How many Russians are fighting in Ukraine?

POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Friday, October 3, 2025 13:52
VIEWED: 4413
PAGE 1 of 2

Quote:

---

...Sustaining the operation in Ukraine and on its borders has, however, required the mobilisation of units across the breadth of Russia, according to a new assessment by Dr Igor Sutyagin, of the Royal United Services Institute.

He believes 90,000 troops were required in late 2014 to provide deployments around Ukraine, inside its eastern (rebel held) districts and in Crimea.

This effort has been so great, he argues, that, "it is obvious that there insufficient resources... to sustain military operations at the current level for over a year".

This intervention evolved in several phases:

-initially deniable, in the summer of 2014, with perhaps a few hundred special forces organising locals and Russian volunteers

-large-scale escalation, during August 2014, when several Russian regular army battalion tactical groups (numbering up to 1,000 each) were sent in to save the separatists from defeat by the Ukrainian military

-a period of withdrawal and retrenchment, late in 2014, following September's Minsk ceasefire agreement, in which Russian troop numbers dropped

-the reintroduction of several formed battalions and numerous specialist troops during renewed fighting, this January and February, allowing the capture of Debaltseve and a good deal of other territory from the Ukrainians


A journalist from the Russian newspaper Kommersant met several young Russian soldiers in Debaltseve who told him they had come from the same mechanised infantry unit after commanders appealed for volunteers.

"Their commanders did not oppose their going," the journalist reported, "on the contrary, they welcomed their enthusiasm, explaining to the soldiers why it was necessary for them to go to those very areas to protect their homeland."

Another Russian paper, Novaya Gazeta, interviewed a badly burned tank crewman in Donetsk hospital who said he had been serving with the 5th Independent Tank Brigade in Siberia when ordered on "exercises", which all the soldiers involved had understood meant they were deploying to eastern Ukraine.

Since last August, when the scale of this increased considerably, the Russian Soldiers' Mothers Committee and other human rights groups have published details of dead soldiers being returned for burial in Russia.

Open Russia, a group funded by Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has compiled evidence of 276 Russian soldiers killed there up to late January.

Dr Sutyagin says this is a considerable underestimate and the total is nearer to 800.


During the August fighting, entire Russian units were sent across, a necessity perhaps in view of the crisis faced by separatist forces, but one that produced some tell-tale evidence.

Ten paratroopers from the 331st Guards Airborne Regiment, usually based at Kostroma in Russia, for example, were captured together by the Ukrainian military inside their country.

And in Pskov, home of another airborne unit, several corpses were returned together for burial.

When Russian forces drew down a couple of months later, I was told by a senior Nato official that as few as 1,000 remained in eastern Ukraine.

It was then, evidence suggests, that the Russian army determined a change in the way it would use force across the border, forming composite units of volunteers that would be exercised together so they attained the necessary military slickness, but would come from a variety of garrisons and units so their identity would be harder to prove.

---

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31794523

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Quote:

---

...Sustaining the operation in Ukraine and on its borders has, however, required the mobilisation of units across the breadth of Russia, according to a new assessment by Dr Igor Sutyagin, of the Royal United Services Institute.

He believes 90,000 [not even an allegation, a belief] troops were required in late 2014 to provide deployments around Ukraine [not in Ukraine], inside its eastern (rebel held) districts and in Crimea.

This effort has been so great, he argues, that, "it is obvious that there insufficient resources... to sustain military operations at the current level for over a year".

---

BELIEFS, OPINIONS, ALLEGATIONS

Quote:

---

This intervention evolved in several phases:

-initially deniable, in the summer of 2014, with perhaps a few hundred special forces organising locals and Russian volunteers

---

ALLEGATION.
EVIDENCE?

Quote:

---

-large-scale escalation, during August 2014, when several Russian regular army battalion tactical groups (numbering up to 1,000 each) were sent in to save the separatists from defeat by the Ukrainian military

---

ALLEGATION.
EVIDENCE?

Quote:

---

-a period of withdrawal and retrenchment, late in 2014, following September's Minsk ceasefire agreement, in which Russian troop numbers dropped

---

ALLEGATION.
EVIDENCE?

Quote:

---

-the reintroduction of several formed battalions and numerous specialist troops during renewed fighting, this January and February, allowing the capture of Debaltseve and a good deal of other territory from the Ukrainians

---

ALLEGATION
EVIDENCE?

------------

Quote:

---

A journalist from the Russian newspaper Kommersant met several young Russian soldiers in Debaltseve who told him they had come from the same mechanised infantry unit after commanders appealed for volunteers.

"Their commanders did not oppose their going," the journalist reported, "on the contrary, they welcomed their enthusiasm, explaining to the soldiers why it was necessary for them to go to those very areas to protect their homeland."

---

So, a journalist confirms there were volunteers in Ukraine from the Russian armed forces. I thought we knew this already.

Quote:

---

Another Russian paper, Novaya Gazeta, interviewed a badly burned tank crewman in Donetsk hospital who said he had been serving with the 5th Independent Tank Brigade in Siberia when ordered on "exercises", which all the soldiers involved had understood meant they were deploying to eastern Ukraine.

---

A tank crewman.

Quote:

---

Since last August, when the scale of this increased considerably, the Russian Soldiers' Mothers Committee and other human rights groups have published details of dead soldiers being returned for burial in Russia.

---

How many?
LINK?

Quote:

---

Open Russia, a group funded by Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has compiled evidence of 276 Russian soldiers killed there up to late January.

---

LINK?
Khodorkovsky, a former oil oligarch, was jailed in Russia for economic crimes. According to The Guardian

Quote:

---

When Putin came to power in 2000, he offered an informal deal to Russia's oligarchs – they could keep their wealth but they were not to dabble in politics. Khodorkovsky broke the deal. Keen to turn his company, Yukos, into a modern, international business [which controls the politics of its home state?] he made allegations of corruption in the Kremlin and funded opposition political parties

---

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/mikhail-khodorkovsky-free
d-putin-pardon-russia He was released in late 2013 and hasn't been in Russia since. Apparently, we dislike oligarchs expect when they're OUR oligarchs, and then they're "businessmen"!
TAINTED SOURCE, NO LINK

Quote:

---

Dr Sutyagin says this is a considerable underestimate and the total is nearer to 800.

---

ALLEGATION.
EVIDENCE?
LINKS?

Quote:

---

During the August fighting, entire Russian units were sent across, a necessity perhaps in

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME