In a full-scale war, the cost of human life is not only measured by the tears of families. These are also specific amounts from the state budget. But when it comes to a soldier, every miscalculation of the system becomes fatal. The Ukrainian state pays compensation for the deaths of servicemen, but does it do everything to reduce these deaths? And is it even capable of moving from loss compensation to warning? This question is not rhetorical. In real numbers, it looks even worse: the losses of the army are already costing the budget more than the best defense equipment that could save these lives. But this does not change the system.
Military serviceman, aerial scout, public figure, people’s deputy of the 8th convocation Ihor Lutsenko in his post on Facebook raised an extremely acute and, at the same time, practical topic: the economic expediency of the state’s investment in saving the lives of military personnel — primarily UAV operators working in the “yellow” and “green” combat zones. He calculates that the death of one serviceman at the front costs the Ukrainian budget at least 15 million hryvnias, which is approximately 360,000 US dollars. This amount is a purely material measure of the loss, not taking into account the moral, human cost.
Lutsenko offers to consider a specific situation — a routine task for the mobility of the UAV crew, whether reconnaissance or strike. He emphasizes: we are not yet talking about the so-called “red zone”, where the most powerful armor is needed, but about the “yellow” and “green” zones, where the crew can be located and work. He names the main factors of damage in these conditions: hitting FPV drones with a cumulative or fragmentation warhead, detonation by a mine (set by both the enemy and our own forces), shelling from artillery, or collisions with DRGs that can open fire with small arms.
He notes that Ukrainian armored vehicles such as Kozak or Varta, which are equipped with anti-drone screens, are able to protect the crew from most of these threats. Next, Lutsenko turns to mathematical analysis. Suppose the crew consists of 4 people. If two of them die when a vehicle is hit by fire, that is a loss to the state of 720,000 dollars. He then compares this to the cost of the respective machines:
- “Varta” — 400,000 dollars,
- “Cossack” — 200,000 dollars,
- “Novator” — 300,000 dollars
That is, investments in these machines account for approximately 30–50% of possible budget losses in the event of the death of military personnel. It is profitable. Especially since “Varta” is declared to have a fairly high level of protection against powerful mines. If you take foreign machines with a high level of protection (M-ATV, Cougar, RG-31, VAB, RG-33), each of them costs about 600–700 thousand. dollars But even such equipment does not exceed the potential losses to the budget in the event of the loss of the UAV crew. Therefore, in his opinion, even the most expensive armored vehicles are an economically viable investment: if you lose it, you lose metal, but you save life. And today we have both the loss of metal and the loss of people.
Lutsenko directly writes:
“War is mathematics, cynical statistics, but in this cynicism there is a chance for us. With numbers in hand, we can show how to spend money.
Perhaps someone did not understand – we are already paying these colossal payments for the deaths of infantrymen, tankers, UAVs, gunners, because we do not invest enough funds in the prevention of budget losses due to the deaths of servicemen.”
He calls to count, to show with numbers that investments in defense are cheaper than compensations for death.
He then states a sad reality: UAV crews rarely get new cars from the state for moving in dangerous areas. Mostly, they drive old SUVs provided by volunteers. These cars have neither armor, nor mine protection, nor rudimentary protection against fragmentation munitions, not to mention FPV drones. Even the minimum car protection costs up to 50,000. dollars is very little on the scale of the budget, but a cosmic amount for the fighters themselves, who are forced to collect this money on their own.
Lutsenko emphasizes: this is just one example, and there are dozens of such. And he adds that soldiers, each of whom “costs” the state 15 million in the event of death, should not ride on $5,000-$7,000 worth of rickshaws, with protection in the form of a $500 plastic bottle or water pump. There is no logic in this – neither moral nor even immoral. There is simply no logic.
He concludes: there is money in the budget. But the system is built in such a way that managers bear little responsibility for losses, including financial ones. And that is why it is easier and easier to pay millions to widows than to go through the complicated procedure of purchasing high-quality equipment in advance.
He concludes his post by saying:
“There is no explanation for this.”
