Sure, but the question (and it’s one I’ve had in my mind since before this conflict), is what proportion of wounded are out of the conflict permanently. Surely some go back to the frontlines or a desk job eventually, especially the longer it goes on.
In military terms a casualty is a permanent combat loss, either dead, wounded such that they cannot return easily to the fighting, missing or captured, or rendered combat ineffective for some other reason (disease, psychological breakdown etc). So the percentage of casualties who return to combat roles is certainly quite low.
Pretty much that. If you are taken off the line for a sprained ankle, you are not generally considered a “casualty”, even if the injury was sustained in combat. A casualty is someone that is taken off the military rolls and assumed to be gone forever.
In the long term though it is important whether we are talking about people who will be productive members of society and return to their families, or people who are, well, dead, or so severely injured in some way that they are going to be more or less out of the social equation. For Ukraine, it matters for the consequences of the war in the long haul, but yeah, in the short term, it’s all about people able to fight.
JonRowe
22816
This may be somewhat swayed by the large Ukrainian bias in the content we are viewing though.
Traditionally, though, the defenders, Ukraine, have a much easier set of logistics to get wounded soldiers back to care as they are not the expeditionary force. Though, Russia is very close to the front lines too.
We have seen Russia’s issues with logistics pretty clearly, which probably extends to their medical recovery operations. I would think that a wounded Russian soldier is worse off than a Ukrainian one.
Oh, I’m sure the information flow is part of it, but Ukraine is closer to western Europe in many ways, including geography. I imagine there are a fair number of volunteer medical personnel working there, and I would not be surprised if serious cases haven’t been evac’d to other nations.
Dejin
22818
Come on Germany. Get your act together.
Timex
22819
I believe that the US has also given Ukraine a bunch of our combat medical equipment, which is pretty much the best in the world as we got real good at treating our soldiers after being at war for 20 years.
I recall reading about how the biggest factor in improving survival odds for combat injuries was our improvements in technology to stop bleeding. A huge number of soldiers in combat used to just die from bleeding out, and the US military came up with various tech that is very good at preventing it.
Now, that resulted in a lot of wounded folks who then had to get things like prosthetic limbs and stuff, and Ukrainians may not have access to as much of that stuff, but if they got some of the stuff our soldiers have then their survival odds are likely better than the Russians.
Alstein
22820
Erdogan is going to flat out veto Sweden an Finalnd joining NATO. Those two countries wouldn’t agree to expel Kurds and they wouldn’t kowtow enough to the wannabe Sultan.
US should respond by saying those two countries can ask for Article 5 protection, the good parts of NATO will act like they’re part of the alliance, and leave it implied that Turkey is an open question.
JonRowe
22821
I didn’t even think of the technology angle. The guns and exciting war tech get all the talking points, but the baseline medical care training and equipment we are supplying them with is likely miles better than what Russia has.
KevinC
22822
Is this speculation or was such a move announced?
KevinC
22824
Hopefully just posturing for the upcoming election in a few months. I believe I read the US has some leverage to try to get Erdogan to ratify it, assuming he lies/cheats/steals/wins his next election.
Alstein
22825
I think Erdogan could be bought, but at a price which is too high, and there are alternatives.
US could do a Sweden/Finland/Ukraine alliance which is NATO-esque, Canada, UK, Baltics and Poland would likely join and be part of both.
Timex
22826
If I had to trade Turkey for Finland and Sweden, I know what choice I’d make.
Yesterday’s ISW daily assessment: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 22, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War
They spend most of their time writing about the competition between Wagner and the Russian MoD.
Summary paragraph:
Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s star has begun to set after months of apparent rise following his failure to make good on promises of capturing Bakhmut with his own forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin had likely turned to Prigozhin and Prigozhin’s reported ally, Army General Sergey Surovikin, to continue efforts to gain ground and break the will of Ukraine and its Western backers to continue the war after the conventional Russian military had culminated and, indeed, suffered disastrous setbacks.[1] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and General Staff, headed by Sergey Shoigu and Army General Valeriy Gerasimov respectively, had turned their attention to mobilizing Russian reservists and conscripts and setting conditions for improved performance by the conventional Russian military, but they had little hope of achieving anything decisive in the Fall and early Winter of 2022. Putin apparently decided to give Prigozhin and Surovikin a chance to show what they could do with mobilized prisoners, on the one hand, and a brutal air campaign targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on the other. Both efforts failed, as Prigozhin’s attempts to seize Bakhmut culminated and Surovikin’s air campaign accomplished little more than inflicting suffering on Ukrainian civilians while expending most of Russia’s remaining stocks of precision missiles. Prigozhin seems to have decided in this period that his star really was on the ascendant and that he could challenge Gerasimov and even Shoigu for preeminence in Russian military affairs. Those hopes now seem to have been delusional.
…but I think the whole thing is worth a read.
Of course this is well within the realm of Kremlin tea-leaf reading here, but they are at least conscientious about citing the events that they base their conclusions on.
The other takeaway I got was the part about how the MoD was trying to fix the mobilisation machinery before the next phase of conscription. This might be the first top-down effort to learn lessons from reality and try to systematically improve results. I guess it was eventually inevitable, but it’s disappointing to see.
The Joint Expeditionary Force does a lot of that already.
KevinC
22829
This is the kind of thing I’m wanting to keep an eye on. Actual tangible steps that Russia may be taking to improve on some of their problems. Here’s to hoping them the worst in their endeavors.
morlac
22830
We’ve seen enough on how Russia values it’s soldiers lives to know that logistics aren’t the issue in their wounded recovery rates. Might help with the excuse making but I suspect they don’t care about those either.
Estonia expelled their Russian ambassador just now, and Latvia joined in on the fun
