Up to 75,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured in Ukraine since the conflict with Moscow erupted in late February, White House officials who briefed lawmakers in a classified meeting have claimed.
If correct, this means half of the Russian troops who were dispatched to fight the war in Ukraine have reportedly died or been injured.
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According to the briefing, the United States believes that more than 80% of Putin’s land forces are “bogged down and exhausted.” Pentagon officials have stated that losing even 10% of a military force to illness or death renders a single unit practically ineffective in combat.
The information was released a week after CIA Director William Burns estimated that 15,000 Russian soldiers had died and 45,000 had likely been injured; according to military custom, the number of wounded people outweighs death tolls three to one.
Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin stated to CNN news in America: “We were briefed that over 75,000 Russians have either been killed or wounded, which is huge, you’ve got incredible amounts of investment in their land forces, over 80% of their land forces are bogged down, and they’re tired.”
In recent weeks, The Kremlin has not provided an update on the number of deaths and injuries, and has dismissed the estimates as overblown, with Russia’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling it a “hoax.” He stated, “In our time, even the most respectable publications do not shy away from disseminating all sorts of hoaxes: This is sadly happening too often.”
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However, according to many top analysts such casualties would help to explain why Russia’s advance in the Donbas has been so sluggish, why so many soldiers are refusing to fight, and why Russia is now forced to rely on new recruits. Many experts have dubbed the war as being one of the most deadly conflicts in the history of Europe.
Paul Poast, an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, noted the following in his analysis of the news: “You are talking about an exceptionally deadly war.” According to his estimate, between 15,000 and 20,000 Russian soldiers have died, which is roughly in line with Western estimates of a 3:1 ratio of injuries to lives lost.
A US official also said last week that the dead may include “thousands” of lieutenants, captains, and “hundreds” of colonels. If the newly revealed classified data is accurate, the conflict in Ukraine would rank as the second-worst global conflict since World War II in terms of casualties.
Despite the revelations, US officials have cautioned that casualty estimates for the militaries on both sides in Ukraine are highly speculative.
Although the CIA director just last week estimated that 60,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or injured, they frequently provide ranges rather than precise numbers. Some estimates put the number of casualties as slightly elevated as 80,000.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, provided a different estimate of the number of fatalities on Tuesday, saying that 40,000 Russians have perished and tens of thousands more have been injured so far in the conflict.
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