Quantity instead of quality
London: Russia’s armed forces degenerate into a mass army
December 30, 2023, 9:02 p.m
According to London’s assessment, the high Russian losses in Ukraine are having a significant impact on Moscow’s armed forces. Due to the bloodletting, the troops are developing into a mass army that has fewer capabilities than before.
The British secret services assume that Russia will need five to ten years to have a base of well-trained and experienced military units again. The reason for this is the high losses in Ukraine. In 2023, the average number of daily Russian casualties increased by almost 300 per day compared to the previous year, according to the current situation report from the British Ministry of Defense.
“The increase in daily average numbers reported by the Ukrainian authorities almost certainly reflects the weakening of the Russian Armed Forces and the transition to a lower quality, high quantity mass army since the ‘partial mobilization’ of reservists in September 2022,” the ministry said. “If losses remain so high next year, by 2025 Russia will have suffered over half a million dead and wounded in three years of war.”
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russia lost an average of 1,000 men per day to death and wounding in 2023. The figures published daily are estimates by the military leadership and cannot be independently verified. According to its own information, the General Staff assumes that Russia lost a total of 358,270 men in Ukraine from February 24, 2022 to December 30, 2023.
In early December, the British Ministry of Defense estimated Russian casualties in Ukraine at 320,000. A few days earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at an alliance meeting in Brussels that Russia had lost “a significant part of its conventional forces.”