Note: This blog post was done entirely from open source intelligence

Today, April 8, 2022, is D+43 in the Russian Invasion of the Ukraine. In addition to updating the crowd sourced Battle Damage Assessment on both sides of the conflict using the data from the Oryx website and providing an assessment on the impact of the war on both the Russian and Ukrainian forces, this article looks at interior and exterior lines.

Interior vs. Exterior Lines

Both sides are repositioning forces from near Kyiv, Ukraine to the Donbass region, in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine is operating on interior lines, which means it is a shorter distance from Kyiv to the Donbass to reposition their soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and supplies. The Russians are operating on exterior lines, which means the distance their troops and vehicles must move is much longer. My rough math has it about 850 kilometers, or 528 miles for Ukraine to move their troops and vehicles. My rough calculations say it is about 1,250 kilometers, or 776 miles, for Russia to move their troops and vehicles.

Both distances are extremely long to drive a tank or armored fighting vehicle (AFV) under their own power and expect them to be able to fight upon arrival. Most countries will either load their tanks and AFVs on rail cars or on tractor trailers to move them most of the distance. This saves wear and tear on the tanks and AFVs. However they get to the new front, it will take time — time to drive the tanks and AFVs directly and then do maintenance on them before sending them into the fight or time to load them on trucks or railcars and then unload them from trucks or railcars.

In short, it is going to take time to reposition forces from Kyiv to the eastern front, although it should take less time for Ukraine.

Current Situation

Here is Jomini of the West’s (Twitter @JominiW) map of the current situation (April 4, 2022). As he states “The past 24 hours saw Russian forces continue retreat from the Sumy oblast, although a small portion maintains a token Russian force. Redeployment of units from Kyiv & Sumy to Izium continues”

Crowd Sourcing Battle Damage Assessment

Russian and Ukraine forces continue to have vehicles destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured from combat. Battle Damage Assessment, or BDA, is “the estimate of damage composed of physical and functional damage assessment, as well as target system assessment, resulting from the application of lethal or nonlethal military force.” In the old days, the Battalion or Brigade Intelligence Officer had to collect reports from helicopter pilots, Air Force pilots, forward observers, and ground forces who engaged the enemy. Based on these reports, the Intelligence Officer would make an assessment of how badly the enemy had been damaged from the actions of friendly forces.

Stijn Mitzer, along with Joost Oliemans, Kemal Janovsky, Dan Janovsky, and Jakub Janovsky, have taken this idea into the 21st Century. The five people are attempting to crowd source battle damage assessments in real-time from both the Russian and Ukraine armed forces during the invasion of Ukraine on The Oryx Website. The team finds photos of destroyed, abandoned, and captured vehicles and then tries to count them based on the vehicle type. They also categories them based on the vehicle being destroyed, abandoned, or captured. The team does its best to make sure that they are not counting the same vehicle twice and are updating it daily. Check it our yourself — the link to their regularly updated article is here.

Advanced BDA:

Just counting damaged, destroyed, and captured vehicles is Basic BDA. Taking the raw numbers and then assessing the impact on the invasion force is Advanced BDA. Advanced BDA helps military leaders understand the context and make better decisions.

The military uses three categories to measure the impact on enemy units: suppressed, neutralized, or destroyed. As you would expect, each of these terms has a military definition. These terms use the US Army’s Field Artillery percentages for suppressed, neutralized, or destroyed.

• Suppress is a tactical mission task that results in temporary degradation of the performance of a force or weapons system below the level needed to accomplish its mission. It is the lowest level and typically equates to 3% of a friendly or enemy unit’s equipment being destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured.

• Neutralize is a tactical mission task that results in rendering enemy personnel or materiel incapable of interfering with a particular operation. It is in the middle and usually equates to 10% of a friendly or enemy unit’s equipment being destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured.

• Destroy is a tactical mission task that physically renders an enemy force combat-ineffective until it is reconstituted. It is the highest level and usually equals to 30% of a friendly or enemy unit’s equipment being destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured.

Russian BDA (As of April 7, 2022 at 15:00 EDT the Oryx Website)

Russian forces have lost:

• 450 Losses (26 ⬆️) out of an estimated 940x T-72/80/90s Tanks — 47.9% Losses (Destroyed)

  • Average of 10.7x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day of the conflict

• 618 Losses (131 ⬆️ )out of an estimated 3,102x BMPs/BTRs/BMDs (Armored Personnel Carriers) — 19.9% Losses (Neutralized)

  • Average of 14.7x BMPs/BTRs damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day of the conflict

• 8 Losses (1 ⬆️) out of an estimated 376x Shturm-S ATGM Carriers — 2.1% Losses (No impact)

• 91 Losses (10 ⬆️ )out of an estimated 282x BAT-2s and 188x IMR-2s (Engineer Vehicles) — 19.4% Losses (Neutralized)

• 184 Losses (9 ⬆️ )out of an estimated 564x 152 mm 2S19 Msta and 564x BM-21 122mm MLRS (Field Artillery) — 16.3% Losses (Neutralized)

• 65 Losses (8 ⬆️ ) out of an estimated 564x Pantsir-S1 (SAMs) — 11.5% Losses (Neutralized)

• 133 MT-LB Losses (No Change) out of an estimated 658x MT-LB ACRV (Command and Control) — 20.2% Losses (Neutralized)

  • Average of 3.2x MT-LBs damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day of the conflict

There have not been regular updates or reports on casualties. Until there are updated reports, I will continue to provide this for some perspective:

On April 7, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had sustained "significant losses" in Ukraine. On March 21, 2022, Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, reported that according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, 9,861 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine and 16,153 were injured during the invasion. There may be an additional 10,000+ Russian soldiers captured by Ukraine as well. On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 a NATO spokesperson announced that their estimate was between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine and up to 40,000 Russian troops in total have been killed, wounded, taken prisoner or are missing.

Ukrainian BDA (As of April 7, 2022 at 1500 EDT the Oryx Website)

I believe these numbers are low since the Russian forces are not using social media and it makes it difficult for the Oryx team to crowd source the data. However, it is a good start point. So far, according to Oryx, Ukrainian forces have lost:

• 95 Losses (2 ⬆️ ) out of an estimated 630x T-64/80s Tanks — 15.1% Losses (Neutralized)

  • Average of 2.5x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day of the conflict.

• 150 Losses (No Change) out of an estimated 2,215x BMPs/BTRs/BMDs (Armored Personnel Carriers) — 6.8% Losses (Suppressed)

  • Average of 4x BMPs/BTRs damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day of the conflict.

• 60 Losses (3 ⬆️ ) out of an estimated 306x 152 mm 2S19 Msta and 306x BM-21 122mm MLRS (Field Artillery) — 9.8% Losses (Suppressed)

• 13 MT-LB Losses (No Change) out of an estimated 476x MT-LB ACRV (Command and Control) — 2.7% Losses (No Impact)

Once again, there have not been regular updates or reports on casualties. Until there are updated reports, I will continue to provide this for some perspective:

President Zelenskyy said on March 13, 2022 that over 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed (US estimates were 3,000). Remember casualties in war are killed, wounded, and captured. This would also imply that there are about 6,500 Ukrainian soldiers wounded or captured. This uses the same ratio (1 killed to 5 wounded/captured) from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. This number does not include civilian casualties. There have been no updates to Ukrainian casualties for the past 20 days.

Map Notes

To help you understand the maps better, here is a short guide to some of the symbology above the units. Russian units are in red. Ukrainian units are in green. Name of the unit is typically to the right of the symbol.

• Combined Arms Army (CAA) — Symbolized by XXXX above a unit on the map, the Army Group system was developed by the Soviets during World War II, when the echelons of corps and armies were merged together. Army Groups typically have at several motorized rifle and tank divisions and brigades; headquarters, artillery, air defense, reconnaissance, and MTO (logistics) brigades; and an engineering regiment and a NBC defense regiment. These formations have over 20,000 soldiers in them.

• Divisions — symbolized by XX above a unit on the map, these formations have about 8,500 soldiers and resemble Soviet-era divisions, with three motorized rifle regiments and one tank regiment (for a motorized rifle division (MRD)) or three tank regiments and one motorized rifle regiment (for a tank division) plus supporting units.

• Brigades — symbolized by X above a unit on the map, these formations typically have 3,000-4,500 soldiers

• Battalion Tactical Groups — symbolized by II above a unit on the map, these formations typically have 600 soldiers. See Invasion of Ukraine, D+15, SITREP for more details on the BTG.

More Information on Both the Russian Invasion Force and Ukrainian Defense Forces Can Be Found at:

Invasion of Ukraine, D+40, SITREP

Invasion of Ukraine, D+36, SITREP

BTGs, OoB, and Crowd Sourced BDA in Ukraine, D+11

Conclusion

Want even more? Reach out to me me here for a virtual talk to your group or company on the Invasion of Ukraine and its tactical and strategic implications.

I was on Tracy Wilson’s Unlocked Podcast talking about my book and how you can Grow Your Grit. Listen to the podcast here.

Use your deeper awareness of the invasion of Ukraine to go on the offensive and follow the conflict with better insight.