Ana Tsivilyova, the reported daughter of Putin’s cousin and a deputy defence minister, said that the Kremlin had received tens of thousands of appeals from relatives looking to track missing soldiers.
“The ministry of internal affairs takes [DNA samples] absolutely free of charge at its own expense, and enters into its database for all the relatives who have applied to us. I’ve already said 48,000,” Ms Tsivilyova said in a video at a meeting with lawmakers.
We take DNA. For free! So you can identify the conscript’s rotting corpse! Aren’t we the lovely ones?
I dont suppose the young lads have paybooks to identify them any more.
What, pliz, means “paybooks”?
If they don’t identify the dead the families don’t get paid. Registering the families’ DNA is “doing something” to keep the families happy, but as the government aren’t interested in recovering bodies and testing them it’s a meaningless gesture.
Russian Army Spokesman :
Ve issue each soldier viz potato and photograf it. Pictures of potatoes kept in archiv in Irkutsk. Venn soldier die ( vich zey never do ). Ve match his potato viz archiv picture. So ve identify soldier. But as no soldies killed, it never needed.
Reporter :
What happens if he eats his potato ?
Spokesman :
Ha ha silly qvestion. Zen soldier never existed. Next ?
Seems like they are at least more efficient at it than the Met Police at ensuring their database of their own officers is up to date for exclusion of evidentiary purposes….
Cargo 200. The Russian code for the corpse of a soldier being returned. It dates from the Soviet-Afgan war and is the average weight of a decommissioned soldier in a zinc lined coffin. See also Black Tulip the plane that flew them,
@Bloke in North Dorset
but as the government aren’t interested in recovering bodies and testing them it’s a meaningless gesture.
No. It has great value to them. They want the DNA to identify deserters.
“The bad news is that Nikolai is dead, killed by a drone near Luhansk. The good news is that he appears to be very closely related to Pushkin.”
48,000 Russian dead sounds realistic given the intensity of the fighting over the last 3 years.
Otoh, we could take a trip to Imaginationland:
Western intelligence has said that Russia has suffered more than 700,000 dead or badly injured in the near-three-year war
This is 7 x the size of Russia’s original invasion force.
@KJP, pretty beefy lads to weigh on average 200 kg even in a coffin. Are we sure that isn’t so Dimitri can smuggle some whitegoods back from the battlefront?
Related –
‘Would you survive 72 hours?’ Germany and the Nordic countries prepare citizens for possible war
Apps and booklets are offering advice on how to build a bunker, stockpile food and live without electricity in case the worst happens
WAR! (Brass Eye intro plays)
Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency preparedness guide.
That’s nothing, I am fully prepared to take over as the local warlord come Armageddon (come Armageddon, come). I have tinned food, iodine, and a cricket bat.
If the prospect of a broader conflict in Europe seems remote for many, some countries at least are taking it seriously – and, in the term used by Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, taking steps to get populations kriegstüchtig: war-capable.
Here’s another appropriate German word: Volkssturm.
“We live in uncertain times. Armed conflicts are currently being waged in our corner of the world. Terrorism, cyber-attacks, and disinformation campaigns are being used to undermine and influence us,” the Swedish pamphlet’s prologue says.
Also available in English, it adds that collective resilience is essential and if Sweden is attacked, “everyone must do their part to defend Sweden’s independence – and our democracy … you are part of Sweden’s overall emergency preparedness”.
If we don’t defend against Putin, who will replace you with all those precious Somalis?
Reaction among Swedish residents has been mixed. Johnny Chamoun, 36, a hairdresser in Solna, near Stockholm, said it was “good to be prepared”. But, he said, while the brochure was a good idea, it had not been much of a talking point.
“Going on holiday this year? Ooh, that’s nice. I love your necklace made from the ears of Russian soldiers.”
But Muna Ayan, a healthcare worker from Stockholm, was concerned by how unconcerned many Swedes were.
Having experienced conflict firsthand in Somalia, Ayan said she was frightened. “I am scared because I know what war means – I have survived war,” she said, adding that she had stocked up on water, battery lights, candles and Vaseline.
She was also trying to work out how to tell her five children without scaring them. For people from Somalia, Syria or Iraq, talk of conflict in Sweden was traumatic, she said.
*Laughs in Russian*
The Norwegian pamphlet advises people, for example, to hold at least a week’s worth of non-perishable food including “crispbreads, canned pulses and beans, canned sandwich spreads, energy bars, dried fruit, chocolate, honey, biscuits and nuts”.
As long as it isn’t porridge.
BiND – but as the government aren’t interested in recovering bodies and testing them it’s a meaningless gesture.
Russia and Ukraine have been exchanging the remains of their war dead on the regular:
Russia and Ukraine said Friday they exchanged the bodies of 590 fallen soldiers in the latest publicly known swap between the two warring countries.
Moscow received the remains of 89 soldiers, the RBC news website reported, citing Russian lawmaker Shamsayil Saraliyev, who is a member of a parliamentary group dedicated to Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
This is quite a lot of trouble to go to for people who don’t care.
But note the ratio.
The ratio of dead exchanged is dependent mostly on who holds the ground after the battle.
A figure of 700,000 casualties will include dead, missing, POW, and all wounded. In WW2 about a quarter of allied casualties were dead. In the current unpleasantness it seems that for the Russians it’s about a third. So, say, 200k known dead. It’s the missing that we are talking about here. And the number of 48000 is DNA samples taken which only gives us a minimum level. If Ivan was in a T-72 turret at the time he went missing there may not be much to identify him with. I’m fairly sure we’ll never know the true figures. Russian historians are still arguing about WW2’s number of dead. The proposed numbers differ by millions:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Price-Victory-Armys-Casualties-Patriotic/dp/1473899648
Doubt cargo 200 has anything to do with weight. The code’s origins are probably lost to the mists of time during the Soviet invasion of Aghanistan. Cargo 300 is wounded.
– 48,000 Russian dead sounds realistic given the intensity of the fighting over the last 3 years.
The 48,000 figure is for DNA identification requests from relatives of missing personel. It does not include the number of identified dead.
Last month the Ruskies changed the rules on compensation for wounded personel. Apart from the most egregiously wounded (totally incapacitated) the compensation went down. Lots. Is that due to high numbers of wounded? A hosed economy? Both? I wonder if this extended Putin is in charge of that distribution.
– The ratio of dead exchanged is dependent mostly on who holds the ground after the battle.
Exactly. At the moment the Russians are advancing (mostly). They’ll have most of the bodies from the battles. This includes their own, and the ratio of attacker casualties to defender is almost always higher.
Rhoda, PJF – Yarp. Russians are advancing into villages and towns formerly held by the UAF. That will skew the numbers somewhat.
However,
the ratio of attacker casualties to defender is almost always higher
Not when the attackers outnumber and outgun you by as much as 10:1 in arty. Also, it’s not 1943 anymore, this war is seeing massive use of standoff weapons to attack Ukrainian (and to a lesser extent, Russian – see the constant complaints from the front that Ukraine is outgunned) positions.
When a 3000 kg satellite guided glide bomb – or a HIMARS salvo – lands on your position, it’s not the attackers who are going to die.
A figure of 700,000 casualties will include dead, missing, POW, and all wounded.
Yes, so this number – proposed by the same Western intelligence services who want you to think there’s a division sized element of North Koreans somewhere in Kursk – doesn’t stand up.
General Syrskzy estimated the initial Russian invasion force at around 100,000 men. They’ve since surged to about 500,000 men (NB – men, Russia isn’t playing at war and isn’t sending little girls to fight) .
If we believe the 700,000 casualties figure, Russia is currently regenerating military power at a rate nobody has seen since the Red Army in WW2. I don’t think that’s plausible*, and if Ukraine was inflicting those kind of casualties they would have something to show for it on the map, other than a string of failures and retreats. (And the absolute fiasco that is the Kursk offensive)
Last month the Ruskies changed the rules on compensation for wounded personel. Apart from the most egregiously wounded (totally incapacitated) the compensation went down. Lots. Is that due to high numbers of wounded? A hosed economy? Both? I wonder if this extended Putin is in charge of that distribution.
You could look at it two ways. Either Russia is running out of money (who knows, but their military budget is now much bigger than in 2022), or they no longer need to spend as much money on troops, because they’ve got plenty of recruits.
Anudder thing about the 48,000 number. I think that’s probably somewhere in the order of magnitude of likely Russian deaths so far. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual deaths are twice as much, or more. We may never know, because nobody involved in the conflict has any reason to tell the truth. Allow me to Runsfeld for a minute: we also don’t know if it refers to 48,000 unknown soldiers, or 48,000 concerned relatives:
“The ministry of internal affairs takes (DNA samples) absolutely free of charge at its own expense, and enters into its database for all the relatives who have applied to us. I’ve already said 48,000,” Ms Tsivilyova said in a video at a meeting with lawmakers.
If the latter, I doubt there’s a 1:1 ratio.
However, we do know that Ukrainian graveyards have expanded so rapidly, it can be seen from space. We also know that the US government demanded last week that Ukraine starts conscripting 18 year olds, because they’re running out of middle aged men. And we know that Ukraine is now in rapid demographic reverse, with significantly more deaths than live births.
I’m not saying this to pick on Ukraine. I’m pointing out that none of this suggests Putin’s boys are taking a terrible beating. But the daily UK Ministry of Defence briefings have informed us that the cowardly Russian orcs have suffered megadeath and possibly also AC/DC since the start of the war, while running out of shells, missiles and tanks several times. Those craven Muscovite lickspittles keep dying and retreating into territory formerly held by Ukraine. We are helping to “destroy” a Russian military that is now much bigger than it was in Feb ’22. There is only one logical explanation for this:
Putin is a necromancer.
*If you think Russia has fed 1.2 million men into this war, you have a much higher opinion of Russian military capability than I, a supposed Kremlin agent, do.
War, huh? Good God. Like I said at the start, it would have been better not to fight this one.
It’s progress, Steve.
40 years ago, (west) Germans went to bed not knowing if they would wake up in Germany or Russia.
Nowadays we go to bed knowing we will wake up in a mixture of Kinshasa, Islamabad, and Baghdad.
Mike Benz on Rogan – interesting on a lot of stuff, mostly organised internet censorship, but also on the origins of the Ukraine war, and the Bidens’ involvement in that country.
https://youtu.be/rrJhQpvlkLA?feature=shared
– Anudder thing about the 48,000 number.
And anudder (a quickie as I’m out for a few hours) – it’s for seven months.
BiG – Same in Blighty.
People might not believe this, but I don’t actually mind foreigners that much. I just mind tens of millions of them colonising my country and making it doubtful whether my children will ever be able to afford a house without taking out a 100 year mortgage.
I’m not feeling the kriegstüchtig, and I don’t think many Europeans will be eager to fight for the Current Thing either. Maybe they should have thought about that before deciding to kill our societies with immigration, while degrading the armed forces to the point where it’s a laughable daycare facility for trannies, women and foreigners, and national pride is either a joke or a hate crime.
Oh well. Better luck next civilisation.
The bad news isn’t that Russia is about to invade, the truly awful news is that they won’t. Western Europe is no longer worth conquering. It’s an open air insane asylum full of people who don’t realise how poor they are now.
PJF – good spot, thanks. I feel like I’m always trying to piece together a vague picture of what’s happening based on Kremlinology, because the media coverage of this war is abysmally poor. We know less about what’s going on in Ukraine than we knew about Iraq and Afghanistan.
Enjoy your quickie.
My immediate thought on reading this was wondering how long it would be before the DNA data was either hacked or sold.
I’m guessing it already has been.
the ratio of attacker casualties to defender is almost always higher
Not when the attackers outnumber and outgun you by as much as 10:1 in arty. Also, it’s not 1943 anymore
It’s essentially no different from WW1, WW2, Korea etc And they had all this sort of killing at a distance kit then. It’s also the story of the Battle of Waterloo. If you want to occupy territory you have to put boots on the ground. Soldiers in prepared positions are far less vulnerable than troops in motion. Russian troops advancing are stepping on land mines, getting hung up in wire & all the other delightful surprises the Ukrainians have prepared for them. And the Ukrainians will be sitting in well camouflaged trenches & fortified positions enjoying the entertainment.
Although I imagine it’s far harder to advance now than it was in previous wars. The proliferation of drones means there’s no such thing as dead ground. From your start line your adversary knows where you are. There’s no ridge or hollow you can take a breather out of the line of fire or regroup. You’re in a very unfriendly place full time.
I suspect this is why Ukraine took Russian territory in the first place. It was of no particular use to them. it gave the Russians something they had to take back & suffer the casualties of doing so. They occupied it fairly cheaply & they’re making it very expensive to recover..
BiS, exactly. Russia should have cordoned it off and not contested ground on Ukraine’s terms.
“ – Anudder thing about the 48,000 number.
And anudder (a quickie as I’m out for a few hours) – it’s for seven months.”
And what proportion of that is in the last 2 months as Russia ramped up the meat grinder assaults in anticipation of a Trump victory?
BiS –They occupied it fairly cheaply & they’re making it very expensive to recover..
Nyet, comrade. Not cheaply. Ukraine sent its five best brigades into Kursk. They control a small salient on a new northern front at the expense of defending Ukrainian positions in the Donbass. What the lads in the new Courland Pocket have experienced is not necessarily what we usually think of as “winning”.
The tone is dark, even angry.
“The situation is getting worse every day.”
“We don’t see the goal. Our land is not here.”
Almost four months after Ukrainian troops launched a lightning offensive into the Russian region of Kursk, text messages from soldiers fighting there paint a dismal picture of a battle they don’t properly understand and fear they might be losing.
Strategically, Kurk might yield big political gains if Ukraine can hold on until Russia comes to the negotiating table. But Army guy in the trenches-wise, it looks like a horrible place to be right now. There’s no natural fortifications to defend, they’re covered by Russian ISR, the pocket they’ve managed to defend so far is small enough to be a killing zone, all attempts to break out and reach deeper into Russia have been repelled.
The Ukrainians are, and I say this without taking anything back about tuberous agricultural practices, fighting with the ferocity and courage we have come to expect of them to hold on to what they have. But it’s not cheap, and Tommy’s life has never been cheap:
They speak of dire weather conditions and a chronic lack of sleep caused by Russia’s constant bombardment, which includes the use of terrifying, 3,000kg glide bombs.
They’re also in retreat, with Russian forces gradually retaking territory.
“This trend will continue,” Pavlo wrote on 26 November. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Can there be a Paul McCartney WW1 style Christmas truce? Help them to see that the people there are like you and me?
Pavlo spoke of immense fatigue, the lack of rotation and the arrival of units, made up largely of middle-aged men, brought directly from other fronts with little or no time to rest in between.
To hear soldiers complain – about their commanding officers, orders and lack of equipment – is hardly unusual. It’s what soldiers often do in difficult circumstances.
Under immense pressure from the enemy and with winter setting in, it would be surprising to hear much optimism.
But the messages we’ve received are almost uniformly bleak, suggesting that motivation is a problem.
Some questioned whether one of the operation’s initial goals – to divert Russian soldiers from Ukraine’s eastern front – had worked.
It has not worked. Luckily I don’t think that was the main goal of Operation Wacht am Rhein Part Deux tho. I reckon the main goal was political and a great success for President Zelensky, who is doing what he can to maintain the war effort, with increasingly fewer options. That was to further escalate the conflict by getting NATO directly involved in attacking Russia (long distance strikes). The predictable (if concerning) Russian response of unveiling another Dr Evil weapon was also on plan. But whatever the territorial ambitions in Kursk, those seem to have been downgraded somewhat:
The orders now, they said, were to hang onto this small sliver of Russian territory until a new US president, with new policies, arrives in the White House at the end of January.
These blokes are fighting a hard war:
“We don’t talk about missiles,” Myroslav said. “In the bunkers we talk about family and rotation. About simple things.”
For Ukraine, Russia’s slow, grinding advance in eastern Ukraine underlines the necessity of clinging on in Kursk.
In October alone, Russia was able to occupy an estimated 500 sq km of Ukrainian territory, the most it’s taken since the early days of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
By contrast, Ukraine has already lost around 40% of the territory it seized in Kursk in August.
“The key is not to capture but to hold,” Vadym said, “and we’re struggling a bit with that.”
Oh yes, and there’s the amusing Ching Chong Foolery, which is one of the most successful intel psy ops of recent times and probably a film starring Tom Hanks in future:
And despite weeks of reports suggesting that as many as 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Kursk to join the Russian counter-offensive, the soldiers we’ve been in contact have yet to encounter them.
“I haven’t seen or heard anything about Koreans, alive or dead,” Vadym responded when we asked about the reports.
The Ukrainian military has released recordings which it says are intercepts of North Korean radio communications.
Soldiers said they had been told to capture at least one North Korean prisoner, preferably with documents.
They spoke of rewards – drones or extra leave – being offered to anyone who successfully captures a North Korean soldier.
“It’s very difficult to find a Korean in the dark Kursk forest,” Pavlo noted sarcastically. “Especially if he’s not here.”
Hmm, yes, quite.
Source: Russia Today
And we know that Ukraine is now in rapid demographic reverse, with significantly more deaths than live births.
In contrast, in the infamous Gaza genocide campaign, births are *outnumbering* deaths, the Gaza population is GROWING.
– Source: Russia Today
Archshually Steve, the source is the BBC. Make of that what you will.
Got to head out again (grumpy).