Russia lost 341,500 soldiers in Ukraine, says Ukrainian General Staff
Russia has lost 341,500 soldiers in Ukraine since the start of its large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, according to the Ukrainian General Staff. This figure includes the 850 losses that Russian forces reportedly suffered during the day on Tuesday. According to the report, Russia also lost 5,682 tanks, 10,594 armored fighting vehicles, 10,662 vehicles and fuel tanks, 8,076 artillery systems, 919 multiple rocket systems, 605 air defense systems, 324 aircraft, 324 helicopters, 6,173 drones, 22 ships and boats, as well as a submarine.
These figures are obviously not verifiable, and Moscow has never detailed how many men have been engaged in Ukraine since February 2022, nor really communicated on its losses, ensuring that the estimates on this subject were largely exaggerated.
Yesterday, American intelligence services estimated the number of Russian soldiers injured or killed at 315,000 since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This estimate appears in a declassified document sent to Congress on the occasion of the visit to Washington by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, intended to convince American parliamentarians to approve new military aid to kyiv. According to the same document, which several American media reported, Russia lost 2,200 armored vehicles out of the 3,500 it possessed before the start of the war on February 24, 2022.
Around 385,000 people have enlisted in the Russian army since 1er January 2023, explained former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, number two on the Russian Security Council, on October 25. After mobilizing some 300,000 reservists from September 2022, the Russian authorities, despite significant losses in Ukraine, avoided decreeing a new mobilization. Instead, the Russian army has been carrying out a vast voluntary recruitment campaign since the spring of 2023, with a lot of advertising in the streets and on the Internet, promising particularly attractive salaries and social and banking benefits to future soldiers.
In July 2022, American and British intelligence agencies indicated that they estimated the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine since the start of the war five months earlier at around 15,000.