On the losses of Russian and Ukrainian troops
“Of all the losses — and they are approaching an estimate that can be called catastrophic in terms of personnel — their structure of these losses is unfavorable for them. Because losses, as we know today, can be sanitary, or they can be irretrievable. And usually, now I'm afraid to make a mistake, but somewhere there are irretrievable losses of 25 percent, maximum 30. They have almost 50 to 50. This is the first.
And second. If we take irretrievable losses, it is clear that the defending side suffers fewer losses, but still this ratio of 1 to 10, as they say, is in our favor: we have ten times less than the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As for armored vehicles, it is even more serious. During this time they lost over 160 tanks and over 360 armored vehicles of various types. It's just what we see."
Putin did not explain for what “this time”, but he could hardly have meant the entire time of the war: according to the Dutch military-analytical project Oryx, which counts visually confirmed losses of equipment of the RF Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukraine lost much more – 528 tanks, of which 332 were destroyed, 32 damaged, 25 abandoned and 139 captured by the enemy.
Most likely, he was talking about the June offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since immediately before that he claimed that the advancing Ukrainian troops had not achieved much success. But, according to the same Oryx, since June 4, 4 Leopard 2A4 and 2A6 tanks, 1 T-72 of an unidentified modification and 2 tanks of an unidentified model have been lost. Add to this 3 more specialized Leopard 2R mine-clearing tanks and we get a total of 10. Perhaps the real losses are somewhat higher, since Oryx counts only the equipment captured in the photo and video, but not 16 times.
There is no reliable data on the losses of personnel, but the statement about 50% of irretrievable losses among the total number of losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not look plausible. In November 2022, Israeli military expert Yigal Levin wrote :
“The medical support of the RF Armed Forces (and its proxy forces) is much worse than that of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For Russians, the ratio of killed to wounded is 1 to 3, for Ukrainians, as I noted above, it is 1 to 4-5 (1 killed for 4-5 wounded).”
CIT then, in November, estimated the ratio of the number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers to the number of those killed as 4:1. It is unlikely that during this time Ukrainian military medicine could degrade so much.
About losses in World War II
“Some things I remember exactly, for example – excuse me for digressing – that almost 70 percent of the losses, 69 percent, during the Great Patriotic War fell on the RSFSR – this is pretty accurate data. But this is a distraction. It doesn't matter how many there were, but a lot."
There are a variety of estimates of the losses of the USSR in the war – in the range from 7 million, which Joseph Stalin spoke of, to 43.3 million, according to the calculations of the historian Boris Sokolov. But most researchers call the number at 25-27 million. This opinion is shared, in particular, by the author of the reference book “Population Loss in the 20th Century” Vadim Erlikhman. According to him, the share of the RSFSR accounted for 53% of all the losses of the USSR. At the same time, the RSFSR lost 7.8% of the population, Ukraine – 16.3%, Belarus – 25.3%.
On the inclusion of Donbass in Ukraine
“Purely historically, Russian lands. Of course, there was nothing of the kind connected with Ukraine, because there was nothing. In fact, Ukraine actually emerged in 1922, and was enshrined in the Constitution. Huge Russian territories were transferred there – just like that. Moreover, I already said something, I read papers from the archive and letters: they first made a decision, in my opinion, at the congress or at the Politburo, what, say, what was it called, Krivoy Rog, in my opinion?
Remark : Donetsk.
Vladimir Putin : The Donetsk Republic, yes, that it should be part of the RSFSR. Then the Bolsheviks arrived from those territories and said: “Why are you leaving us with only peasants?” That is, with the peasants, who were considered a petty-bourgeois element. Again we returned to where to transfer the Donbass, this Krivoy Rog Republic. People from the Donbass came and said: “How is it, everything has already been decided that we are in Russia.” "Mother Russia" – they wrote. Lenin says to them: "We must reconsider." They single-handedly took it, decided it over.
The republic was actually called Donetsk-Krivoy Rog. It was created in February 1918 and lasted a little over a month. In March, it became part of the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets, which was in federal relations with Soviet Russia.
The version presented by Putin looks extremely doubtful, given the situation in Ukraine at that time. On January 27 (February 9, New Style), 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic signed an agreement with Germany and Austria-Hungary, according to which Austro-Hungarian and German troops were brought into the territory of Ukraine to liberate it from the Bolsheviks. The forces of the Central Powers were rapidly moving east, and in this situation the capture of Donbass was inevitable. Soviet Russia soberly assessed the situation and decided to avoid a military clash by abandoning the Donbass. The wishes of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks regarding the workers of Donbass and the peasants in that situation could hardly have played any significant role: the liquidation of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was in fact the surrender of it to the UNR and the German-Austrian troops.
The declaration of the creation of Ukraine in 1922 is a variation on Putin's favorite thesis that Lenin created Ukraine. In fact, Ukrainian statehood appeared shortly after the February Revolution of 1917, and even the Soviet republic in Ukraine was established already in 1918.
On the coming to power of Viktor Yushchenko
“And how did Yushchenko come to power in Ukraine? What, as a result of legitimate actions? Show how he came to power? We know. They came up with a third round of voting. What is the third round? It is not provided for by the Constitution – this is a coup d'état, but at least it took place in a relatively peaceful way.
The third round of voting is indeed not provided for by the Constitution of Ukraine. But he never was. The second round of the presidential elections that took place on November 21, 2004, and Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner, was held with gross violations. Massive falsifications were recorded. The rally of Yushchenko's supporters on Independence Square grew into a mass protest movement that went down in history as the Orange Revolution. In this situation, the Supreme Court considered the issue of the election results and concluded that it was impossible to determine the winner, since the Central Election Commission violated numerous articles of the laws on elections and on the CEC. Therefore, it was decided to cancel the results and hold the second round again. This vote, which took place on 26 December, is sometimes referred to as a third round, although legally there could be no third round.
About flying in a helicopter under fire
“All very experienced people here, especially over the past year or so, like you, who have been under bullets, consciousness is changing, I know this from myself, not like you, maybe, climbed under bullets, but since then since when he flew in a helicopter, and tracer bullets were fired at him. You see, all this changes consciousness.”
Putin visited the North Caucasus several times during the fighting. In August 1999, he, then prime minister, visited the Dagestan village of Botlikh, which had been attacked shortly before by militants under the command of Shamil Basayev and Khattab. At that time, the militants were ousted from there, and fighting with them took place in the area of the villages of Kadar, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, more than 130 km from Botlikh. It is unlikely that in that situation someone could fire at the prime minister's helicopter.
In October of the same year, he visited several military units on the territory of Chechnya and held a meeting in the village of Znamenskoye. Then he promised the military to meet the New Year in Chechnya. On New Year's Eve 1999-2000, he, then acting. President, fulfilling his promise, flew with his wife to the Chechen city of Gudermes. In March 2000, he visited Khankala, where the headquarters of the grouping of the North Caucasian Military District was located. In all these trips, he also did not approach the line of contact, and it is completely incomprehensible who and from where could fire at him.