about this too. IIRC JM references an Economist article about Russia adapting its tactics. I have a hunch that article is interesting.
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not like red army is infamous for doing this or anything
here is an american vet describing the limited tasks mobilized forces can do, they are basically only there to do frontal assaults with individual weapons leading to catastrophic losses
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OK if you say so but it’s a distinction without a difference. Bakhmut was a huge fraction of the fighting, and John surely thinks that the 7-1 claims just in Bakhmut are Ukrainian propaganda and are not accurate. You couldn’t get to a 2-1 overall casualty ratio in favor of the Russians otherwise. Or even a 1-1 ratio, the low end of John’s estimate. So, yes, of course muddling together total casualties and Bakhmut casualties are fine. He doesn’t believe the 7-1 ratio for the whole war or the 7-1 ratio just for Bakhmut, which has been a huge portion of the fighting the last however many months. I honestly don’t understand the point of this nit you’re picking. Who cares?
Excellent article. Other than the section you quote, with the colonel giving the company line of Russian Human Wave Attacks, the battle being described by the actual soldiers seems to reflect Mearsheimer’s view of the war. A battle of attrition dominated by artillery.
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Battles of attrition dominated by artillery usually have a lot more casualties towards the attacking side. That was like all WW1 was.
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I honestly don’t understand the point of this nit you’re picking. Who cares?
You asked what I was referring to when I said he invented his own evidence. I said there were multiple examples, one of which was casualty numbers. YOU were first to bring up the 7-1 ratio.
John surely thinks that the 7-1 claims just in Bakhmut are Ukrainian propaganda and are not accurate.
If he was thinking that he could have said so. That’s not what he said. What he did say was misleading.
OK. That’s misleading? Ukrainian official says that the casualty ratio for the war – his words – is 10-1 or 8-1 or 7-1. John repeats that. You think it’s clear the guy meant just in Bakhmut even though he said the war. So John’s being misleading because he’s not as adept at changing what the Ukrainian official said to what you think he meant.
Pretty compelling stuff.
And it’s a totally meaningless distinction you’re making that has no impact on any point John made. If you watched his whole talk and think that he wouldn’t have just listened to your objection and simply shrugged and said “ok, if that 7-1 number was referring just to Bakhmut, which, sure you could well be right, I think that ratio is just as absurd as if it applies to the whole war,” then I’m not sure what to tell you.
That’s not possible. How dare you say the official said anything propagandistic
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The Red Leftists and DumbPolitik adherents are now indistinguishable from Breitbart
You think it’s clear the guy meant just in Bakhmut even though he said the war.
That’s not quite what he said. JM is rubbing off on you. JM never refers to Danilov or any particular Ukrainian official. YOU brought up Danilov. What JM says is “the Ukrainians often say and it’s reported frequently in the West that seven…”. Meanwhile ISW, NYT, Wikipedia, BBC, give the 7-1 ratio in the context of Bakhmut. This ratio came up in this very thread back in March; the context was… Bakhmut. You want to let JM slide on this, fine.
I’m not sure what to tell you.
You’re doing fine. You’re giving me even more reason to believe his analysis of the war is bullshit.
Slide on WHAT? Like what the fuck are you even talking about? Some imagined inaccuracy? What is even the significance of this “error” in the context of his talk?
Like if John had said “it’s widely reported that the casualty ratio in Bakhmut is 7-1” then it would have been perfectly fine? It wouldn’t change anything in his talk at all!
You expended all those words and you’re just now getting around to wondering what you’re defending? This is a little much even for me. I’m taking the rest of the day off.
No I don’t understand why you think it’s important, or even worth talking about at all. Let alone that his statement somehow discredits Mearsheimer. It isn’t and doesn’t.
Yeah, they famously and infamously did that and that’s the reason you don’t speak fucking German right now holy shit wtf point do you think you’re making here?
the point is soviet/russian doctrine is A-OK taking on 3-5x losses than anyone else in the conflict and then lying about it. regardless if they are the aggressor or not.
also i speak american now, a much bigger reason i didn’t speak fucking German for the first part of my life.