Calculating net losses
Did the Russian and Ukrainian armies grow or shrink in 2025? WhiteRex killed. Diplomatic machinations
Just a few hours ago, one of the main characters of this substack was killed.
Denis Kapustin, aka White Rex, leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a unit of Russian neo-nazis created by Ukrainian military intelligence. The RDK announced it on their social media, claiming that he was killed by a Russian FPV drone on the frontlines of the Zaporizhzhia oblast.
Kapustin was quite an important figure in the global neo-nazi scene. As a child, he received a visa to move from Russia to Germany. A rather special visa — for those of Jewish descent. This didn’t stop him from opening a white nationalist merchandise network called ‘White Rex’, which also became his nickname. Eventually wanted for violent crimes in both the EU and Russia, he found a welcome home in Ukraine. After 2022, Ukraine’s military intelligence gathered the motley crew of Russian neo-nazis around Nikitin to create the Russian Volunteer Corps.
Nikitin’s strategy of opening MMA fight clubs for racially conscious whites only has become popular for neo-nazis around the world. Nikitin and his Russian emigre friends in Ukraine also played a major role in glorifying the 2019 Christchurch massacre, translating the racist manifesto into Russian numerous times.
Nikitin also played a direct role in aiding neo-nazi forces as far away as the southern hemisphere. Australian media was already writing in 2021 of Nikitin’s influential role and even direct involvement in organizing Australia’s ‘National Socialist Network’, which nowadays is becoming more and more visible.
But what is the true significance of White Rex’s death?
So far quite little information is available about what happened. It surprised many that he was killed to begin with. I’ve seen some people speculating that Nikitin was killed in some sort of intra-Ukrainian warfare.
Some have even wondered whether Nikitin’s death is Zelensky getting rid of forces most opposed to an end to the war. Nikitin and his friends in the RDK have often said in interviews that they don’t even want to think about an end to the war.
Many in the RDK lack Ukrainian citizenship, but obviously cannot return to Russia. In the 2014-22 period, some Russian nazi emigres that came to Ukraine and are now in the RDK were even arrested and tortured as Russian spies. They are now fighting in the RDK. A peace deal with Russia could sacrifice them, extraditing them as part of a compromise.
One might even connect Nikitin’s death to the recent killing by Russian law enforcement of the Russian ultra-nationalist militia leader Stanislav Orlov, which I covered earlier in the week. Are both Ukraine and Russia killing off forces that might be opposed to peace?
But honestly, I think it’s a stretch. Nikitin and Orlov, despite all the PR support they have received at various times, are ultimately small fry. They exist to funnel violent football hooligans into the war machines of the two respective countries. Nikitin always wanted to die in battle as a true Aryan warrior, and now his wish came true.
Nikitin’s RDK has in fact lost a number of troops to frontline fighting in recent weeks. One week ago, RDK media put out obituaries for a number of its fighters.
All these posts came the same day. Such losses are significant, and even unexpected.
According to Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shariy, Nikitin died fighting for the southern town of Huliaipole. I’ll cover the situation there tomorrow, but what’s important is that the city is now essentially lost to the Russians. The RDK was chucked in to try and salvage a disastrous situation.
Things are clearly bad at the frontlines if the likes of the RDK are being thrown into dangerous assault missions. There clearly just isn’t enough dispensable infantry left. Now it’s up to the RDK, which was originally intended as a psywar tool to undermine Russian society, rather than an infantry assault unit.
An ignominious fate for the RDK. This is a very well-funded unit, with support from powerful Russian (-Israeli) oligarchs like Leonid Nevzlin. The RDK is one of the star units of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), and its leaders constantly go on interviews, playing the part of the fearless special op superhero.
It is particularly amusing that Ukraine’s supposedly liberal media has massively glorified Nikitin, releasing multiple long interviews with him this year. Publications like Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske and Bukvu, which portray themselves as left-liberal publications criticizing authoritarianism and rightwing conservativism, have all put out gushing obituaries for this ‘hero’. This is a man who constantly glorifies mass murder against racial enemies.
Anyway, back to the theory that Nikitin was removed in order to prepare for a peace deal.
To begin with, if there was to be any sort of ‘nationalist coup against peace’, it would be absurd for a Russian to lead it. If Zelensky were really serious about crushing the nationalists, he would be focusing on the Ukrainians, not the Russians whose only purpose, one they whole-heartedly embrace, is to wage psywar against Russia.
I’ve already made it clear elsewhere why I think any nationalist coup in Ukraine would not be against peace, but would actually support it. That’s as long as peacetime continues to give the nationalists the right to kill and imprison those they disagree with, that is. But generally, they think that a ceasefire is quite necessary to save the Ukrainian army and state. Some nationalists even harshly criticize Ukrainian liberals and Zelensky for their dogged support of self-destructive forever-war.
In a December 23 interview, leader of Ukraine’s fascist Azov movement Andriy Biletsky said that joining NATO shouldn’t be a priority. Biletsky is commander of the Third Corps, called by western media Ukraine’s most effective unit. It is set to rise to 50,000 servicemen. The RDK came out of the Azov community, though it was not formally in the Third Corps.
Biletsky explained that NATO won’t defend Ukraine anyway:
I don’t really believe in Article 5 of NATO. Especially in the application of Article 5 to a country [in NATO - EIU]- how will it work, who guarantees it. Moreover, no one wants to read the Fifth Article. There, each country determines the volume and nature of assistance in the event of an attack on another NATO country. It is a myth that this is an article that forces all NATO countries to declare war, for example, on a country that attacked a NATO country
Instead of NATO, Biletsky calls on improving the Ukrainian army.
This is hardly something new from Biletsky. But since Ukraine’s NATO membership is Russia’s main issue in the peace talks besides territory (arguably more important than territory), this shows that the likes of Biletsky should hardly be seen as the main forces opposed to an end to the war. Biletsky has said many times now that he thinks a ceasefire is necessary to modernize the Ukrainian army (ie, put him in charge of it).
Peace? Again?
Back to the supposed grand peace deal imminent. Zelensky fanned the flames of the peace-hungry commentariat by his statement yesterday:
We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level – with President Trump – in the near future. A lot can be decided before the New Year.
And on the 24th, Ukraine gave Trump its version of the peace proposal the Americans had come up with.
I won’t go into the Ukrainian proposal in detail. It’s all one long groundhog day. All this has happened many times before.
Trump comes up with some ‘compromise deal’ that Kyiv hates. Western media then claims on good authority that Putin personally whispered this plan into Trump’s trembling ear.
In fact, the American compromise deals are generally rather unlikely to be accepted by Moscow, given that they tend to demand Russia give up its claims on the Donbass. They also tend to leave the question of Ukraine’s relationship to NATO fairly unresolved.
But as usual, the Ukrainian response is then always to come up with a ‘Ukrainian proposal’ which Russia is certain to reject. The Ukrainians hope to accuse Moscow of ‘ruining negotiations’, and thereby get onto Trump’s good side. This doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t matter. The main Ukro-European goal is simply to continue the war.
For instance, Zelensky’s latest peace proposal contains the following ‘compromise’ on the territorial question, as the NYT sums it up:
Mr. Zelensky’s offer of a demilitarized zone came with a condition: Russia would have to pull its forces from an equivalent stretch of land in Donetsk. So far, the Kremlin has given no indication that it is willing to accept anything less than full control over the region.
Western media isn’t blind to what’s happening either. The NYT wrote on the 24th that ‘The compromises offered by Ukraine on territorial arrangements and control of the nuclear plant are likely to be rejected by Russia.’
Julian Roepcke, Bild’s Ukraine war correspondent, replied in typical German bluntness to a Ukrainian propagandist’s groan-inducing use of the ‘ball in Putin’s court’ phrase:
Even western ‘Russia watchers’ like Mark Galeotti are wondering whether Zelensky is really merely aiming to drag out negotiations forever, if not to torpedo them.
Yes, Mark, that is the strategy. Don’t like it? Why not move to Russia? You can criticize the leader of the free world as much as you like on the Red Square!
‘Pro-Ukrainian’ X users reminded Galeotti that this is indeed a fantastic strategy. After all, Ukraine will be able to use these months of negotiations to score more victories on the battlefield!
Galeotti’s repugnant questioning of Zelensky’s wisdom earned him almost 200 enraged replies from a range of extremely brave anglo commentators who I am sure have spent many months in the trenches of the Donbass.
I left out the countless other gems, like those accusing Mr Galeotti of being on the side of ‘#pedoputler’.
Other Ukrainian politicians confirm Galeotti’s dastardly suppositions. On December 7, the influential MP and security official Roman Kostenko told Ukrainian television that the negotiations strategy must be one of playing for time:
I believe that it was absolutely necessary for us to drag things out as much as possible and improve our positions. Otherwise, we would simply be forced into something we do not deserve as a nation
He also noted that Americans place great importance on the battle for Pokrovsk: “for them, Pokrovsk is a case of otherwise we lose the entire Donbass.” Kostenko claimed that the Americans say that “if Pokrovsk falls, the war is lost”. Kostenko represents Ukraine’s most pro-western militarists, a representative of the ultra-atlanticist Holos party. His status as the secretary of the parliamentary national security and defense committee also warrants attention to his words.
As I’ve covered at length, Ukraine is indeed desperately holding onto Pokrovsk and the nearby Myrnohrad, despite losses and the increasingly desperate encirclements of Ukrainian forces there. But American perceptions are what really matter.
In a December 24 post, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) also released new footage of the (in)famous GUR raid on Pokrovsk in November. At the time, a number of videos emerged seeming to show the destruction of GUR special forces personnel in what seemed like a very miscalculated helicopter raid.
But not to worry, it looked good on the internet. GUR leader Kyryllo Budanov told a television reporter how the raid changed public perceptions of Pokrovsk:
We were able to gain precious time so that the main units of the Armed Forces could come to reinforce the city, so to speak. After that, everyone stopped saying that the city was taken,
Of course, in reality, Pokrovsk is now firmly under Russian control. This is even admitted by Ukrainian resources like DeepState.
As usual, the focus is PR, PR, and more PR.
Anyway, Zelensky has been quite forthright about his strategy recently. For his Christmas address, he declared that ‘All Ukrainians have one wish: for him to die’.
Him, of course, being Putler. The Ukrainian strategy of fighting an unwinnable war until Russia collapses for certain ineffable reasons continues.
While they wait, there’s plenty of propaganda to watch. Ukraine’s widely derided telemarathon recently received another 100 million hryvnia ($2.3 million USD) in funding. And that’s just to last for the rest of 2025.
Losses and recruitment
Both Russia and Ukraine are betting on attrition, though Kiev supplements this with a hope that Russia will randomly implode. Naturally, attrition is all about numbers. So just how many troops did Russia and Ukraine lose this year, taking into account KIA, WIA, and desertions? And how many troops did each country recruit? Did the two armies grow or shrink this year, and how much?
