Since the discussion about the allegiance of the RVC / FoRL troops seem to hit a dead end, I suggest to look at this question from a different angle. This question is part of the [Red Lines in Ukraine](https://www.metaculus.com/project/red-lines/), whose goal is to find **early-warning indicators of potential Russian nuclear use**. The 22 May incident sparked some significant reaction from the Russian political and military government: * Announcing the [counter-terrorist operation](https://ria.ru/20230522/belgorod-1873475137.html) in Belgorod oblast *...
EDIT: After today's Putin speech this prediction seems to be unrealistic. Moving to Feb-March Disclaimer: I am a Ukrainian myself, who's tracking for a long time both Ukrainian/Russian and global news closely, but I have neither political nor military background. Also I'm living in EU for the last 5 years so some of my knowledge of local situation might be incorrect. Having said that, one thing people underestimate is that there are a lot of people in Russia who are against the war **at all costs** because their relatives were injured or killed in W...
@(vitamind) I understand this formal approach but it has an underlying deficiency. We have a precedent when in 2014 "some unknown military forces" entered Donbass, and Russia formally denied their involvement for the next 8 years. Only in 2022 the Russian officials actually confirmed that there were indeed some Russian soldiers there. Similar kind of situation is here. Everybody understands that FoRL and RVC couldn't possible acquire Humvees and MRAPs on their own - they were fully supplied by AFU. But (for the sake of avoiding formal repercussions...

Now that russia started drafting civilian people on occupied territories to their ranks due to "mobilization" I wonder how this influences this question. Are mobilized people counted as military deaths or civilian?

Lowering my prediction to 6% because the russian defense ministry declared today that "the phase 1 is complete" whatever that means and that their primary intentions are to occupy the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Meaning they will move most of the forces there and likely abandon other directions

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@nextbigfuture these 2 deaths are neither police nor military. IMO they don't count towards the number mentioned in the question because the question mentions "forces" explicitly

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@Sylvain Just wondering, were the poisonings of Skripals officially recognized as usage of chemical weapons by the same criteria as described in this question?

I was also under impression that here it was meant the usage as a weapon of mass destruction - and I think this is what was meant by Biden (IIRC) when he threatened to involve NATO in case russia uses chemical weapons in Ukraine, not just targeted poisonings.

— edited by RuslanBes

@cmeinel Agreed. I would vote closing this question as ambiguous because of that.

The Russian defense ministry declared that they want to switch to Donetsk and Lugansk - meaning that they don't think they have forces to occupy any of the big cities. Their only two achievements are Mariupol which still holds and Kherson which despite presence of russian military still declares itself Ukrainian.

@Jgalt If you add 19000 russian casualties (according to the UA), this is already 40000. And we're nowhere close to the peace agreement. I'm raising my prediction to 97%

@michal_dubrawski this makes me think, ATACMS will never make it to Ukraine and instead other long-range systems will be supplied

Spokeswoman of the russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said in her [Telegram channel](https://t.me/MariaVladimirovnaZakharova/2373): > Apparently, YouTube has signed its own verdict. Save the content, transfer it to Russian platforms. And do it quickly. This could be a false threat though, it doesn't seem that Zakharova has an influence on a decision like that (she's from a completely different department) and also it's hard to tell if their threats are real or not. Just in case I raised my prediction to 75%. I think they saw no real opposition...
We're seeing the Ukraine is de-facto being recognized as the part of Europe. - Ukrainian citizens travel through EU without Foreign passport (for 1 year at least) - EU votes for freeing Ukrainian goods from taxes (again for 1 year) - Ukraine agreed with some EU countries about dropping the transit permits for transporting goods - Ukraine got intense military and financial support from EU, UK and US meaning the western countries trust the Ukrainian government to use there resources wisely, recognising that "once the weapons on Ukrainian territory we have...

@RuslanBes My current bet is 70%. Partly because they could've lied and plan to do a full-scale mobilization already in April. Partly because they might change their plans. Partly because by June they might see that this plan won't work.

30% for either this plan will work, or they won't need so many people (e.g. Ukrainian counter offensive will be be much weaker than they expected and they decide they can handle it with current forces)

@perdana according to the rules the question should resolve positively. The Spirit of Ukraine is not a person.

I'm raising my prediction on this and all related questions considerably - up to 85%. Here are the reasons. 1. Putin suffered two huge losses in the last days: a [failed operation to rescue Victor Medvedchuk](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61089039) and a [loss of the Moskva warship](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61114843). These are not the huge losses in military sense (although we'll see) but these are huge reputational losses for putin. He needs to show something as a "Revenge" or he will be perceived as a weak leader by russian peopl...
@(MaxR) Regarding the first one - there is a chain of command in this case but I believe putin could convince them to strike some Ukrainian military target far from cities, "just to make a point". In this case they would not expect the nuclear retaliation because not many people would have died and also no NATO countries would be attacked - so there would be no formal reason to retailate. And russia could present it to their people as "look, they sucked it up, we're powerful!". Putin should be able to calculate that. Regarding the second one - people...
Since there is a bump in prediction distribution because of me I'll make some explanations. I suppose the videos from RussianVolunteerCorp (RVC) are true and the intentions behind them is poking and probing Russian defense on the border. Since then Russia decided to setup minefields along the border but they haven't increased border patrols numbers. I assume the UAF will start a counteroffensive somewhere around May and it would make sense to make a serious distraction on the Russian border. RVC could enter and claim some Russian villages in Kursk or ...