The White House announced on Monday (May 1) that more than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded in the war in Ukraine since December 2022. (More than 20,000 Russian soldiers were killed on the battlefield and 80,000 others were wounded.)
Meanwhile, General Mark Milley, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (a US Army General), said that there is more than 100,000 dead or wounded in the first eight months of the war in Russia. New reports show that Russian casualties have risen dramatically in recent months.
John Kirby, the National Security Council of the White House spokesman, said that Russia’s military attack on Ukraine had a heavy cost for Moscow.
“Russia’s attempt to capture Ukraine, especially Bakhmut, was expensive for Russia. After several months of fighting and extraordinary losses, Russia has had the opposite result. We estimate that since December, 100000 Russians dead and wounded. Including more than 20,000 people died on the battlefield.
Nearly half of the casualties were from Wagner’s forces, Kirby added. The Russian casualties for the capture of Bakhmut compare to some of the heaviest periods of fighting during World War II.
Daniel L. Davis, a senior American defence and military expert, considers the casualties on both sides of the war high. He says: “This is a difficult estimate. Russian casualties in Ukraine are very high, at the same time Russia has exerted heavy casualties on Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut.”
Meanwhile, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, a Ukrainian ground Military officer, said that Russia continues to make efforts to capture Bakhmut, but so far it has failed.
This is while the White House attempted several times to highlight Russia’s human and weapon costs in Bakhmut.
However, some analysts believe that control of Bakhmut could help Russia’s efforts to advance on the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region.
Russian officials have not commented on the White House’s claims yet.
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