At least 30,000 injuries were recorded among the Wagner group (photo illustration).
© YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP
The United States released figures on the death toll among Russian troops, including Wagner soldiers. According to the Pentagon, 9,000 mercenaries from the paramilitary group Wagner have lost their lives on the front lines since the start of the war in Ukraine, which started on February 24, 2022. In total, 30,000 victims are to be counted in the ranks of the Wagner group. However, these figures have not been confirmed by the Kremlin. According to the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, John Kirby, half of these soldiers have died since mid-December.
The end of the recruitment of Russian prisoners
These men killed at the front are mostly former prisoners recruited from Russian prisons. John Kirby thus estimated that the private paramilitary group continued to recruit mercenaries to constitute its troops. What contradict the announcements of the head of the Wagner group. Evguéni Prigojine had indicated, on February 9 in a press release, the cessation of the recruitment of detainees for the paramilitary organization.
In a video broadcast on Telegram, the militia leader more recently considered that this decision nevertheless constituted a “bleeding” for the paramilitary group. “At some point, the number of units will drop and consequently the volume of tasks we want to perform”warned Yevgeny Prigojine this week.
Bakhmout in Russian hands in “March or April”
He also announced his ambitions to capture Bakhmout, the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. For Yevgeny Prigojine, this land will not be conquered by Moscow before “March or April”due to “monstrous military bureaucracy”, which slows the advance of the Russian army. He finally called “cut off all supply routes” in Ukraine.
