Russian Casualty Figures in Georgia

A Russian general announced yesterday that in the conflict with Georgia 64 Russian soldiers died and 323 were wounded, a revision from earlier Russian statements that 74 had been killed and 170 wounded. Georgia's President Saakashvili said last week that by the "most conservative estimates" his armed forces had killed 400 Russian soldiers.

Comparing casualty figures for score keeping is a meaningless act, and we will probably never know the true cost in lives for any of the parties, military or civilian. What is interesting, though, is that the recent figures given by Russia seem to be plausible, a break from earlier practice.

Here are some possible interpretations of the numbers:

1. THEY LIE. Russia is well known for hiding their casualty figures in the Chechnya conflict. Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimated 11,000 dead and 30,000 wounded Russian soldiers in Chechnya from 1999 through 2002, compared to official Russian statements at the time of 4,705 killed (a figure 57% lower than what Mothers of Russia estimated). If the same ratio were applied to yesterday's official statements then there were really 150 Russian soldiers killed. (Obviously there is no reason to think the same ratio would be used, and for all we know the number could be much higher).

2. THEY TELL THE TRUTH. Unlike in Chechnya, Russia won a swift and decisive military victory in Georgia and is now experiencing intense diplomatic pressure from the West to withdraw. Russia is being portrayed as the bad guys, and therefore may have an incentive to truthfully or even over-report their casualty figures in order to argue that the fight was not so one-sided.

3. GEORGIA CAN'T COUNT. Enemy body counts by any army, especially one in retreat, are hardly reliable, and the Georgians certainly had incentive to overstate their effectiveness. Also, they may have counted South Ossetian militia and Russian military as the same enemy since they were fighting both, and included both in the Russian casualties.