The average life expectancy for a Russian soldier in Ukraine is between 20-30 minutes, CIA director John Ratcliffe said. Speaking at a defense summit in Pennsylvania, he attributed the deadly conditions for Vladimir Putin’s forces to Ukraine’s combat drones equipped with AI. “What I would say is, our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine,” Ratcliffe said. “So the average life expectancy of a Russian recruit, right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.” “And that’s because AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialized, low-cost killing machines. And it’s why we’re now four and a half years into that conflict,” Ratcliffe added. Ukraine said this month that Russia has lost about 1.4 million soldiers since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, with over 1,000 of the Kremlin’s troops killed or wounded almost every day. In May, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it was killing roughly 200 Russian soldiers for every kilometer of territory that Moscow claimed.
What makes you think they’re pushing 10k people past their trenches at all times?
This statement is about the battlefield. The area between fortifications. Given a M777 howitzer has a range of 21-40 km based on type of shell.
If we go by the most extreme expectations, then the battlefield will be at least 10 kms wide - As both sides will keep artillery a bit further back to protect them against enemy artillery fire.
To get the expert infantry badge in the US army, a soldier needs to be able to march with full equipment at 6.33 km an hour. It’s fair to assume the Russian soldiers running into their death aren’t spotting full equipment. So if we’re setting it a bit high they might be able to move 5 km during the 30 minute expected kill time.
The numbers are similar for the other side of this fight. It means the only way to push the battle lines is by using equipment
I believed the battlefield included trenches as well. Is that not the case?
I would assume fortified positions do not count as battlefield