(NationRise.com) – The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said on October 31 that Russia has lost 300,810 soldiers since the Kremlin decided to invade Ukraine in February 2022. In a statement, the general staff added that 870 Russian troops were killed last week, as the armed conflict remains ongoing and shows no sign of diminishing during the winter months.
Following the statement’s release, independent analysts said that while it’s difficult to determine the real number of Russian casualties during the war, the Russian military has sustained significant losses of equipment and personnel. They also pointed out that Kyiv and Moscow tend to benefit themselves by inflating the other’s reported losses.
According to Hague Center for Strategic Studies analyst Frederik Mertens, it’s “quite believable” that Russia has lost over 300,000 troops over the course of the invasion. He explained that open-source data and Western intelligence estimates have shown similar numbers over the last few days. He also noted these are figures that military experts would expect from an armed conflict between two “powerful adversaries” such as Ukraine and Russia.
Over the last few months, Western officials and intelligence have been updating estimates and said that both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries have lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers. In November 2022, then-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine and Russia had each lost 100,000 in the war.
According to different reports, what makes it challenging to determine the actual number of losses on the Russian side is the Kremlin’s strategy of constantly showing updates on what it says to be the “correct” casualty count. In September 2022, it claimed that less than 6,000 Russian soldiers were killed. A couple of hours later, the Ukrainian government said that the Kremlin was lying and noted that Ukrainian troops “liquidated” 55,110 Russian soldiers in that period.
According to a New York Times report, Ukraine has so far lost nearly 200,000 soldiers since the war started. The newspaper pointed out that while the Ukrainian military has achieved some victories over the last few weeks, its counteroffensive operation remains slow.
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