Billions in costs for the dead: Putin has to pay dearly for his cannon fodder

100,000 Russian soldiers are said to have been killed in the attack on Ukraine. Russia apparently wants to sacrifice just as many again to buy time for a new major offensive. An inhuman but also expensive plan if it were to come true.

The Kremlin denies that another wave of mobilizations is planned, but Ukraine is convinced: Russia will close its borders in January and conscript tens of thousands of men to serve on the deadly front for the second time in just four months – this time mostly men The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov had already predicted in December that they would move into the large cities that have so far been largely spared from the war.

But Russia has not yet closed its borders. There are also no reports of army representatives knocking on doors in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk or Yekaterinburg. However, further mobilization would be understandable from a military point of view: in the Donbass alone, fierce fighting has been raging for the past six months around the small town of Bakhmut, with thousands dead.

The human meat grinder

On the Russian side, fighters from the Wagner mercenary group have been said to be holding the reins in the fighting for some time and pursue an inhuman strategy: they are supposed to throw wave after wave of soldiers as cannon fodder on the Ukrainian defense positions – without protection or cover from the deadly artillery fire that has dominated the fight in the region for months.

Moscow relies on its own troop strength: the Ukrainian positions will be overrun – or their own fighters will die, but at least they have cost Ukraine valuable ammunition. A strategy also known as the human meat grinder. It doesn’t matter whether he is fed prisoners or young recruits.

But this strategy has a human, but also an economic price: those who have to go to the front no longer go to work. Neither does anyone fleeing the operation. And if you die in battle, certainly not – on the contrary, fallen soldiers cause additional costs.

A household as a question mark

For every soldier who is wounded or dies in combat, Russia must pay compensation to their families. If a soldier is wounded, the families receive a good 80,000 euros. If it falls while deployed at the front, it is 164,000 euros. With tens of thousands of dead, this not only shakes the Russian population structure, but also the Russian budget.

That’s a big question mark for economists. For example, military spending was increased last year by a third to the equivalent of $76 billion to pay for and win the war against Ukraine. This year the budget is – as of now – 43 percent above the actual plan. Overall, the Kremlin expects to spend at least $110 billion more on its military from 2022 to 2025.

At the same time, the deficit this year should only be two percent. Because Russia assumes that it will continue to generate high revenues from the oil and gas business. But that is unlikely with natural gas because – to put it simply – there are no pipelines for deliveries to China. And when it comes to oil, the price of the Russian Urals variety has plummeted. It is currently at $58. In the budget, however, Russia calculates a price of 70 dollars – far more than is paid today.

But oil and gas are responsible for 40 percent of government revenues. The independent Russian exile media The Bell reports that because of these problems, a Hole of another $15 billion gapes in the Russian household. Compensation for fallen soldiers could increase it significantly.

hundreds of thousands of troops

That seems inevitable because Moscow can probably only tackle a new major offensive with further mobilization, military experts are convinced of that. Loss and compensation costs are therefore likely to continue to rise.

Last year, before the attack, Russia had gathered around 150,000 soldiers on the borders with Ukraine. By the summer, the losses were so great that Russian President Putin had to announce a so-called partial mobilization on September 21. In the months that followed, 300,000 reservists and volunteers are said to have been trained for the mission and around 700,000 men fled. Reports of a second mobilization have been circulating since the end of November, with rumors that another 500,000 to 700,000 Russians could be drafted for military service. How many of them will make it back can only be guessed at.

Waste of time with cannon fodder

In December, Ukraine spoke of the fact that 100,000 Russians had already been killed in the war. According to the US, 100,000 Russians were killed or wounded. The investigative Russian online magazine “Important Stories” reports that Russia intends to sacrifice another 100,000 reservists as cannon fodder by spring to buy time for the new major offensive.

A disturbing but not far-fetched plan: the Russian journalists cite informants in the Russian domestic secret service FSB and in the Russian general staff. Just last week, the independent news agency Agent Stvo reports that Russia itself is sending badly injured soldiers back to the front, probably to certain death, without consulting doctors.

If the reports are correct, Vladimir Putin would have killed at least 200,000 Russian men, each of whom would be due compensation of 164,000 euros – and which the Kremlin is very likely to pay: the population must be sedated will. But then Russia will have to raise the enormous sum of 32.9 billion euros. That’s roughly half of Russia’s total military spending ($76 billion) for the past year, or 2 percent of Russia’s economic output. Life has no price for Putin. Death, on the other hand, does.