It Has Cost Russia Exactly One Armored Truck to Capture 60 Square Miles of Ukraine's Sumy Oblast
The Russians are literally marching through Sumy
Parts of no fewer than 18 Russian regiments and brigades, each with 2,000 or more troops, have marched into northern Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast. And by “marched,” I mean literally marched.
The Russian invasion force in Sumy, tens of thousands strong, almost entirely lacks armored vehicles of any kind. “Not sure anybody noticed this, but so far [Russia] has visibly lost one MRAP in Sumy Oblast,” analyst Moklasen noted. “Everything is done either on foot or by bike and quad.”
An MRAP—a mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored truck—isn’t even particularly heavy by vehicular standards. That a single KAMAZ Asteis-70202 truck represents the heaviest Russian loss in Sumy speaks to the deepening shortage of combat vehicles in the Russian inventory as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 40th month.
It also speaks to the new doctrine Russian commanders have written in response to their new conditions. They’ve got fewer and fewer armored vehicles. But they’ve got troops and civilian-style vehicles in abundance.
So the Russians mostly march where they once rode under armor. And yet, they’re still advancing.
In 40 months of hard fighting, Russia has lost around 13,000 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and MRAPs. That’s as many combat vehicles as Russia operated on the eve of the wider invasion in February 2022.
The Russians produce a couple thousand new armored vehicles every year—and have already recovered from long-term storage most of the old Cold War vehicles that aren’t just piles of rust.
But even these vehicles are too few. It’s not for no reason that civilian vehicles—cars, trucks, buses, golf carts, motorcycles and electric scooters—now account for 90 percent of the vehicles the Russians lose every month. The Russian army is in danger of becoming a de-mechanized army.
But it’d be a de-mechanized army that has lots of people, thanks to generous enlistment bonuses and an information environment in Russia that has many everyday Russians genuinely believing they’re about to march to total victory in Ukraine. Around 30,000 Russians enlist every month. That’s slightly more than die or become disabled in Ukraine every month as Russia’s total casualties exceed 1 million.
So many Russians, too few Ukrainians
The Russian force in Ukraine now numbers around 600,000 troops, “the highest level over the course of the war and almost double the size of the initial invasion force,” Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, told American lawmakers in early April.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling to recruit the last 80,000 fresh infantry it urgently needs to finish replenishing front-line losses that now total more than half a million. “From a strictly manpower and force generation perspective, our team has a negative outlook for Ukraine,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight warned.
The paucity of fresh Ukrainian troops might not matter if Ukraine’s drones and artillery were killing Russians at a higher rate. A 3:1 loss ratio in Ukraine’s favor would erode Russia’s manpower edge. But the actual loss ratio is closer to 2:1.
“Unless the loss ratio begins to shift decisively in Ukraine’s favor, Russian forces are likely to continue advancing, both into Sumy Oblast and, gradually, toward Dnipro,” Frontelligence founder Tatarigami predicted. “Yet the Ukrainian military and political leadership at times appears more focused on performative media operations than on articulating a long-term strategic vision for the battlefield beyond few months.”
Yes, it’s good for morale for Ukrainian operatives to damage a strategic—and highly symbolic—Russian bridge. No, the bridge raid doesn’t alter the fundamental battlefield dynamic that has led to the Russians occupying 60 square miles of Sumy since April.
Ukraine has just five million military-age men. Russia has 19 million. That’s the real terrain of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine—and it’s terrain that favors Russia. The Ukrainians must mobilize more of their precious five million while killing more of Russia’s abundant 19 million.
That’s the most obvious path to something resembling victory for Ukraine as the war grinds on.
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