A declassified US intelligence report has disclosed that Russia, in its invasion of Ukraine, has suffered significant losses, with approximately 315,000 troops either killed or injured.
This staggering toll represents nearly 90% of the total deployed forces at the outset of the conflict, dealing a severe setback to Vladimir Putin's military strategies and modernization plans.
Sources familiar with the assessment highlighted that these casualties have resulted in an 18-year setback for Russia in terms of military advancements. The reported losses vastly exceed any admissions made by Russian authorities and surpass estimations of Ukrainian casualties made by Western nations.
Since its full-scale invasion in February of the previous year with 360,000 troops, Russia's inability to swiftly conquer Kyiv led to multiple recruitment drives to replenish exhausted forces on the frontline.
The reported toll of 315,000 losses accounts for roughly 87% of the initial count Russia had deployed in Ukraine. The report, however, doesn't specify if this encompasses forces later added to the conflict.
The intelligence assessment revealed that Russia had to resort to unprecedented measures to maintain its military capability, including a partial mobilization of 300,000 personnel and relaxing recruitment standards by allowing the enlistment of convicts and elderly civilians.
Putin's invasion with 3,100 tanks resulted in the loss of 2,200, leaving Russia with only 1,300 tanks in active combat. To compensate for this significant tank capacity reduction, Russia resorted to employing Soviet-era T62 tanks from the 1970s.
Despite these revelations, Russia has not officially acknowledged these losses. The last official casualty toll announced by Russia was in September 2022, reporting 5,937 deaths, a figure widely contested by Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies.
While both Moscow and Kyiv have guarded their actual battlefield losses, Western estimates suggest close to 70,000 Ukrainian casualties. However, the true figure remains elusive, as indicated by historian Yaroslav Tynchenko and volunteer Herman Shapovalenko's Book of Memory project, which confirmed 24,500 Ukrainian combat and non-combat deaths, suggesting a higher actual count.
Putin's recent decree to significantly bolster troop numbers by almost 170,000 further underscores the gravity of the situation, citing NATO's perceived aggressive actions as the rationale behind this increase, perpetuating Russia's narrative of its military operation in Ukraine. Photo by Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Wikimedia commons.