Vladimir Putin admits to 360,000 “irretrievable” losses in Ukraine. Trumps special envoy to Ukraine confirms Russians losing 5 times more troops.

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Russia Is Storing Up a Crime Wave When Its War on Ukraine Ends​


  • Court data in Russia shows a spike in crimes by servicemen
  • Convicts recruited to fight in war start to return to Russia


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A billboard advertising contract services in the Russian army, in Moscow.Source: AFP/Getty Images

By Bloomberg News

June 22, 2024 at 2:00 AM EDT

Russia has sent so many men to join its war in Ukraine that crime levels in the country fell soon after the invasion began. Now their return is starting to unleash a wave of offending.

Crimes committed by servicemen that aren’t linked to the war increased by more than 20% last year, according to data from Russia’s Supreme Court. While the overall numbers are still small and many returning servicemembers don’t go onto commit offenses, there was a jump in cases of violent crimes as well as thefts and drug-related transgressions.

The figures exclude crimes involving tens of thousands of convicts released from jail to join the war under a program set up by the late Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Those who survived six months at the front were able to gain a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.

In prison, “they are treated like ‘we are nothing,’ then it all gets even worse at the front,” said Kazan-based sociologist Iskender Yasaveev. “The experience they return with is a trauma that will manifest itself for decades.”

Sociologists have long noted that crime levels often surge following the end of military conflicts, and researchers have looked at many possible causes for this from social disruption to trauma faced by soldiers. Russia is unlikely to buck that trend after Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion that triggered Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. The return of prisoners who fought for Wagner is offering an early signal of what may lie in store once hundreds of thousands of men brutalized by the fighting return to civilian life.

While lower-level crimes fell, the number of murders and sex offenses, particularly against children, hasn’t declined in the past two years. Indecent assault against minors surged by 62% compared to the prewar period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Supreme Court data.

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A Wagner mercenary group member in 2023.Photographer: Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/AP Photo

The return of Wagner recruits to Russia has proved a shock to residents of cities and villages who discover men they thought were serving long jail terms living among them. People convicted of murder, and even cannibalism, have been among those pardoned.

Before his death in a plane crash after he led an abortive mutiny against the Defense Ministry’s leadership in June last year, Prigozhin claimed 32,000 convicts he’d recruited had returned to Russia from the war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to widespread public disquiet by telling reporters in November that criminals pardoned by Putin “atone with their blood for their crime on the battlefield.”

Still, a law that took effect in March quietly removed the right to a pardon after six months of service, forcing criminals who join up to remain in the military until the end of the war, like others drafted into the army.

Nevertheless they return, often by deserting. Crimes involving the military increased fourfold to 4,409 in 2023 compared to 2021, the Supreme Court data show.

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Russian soldiers in Mariupol, Ukraine, during a tour organized by the Russian military in 2022.Photographer: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

One deserter, Artyom, said he fled after half his squad of assault troops were killed during four months in Ukraine. The 34-year-old, who asked not to be identified by his family name, joined the army to escape harsh treatment in the prison colony where he was serving a sentence for drug trafficking. Nobody told him the service was indefinite, he said.

The law that ended pardons also allows the Defense Ministry to enlist not only convicts but also people held in pre-trial detention. Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners’ rights group, estimates as many as 175,000 former prisoners in total were taken to fight on the battlefield.

A postwar surge in crime may cost Russia as much as 0.6% of its gross-domestic product, said Alex Isakov, Russia economist at Bloomberg Economics. Alongside the direct costs to life and property, the state will face higher spending on welfare and security, especially on police, he said.


What Bloomberg Economics Says...​

“From the Franco-Prussian war to the Global War on Terror, crime rates fall early into a war and rise sharply after it. Russia is unlikely to find an escape from this pattern. Postwar crime costs may be as low as 0.2% of its gross domestic product if the conflict is settled in 2024 to as high as 0.6% GDP, if it continues for another five years and around 3 million Russians gain exposure to combat. The full cost of a postwar rise in crime is likely to prove considerably higher.”

- Alex Isakov, Bloomberg Economics Russia

Anxious to avoid a repeat of the September 2022 draft of 300,000 reservists that prompted a spike in public anxiety over the war, the Kremlin is relying instead on generous payments to persuade men to join the army. Contract soldiers are offered monthly payments of 204,000 rubles ($2,300) in addition to signing bonuses that can reach as much as 1 million rubles.

That’s helped contribute to a short-term decline in crime particularly in Russian provinces. The slide in recorded crimes was three times greater in areas with high recruitment into the army, compared with regions with only moderate levels, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.

“Economic crimes such as theft and robbery, which are associated with poverty, have decreased because the war has poured money into the poorest regions and the poorest segments of the population,” says sociologist and crime researcher Ekaterina Khodzhaeva.

Russian courts dealt with almost 62,000 fewer cases last year than in 2021, and the number of convicts fell by 2%. Police numbers have also fallen in many regions, suggesting fewer were available to solve crimes, as people abandoned poorly paid jobs for more lucrative military service.

The Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in May there’s a shortfall of 152,000 officers across Russia, with one in four positions vacant in some regions.

That’s likely to add to the challenges facing the authorities in curbing crime as increasing numbers of convicts return from the war to civilian life.

“Like any other veteran, they are likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Anna Kuleshova, a sociologist at the Social Foresight Group. “That’s coupled with a previous experience of incarceration, all of which combine and can lead to difficulties with integrating into society.”

— With assistance from Sylvia Westall
 

Mister Terrific

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Has this been investigated in detail, how he screwed this up so bad? Did they really have his family kidnapped?
I don’t think we will know until after the war. All the explanations to me seem insufficient. I do think his plans were leaked early so he had to move before he was ready.
 

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FORBES
BUSINESS AEROSPACE & DEFENSE


The Russians May Have Lost An Entire Airborne Brigade In Vovchansk​

Russia’s Victory Day offensive is turning into a bloodbath ... for Russian troops.

David Axe

Forbes Staff

David Axe writes about ships, planes, tanks, drones and missiles.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davida...ire-airborne-brigade-in-vovchansk/#open-web-0

Jun 27, 2024,04:41pm EDT

83rd Airborne Brigade troopers in happier times.

83rd Airborne Brigade troopers in happier times.

VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

Russia’s Victory Day offensive across Ukraine’s northern border with Russia may have aimed to capture a wide, deep swathe of territory to bring heavy artillery closer to the city of Kharkiv, 25 miles to the south. More ambitiously, Russian commanders may have hoped to march on Kharkiv itself.

Neither happened. Within a couple of weeks of the offensive kicking off on May 9—the day Russia celebrates its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II—the force of 30,000 or so Russian troops got bogged down in the town of Vovchansk, just a few miles south of the border.

And now the defenders of Vovchansk, including some or part of several Ukrainian mechanized, marine and airborne brigades, have reportedly defeated an elite Russian airborne brigade.

According to a well-regarded Ukrainian correspondent who writes under the pseudonym “Nikolaev Vanek,” the 83rd Airborne Brigade has retreated from Vovchansk after a costly three-week deployment.

“The entire 83rd Airborne Brigade is urgently withdrawn to the rear to restore combat capability,” Vanek wrote. “There are too many casualties, they can't fight, there are too many 500s.”

In Russian military parlance, a “code 500” is a soldier who refuses to fight.

If confirmed, it’s a stinging loss for the new Russian northern grouping of forces, which includes around seven regiments and brigades. And Russian losses in Vovchansk could get a lot worse, as the survivors of an entire battalion—that’s hundreds of troops— have been trapped in a chemical plant in central Vovchansk for two weeks.

The trapped soldiers might not last much longer. The Ukrainian air force has been lobbing precision glide bombs at the chemical plant, gradually reducing it to rubble.



1/1

"We can't take it anymore! Three days without food and water. No support. I don't know what to do next..."

Russian soldier Oleg Vesnin, call sign "Fiksa", a serviceman from the 83rd Airborne Assault Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, recorded an appeal in which he said that he is very thirsty and "can't take it anymore".

His comrades next to him are "Butcher" and "Fara", but the latter "is probably dead and no one will look for anybody."

Fiksa's legs have failed, but he "really wants to live", so he decided to surrender. He also advised other Russians to never sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry.

The 83rd Airborne Brigade is, or was, an elite force—one of a dozen or so brigade-sized formations in the 40,000-person pre-war airborne corps. As recently as 2019, the brigade practiced parachuting into combat with their lightweight armored vehicles.

In Ukraine, the 83rd Airborne Brigade ditched its parachutes and fought as a mechanized force in its tracked BMD and wheeled BTR vehicles. Redeploying hundreds of miles at a time to respond to Ukrainian attacks and opportunities for Russian attacks, the brigade fought in the south in 2023 and, this spring, took part in the Russian siege of the eastern town of Chasiv Yar.

As the Victory Day offensive ground to a halt in Vovchansk, Russian commanders ordered the 83rd Airborne Brigade to head north and get the northern grouping of forces moving again.

The first 83rd Airborne Brigade paratroopers appeared along the front line in Vovchansk before June 12. On or around June 16, the Russian northern grouping of forces “used 17 paratroopers from the 83rd Brigade,” recalled a Ukrainian drone operator with the call sign “Kriegsforscher.”

The Ukrainian 82nd Air Assault Brigade targeted the Russian paratroopers with mortars, killing four and wounding 10, according to Kriegsforscher.

It was a disastrous start for the 83rd Airborne Brigade in Vovchansk. Incredibly, the brigade doubled down. “Firstly, they deployed one assault battalion from the 83rd Brigade,” Kriegsforscher noted. “It suffered losses and they deployed the rest of the brigade.”

Conditions were brutal for the Russian paratroopers. “We can't take it anymore!” a paratrooper reportedly named Oleg Vesnin moaned in a video he recorded on his phone around June 12. “Three days without food and water. No support. I don't know what to do next.” Two of his fellow troopers lay wounded, if not dead, behind him.

Two weeks later, the 83rd Airborne Brigade had suffered so many losses among its approximately 2,000 pre-war personnel—including troopers who allegedly refused to fight—that it was no longer capable of major combat, if Vanek’s reporting is accurate.

The unit had no choice but to withdraw from the battlefield. “Bye bye,” Vanek quipped. He wrote that he expected a similar fate for whichever Russian unit replaces the 83rd Airborne Brigade in a battle that is rapidly becoming a trap for Russian infantry.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here. Send me a secure tip.

Sources:

Code:
1. Nikolaev Vanek: https://t.me/vanek_nikolaev/24657

2. Rob Lee: https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1109529451577135105

3. Ukraine Control Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1xPxgT8LtUjuspSOGHJc2VzA5O5jWMTE&ll=50.3303843629436%2C36.91383643398026&z=13

4. Kriegsforscher: https://twitter.com/OSINTua/status/1803094835290578964

5. Anton Gerashchenko: https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1800832716062986645
 

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Russia is losing 1,000 soldiers a day in its relentless 'meat grinder' tactics against Ukraine: report​

Tom Porter

Jun 28, 2024, 7:39 AM EDT

Russian tank Ukraine

- Smoke rises from a Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces, on the side of a road in Lugansk region. ANATOLII STEPANOV via Getty Images


  • Russia is sustaining high casualties in attacks in Ukraine, The New York Times reported.
  • Around 1,000 Russian troops a day were killed or wounded, officials told the publication.
  • But Russia is able to recruit new troops to replace the casualties, according to the Times.


An average of 1,000 Russian troops a day were killed or wounded in Ukraine in May amid waves of head-on attacks on Ukrainian defenses, US, UK, and other Western intelligence agencies said, according to The New York Times.

UK military intelligence has put the casualty rate at 1,200 a day in May, which it said was the highest reported since the start of the war. It said Russia's total number of killed or wounded since it launched the invasion in February 2022 now stood at around 500,000.

It's unclear how many of these troops were killed and how many were wounded. Business Insider has contacted The Ministry of Defence for comment.

Related stories


A Russian soldier's killing of a wounded comrade highlights the 'brutal culture' rampant inside Russia's military, war analysts say


US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in June put the figure of the total number killed or wounded at around 350,000.

The reported casualty increase in May came as Russia intensified its attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Kharkiv region, which borders Russia in northern Ukraine.

Russia is sending troops into head-on high-casualty attacks, known as human wave or "meat grinder" attacks. The attacks were used by Russia in brutal battles to seize control of the towns of Avdiikva and Bakhmut last year, but US officials told the Times they are proving less successful now.

However, US officials told the Times that Russia has been able to replenish its troop numbers, recruiting around 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers a month, while Ukraine is struggling to find new recruits.

Ukraine said in February that it believes 31,000 of its troops have been killed since the start of the war, but Western intelligence officials told The Washington Postthe number is likely much higher.

Russia has offered relatively lucrative contracts to new recruits, has drafted thousands of prisoners into the military, and has contracted foreign mercenaries to replace its losses.

In September 2022, Russia drafted 300,000 civilians into the military, but it's unlikely that the Kremlin will need to launch another draft in the near future, US officials told the Times.
 
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DetroitEWarren

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Detroit You bytch Ass nikka
Gotta love it. "There will be a nuclear issue" the Russians said.


When a pink bytch keeps telling you "I'm gonna punch you if you cross the street" and not only do you cross the street, you walk in his house, and he still doesn't punch you, you are definitely supposed to hit that pink bytch with a grenade.

Good work USA. Wish black and brown nations received the same type of protection.
 

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General Staff: Russia has lost 540,490 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022​


by The Kyiv Independent news deskJune 28, 2024 8:44 AM1 min read

GettyImages-1968348689.jpg

Ukrainian soldiers reload an artillery unit on the front line, in the direction of the Kreminna in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Jan. 30, 2024. (Ignacio Marin/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Russia has lost 540,490 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on June 27.

This number includes 1,170 casualties Russian forces suffered over the past day.

According to the report, Russia has also lost 8,066 tanks, 15,480 armored fighting vehicles, 19,514 vehicles and fuel tanks, 14,423 artillery systems, 1,109 multiple launch rocket systems, 871 air defense systems, 360 airplanes, 326 helicopters, 11,509 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
 
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