Russia has lost between 70,000 and 80,000 soldiers killed and wounded in the war against Ukraine, US Deputy Defense Secretary Colin Kahl said on Monday. Russian troops invaded Ukraine 166 days ago, triggering the largest land conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. Ukrainian General Staff he guessed, that Ukrainian forces have killed 42,340 Russian soldiers since the beginning of the war. Russia has not reported any of its losses for many months.
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Claims by hostile parties about losses inflicted on the enemy cannot be verified from independent sources under the conditions of a combat conflict.
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The captured territory in the east of Ukraine was “extremely expensive” for the Russian army, Kahl noted, according to the Reutes agency. He attributed the result partly to how well the Ukrainian army is doing, and partly to military aid from the West.
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According to a Pentagon representative, the situation on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas has stabilized, and the focus of the fighting is shifting to the south of Ukraine, where Russian troops are defending territorial gains in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions from the beginning of the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not achieved any of his goals in Ukraine, even at the cost of significant losses, and Russian soldiers are demoralized, Kahl added, according to the BBC.
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The BBC said on its Russian-language website that it had found out from open sources the names of 5,424 Russian soldiers and officers killed in Ukraine, including 33 colonels and four generals. The BBC added that it relies only on confirmed data, so the collected data does not correspond to the real level of Russian losses, which is also confirmed by a visit to Russian cemeteries – every week there are more graves of soldiers whose death and burial are not reported by local authorities, the media or social networks. There are usually as many or more of these “private” funerals than publicly announced ones.
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From verified data, according to the BBC, it is clear that 18 percent of the confirmed losses are officers, a fifth are paratroopers and another fifth are soldiers of motorized rifle units. The brunt of Russia’s attacks now rests on units of “volunteers” on short-term contracts with the army who have gone to the front after minimal training.
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