Scooters, Bikes, Cars and Golf Carts Now Account for 90% of Russian Losses
The de-mechanization of the Russian armed forces accelerates
Unarmored vehicles now account for 90 percent of Russian losses along the front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine—down from just 25 percent a year ago.
For every tank or BMP fighting vehicle Russian regiments lose—and to be clear, they still lose hundreds of them every month—the regiments write off nine all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, compact cars, vans, trucks, buses and even electric scooters that they’re pressed into front-line service as a desperate alternative to walking.
The Russian armed forces are de-mechanizing as losses of combat vehicles greatly outstrip the capacity of Russian industry to build new vehicles or regenerate them from long-term storage.
But Russian regiments aren’t de-populating the same way they’re de-mechanizing. Indeed, recruiting for the Russian military is robust. “Driven by high sign-on bonuses and speculation that the war will soon be over, more than 1,000 men join the Russian military every day,” noted Janis Kluge, deputy head of the Eastern Europe & Eurasia Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“Several independent reports from Russia point to this high recruitment rate,” Kluge added. “My dataset of 37 Russian regions seems to confirm it.”
Staggering attrition
The Ukrainian general staff believes its forces inflict 1,000 or more casualties on Russian forces—killed and maimed—every day, for a monthly total exceeding 30,000. In the balance, Russian manpower has been expanding ever so slightly every month in recent months. The excess manpower has allowed the Kremlin to stand up new units, recently including the 68th Motor Rifle Division.
But now that Ukrainian forces have retreated from their most exposed positions in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast and are mostly fighting defensively with deadly drones and artillery and mounting only local counterattacks, Ukrainian casualties have declined.
“Russian assaults—motorcycle-based and armored—were defeated across several fronts with minimal Ukrainian losses,” according to Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting. “Ukrainian forces are increasingly lethal with drone–artillery coordination.”
For now, de-mechanized Russian regiments still have enough soldiers. But they’re losing them at a high rate while gaining almost no ground and inflicting minimal losses on Ukrainian brigades.
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