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We're unlikely to come to a consensus on this forum, there is simply too much fog of war over the conflict.
However, I would suggest that those Ukrainian casualty figures are far too high - they're the Russian figures and don't seem to be that credible versus observations. For example, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of extended periods where Ukraine is at a higher casualty ratio on the front. Firstly, the ratios of verified destroyed equipment mean that is pretty unlikely. Secondly, from internal Russian comments/leaks such as when Prigozhin went mask off about the Donbass front it seems certain they're taking heavier losses vs the Ukrainians in the key sectors, although they had more meat to spare. Lastly, casualties like that for Ukraine would lead to events we have not yet seen. For example, Russia lacking manpower early on led to the rout at Izium when Ukraine found gaps in the line, and nothing like that has happened in the reverse. While we have uncertainty over the exact figures, we can see their shadows at least, and that can bound the range.
I would also guess Russian casualty clearing is abysmal - there's no similar footage of Ukrainians killing themselves when wounded vs the abundance on the Russian/NK side, so the ratio of dead per casualty taken for Russia must be pretty horrific.
Overall we'll have to see. Ukraine may see collapse this year, but Ukraine is not yet fighting like an army defeated, and Russia's materiel/economic losses might compound first slowly then all at once - big classes of military equipment are functionally archeotech for their defence sector and their stocks aren't infinite. Like Wellington said: "Hard pounding this, gentlemen, we'll see who pounds like longest".
I think this comment demonstrates the chasm between what I view as reality on the ground in Ukraine and what seems to be the common understanding on this forum ( at least among the people who want to talk about this conflict ). A country straining for men due to suffered casualties would do things like engage in the 25th? round of mobilization, they would have vans going around kidnapping able-bodied men and sending them to the front with little training, they would trick ambulance drivers to respond to a call and give them draft summonses, they would be emptying admin and specialists to sending them to the infantry, they would be getting what appear to be the bottom-of-the-barrel old men, there would be vast expansions of cemeteries, and tearful testimony of women about how their towns and villages are now empty of men, etc. And that's exactly the sort of things we see in Ukraine.
Ukraine is fighting like a desperate army trying to impress the next meeting at Ramstein to get more money and weapons to feed into the gaping corrupt maw that is the AFU and Ukraine generally. The multiple failed offensives and the suicidal Kursk operation for nothing are what defeated, desperate armies do when they're trying to change the outcome of a war with big, aggressive moves.
It strains credulity for me to believe Russia is losing the casualty battle when they have air superiority and vast firepower advantages. It strains credulity for me to believe Russia has lost 4x the total amount of men in Ukraine in the February invasion, and yet this is regularly claimed even by major media orgs.
When I ask for sources of "confirmed kills," I get links to clowns like Oryx or the Institute for the Study of War. When I ask for proof of North Koreans in Ukraine, I get nothing resembling good evidence this army exists let alone the detailed speculations about them starving and freezing to death. When some "proof" gets posted with a ID docs from Tuva, a region of Russia, and when it's pointed out the default response is "they're fake docs but they're totally North Koreans," it gets to the point of absurdity. Maybe this corps of North Koreans will manage to disappear before there is any proof they ever existed in the first place, which will of course be used as evidence of staggering casualties.
Evidence for Ukraine having staggering casualties is all over the place. By December, Ukraine has over 600k dead and I think that's a low estimate and I would guess Russia has about 100,000 dead similar to the Mediazona confirmed estimate.
Or perhaps the Russian soldiers have seen the many Ukrainian torture/snuff films they've posted to the internet for nearly 3 years? This sort of comment really brings into focus just how large the chasm is between how we view reality in this conflict.
And yes, there are drone videos of Ukrainians killing themselves when wounded, being tossed off of moving vehicles, being shot by fellow soldiers, and all sorts of other things. No, I'm not going to find some and link them. Frankly, this claim is ridiculous.
I would be surprised if the casualty clearing rate was even close to equal for injured soldiers on the front-line. I would be confident stating Russians are vastly more likely to be treated and survive severe injuries than Ukrainians on the front line. That being said, I'm sure there are Russian soldiers killing themselves when seriously injured, this has been true for all of history.
Other than "we'll just have to wait and see," I agree with pretty much nothing in your comment. And I doubt any productive discussion can be had which is why I typically do not respond to your sorts of comments. It would take a level of effort I have no interest in putting forth and I have no interest in looking at yet another dozen links to some NAFO brosint derp who has long since burned all credibility.
They have released a video of what appears to be north korean prisoners:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/01/12/7493174/
edit: Yes, they released a video with Asian looking people and documents which list "Place of Birth: Republic of Tuva," which is a region of the Russian Federation, which the article addresses as a fraudulent ID because "Russian media" and "personal data leaks" prove it or something? but also they can't find the person who is real and did at least exist at one point. This is all just silly.
Why would Russia issue fraudulent IDs to foreign soldiers operating in Russian territory under treaty obligations which were signed a year ago? What does it matter if North Koreans are fighting in the Kursk Oblast or not which must be hidden so vociferously?
I think one of the issues I have is with the comical amount of lying Ukraine has done and been caught doing for the entirety of the war. All of these reports require me give the slightest bit of credibility to Ukraine and they have long since spent that.
I get it, they're fighting a war and this is another aspect of war, but the cost of that is shredding their credibility and they have. It could be true, it could not be true, but "Ukraine say ^#@$%@%@" means very little to me.
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Thank you for your answer, like you say, we shall see in time once the fog of war lifts. It's certainly interesting how different two different views can be, even with the same events being played out in front of them.
I know this is close to the end of the thread's life, but could I ask why you find the Russian statements and figures to be trustworthy (for example, that they're achieving a 6 to 1 death ratio), while the others are clowns? Why not distrust them as well, if you have serious concerns over the accuracy in information in the war in other cases? What is it about the Russian information that makes it more trustworthy than other sources?
I don't find the Russian statements and figures to be trustworthy and I didn't rely on them in my estimates. I look at cemetery expansions, ragtag half-empty battalions being scraped together for this operation or that operation, interviews with Ukrainians who say how many men from their town/village are missing or dead, etc. If I relied on Russian statements, why would I accept Mediazona's confirmed dead estimate as opposed to just taking the Russian numbers?
The people I listed are clowns who make amateur mistakes which they've posted to the internet for years (or at least until Oryx shut down), don't correct themselves, and never learn. I started off the conflict having lots of faith in ISW because of their reporting on the Syrian conflict, but they burned through that good faith long ago. I'm sure I could list many others.
Not believing Ukraine doesn't mean I believe Russia's claims. Thinking Ukraine is lying by an order of magnitude about their casualties doesn't mean I believe Russia's claims. I honestly don't know Russia's casualty claims off the top of my head. From what I've seen in the past, they regularly double count equipment losses.
But your Ukrainian deaths are the Russian ministry figure? No one else is close to that - surely ending up at Russia's figure is just trusting them with extra steps as a result given there's no other source?
Mediazona's (that you trust?) confirmed dead estimates are something like 60k for Ukraine and 120-160k for Russia as of Jan 1st 2025, why do you believe their Russian dead but then think they've lowballed the Ukrainians by nearly an order of magnitude? Sure you can claim they're an underestimate and you've added your own research, but aren't all these other organizations doing actual research too? Could that flip a 2:1 ratio in favor of Ukraine to a 1:5 in favor of Russia? Wouldn't you have to bump Russian dead estimates up too anyway on the same logic?
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Holy shit, this is a thing? Are the Russians/North Koreans killing themselves to avoid capture, or something?
yes, it's been a thing ever since there were highly publicized videos Ukrainians posted to the internet of them torturing and killing captured soldiers
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Yes, there's not the same database of these videos vs say tank kills, but there's at least 70-100 videos of Russians either killing themselves or asking their buddies to kill them (as of a count done in late 2024 ish - I'm going from other forum discussions here) - and that's just where a Ukrainian spotter drone happened to be watching. I'm not sure if I can link them on this forum for obvious reasons - each one has a person dying, often via holding a grenade to their face or chest, but you can find them.
Allegedly some North Koreans killed themselves rather than be captured, but most of these videos are where someone has taken a shrapnel wound and decides to kill themselves. The crazy thing is how fast they make that choice, this isn't people who expect any degree of medical care or support in being evacuated. It really seems like that at least for some Russian units on some sectors if you're badly wounded you're a dead man, and they know it, meaning that their casualty ratios must be WW1 tier for killed vs wounded, or worse.
Obviously we can't know the exact figures, but there hasn't been anything comparable released for the Ukrainian side reported or shown. Russian drone operations are more rudimentary than Ukraine's, so maybe they're just not getting the footage or sharing it, but there does seem to be a serious difference between the two sides in this regard, partly due to NATO support both in and out of country for the wounded. It's certainly telling that when Russian TV showed what they alleged was a Ukrainian killing their buddy they had to use footage of a Russian shooting their friend with the watermarks taken off (https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-killing-soldier-drone-video/33041837.html), they didn't seem to have better footage to show.
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