Former commander of the wounded evacuation unit Alexey Zhilyaev, who deserted and went to Europe, handed over to journalists from «Radio Liberty»* a database of the Main Military Medical Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (GVMU), which contains records of 166 thousand hospitalized from January 2022 to June 2024.
In many cases, the database contains not only personal data but also military unit numbers and division names (from PMC to GRU), ranks, severity and dates of injuries, admission to the hospital and discharge from it, personal tag numbers.
The database contains data on severe injuries for 3205 people, minor injuries for 63821 people, and moderate injuries for 37567 people.
In field hospitals, everything is recorded clearly: what injuries a person has, that's what they write. But in stationary hospitals, the severity is sometimes understated. This is done, firstly, to return the wounded to the front faster, and secondly, because of insurance payments, which have now become differentiated.
As journalists note, the total number of wounded cannot be determined from this database: it does not include cases when soldiers are returned to the front after short treatment of minor injuries.
If you compare the ratio of wounded officers of all ranks and privates over the time covered by the GVMU database, the problem faced by the Russian army at the beginning of the war becomes clear: officers, primarily lieutenants, were forced to be on the front line with their units until communication was established. Only in August 2022 did the number of wounded officers begin to decrease.
The database also tracks periods of sharp increases in the number of wounded during Russian offensives: starting with the very first, on Kyiv, continuing with the spring offensive in Donbas, when Russia consolidated its forces there, transferred from the northeast of Ukraine, and ending with the «meat assaults» on Avdiivka and Bakhmut.
As the publication notes, the stable number of severely wounded draws attention. Senior Research Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Dara Massicot believes that this indicates that the Russian army has not been able to seriously improve the wounded evacuation system during the war. «Military personnel who receive severe shrapnel wounds or, for example, lose limbs due to mines, artillery, or drones, simply do not survive», — she noted. «During evacuation, a severe 300th — is almost always a 200th», — confirms her conclusions Alexey Zhilyaev.
He also notes the connections between arms supplies to Ukraine and the number and nature of injuries of Russian military personnel. The sharp increase at the end of autumn 2023 in the number of military personnel admitted to hospitals with moderate injuries against the backdrop of a decrease in the number of minor injuries Alexey Zhilyaev associates with the fact that due to delays in American arms supplies, Ukraine began to use FPV drones even more.
The only type of injury with which a soldier will definitely not be returned to the front — is limb amputation, notes Zhilyaev. The GVMU database contains more than 3200 diagnoses containing the word «amputation». At the same time, amputations — are a good example of distorting the severity of injuries in the database. Many cases of limb amputations have the «severity» column marked as «minor» — contrary to the legally established list of minor injuries, wounds, and concussions.
In the period from November to March 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, the number of mental disorders and burns increased in the Ministry of Defense hospitals. 58 people have a note about a suicide attempt in the «diagnosis» column. In the case of burns, a particularly strong surge is noticeable at the junction of 2023 and 2024 — however, it should be noted that by this time the total number of Russian troops in the combat zone had increased compared to the beginning of the war.
During the time covered by the GVMU database, from February 2022 to mid-June 2024, the age of the wounded increased by a third, from 28 to 36 years. A slight decrease in the average age is observed at the beginning of 2023, but after that, it starts to rise again and gradually reaches record values for the entire period covered by the database. The increase in numbers affected the oldest category of wounded the most — 50+. In March 2022, these people made up just over 1.3% of all the wounded, in April 2024 their number exceeded 11%. A sharp jump occurred at the junction of 2023 and 2024: if in December 2023, 336 people over the age of 50 were treated in the Ministry of Defense hospitals, then in January 2024 there were already 634, and in March — 835.
The GVMU database also confirms significant losses of elite units of the Russian army. The leader in this indicator among airborne troops units is the 76th Guards Air Assault Division from Pskov. The database contains information about more than 2400 wounded military personnel from all three formations included in the 76th division.
* Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent» and «undesirable» organization.
Photo: RIA Novosti