Although the exact number is a closely guarded secret by the government, many of the thousands of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine were very young, poor, and some from ethnic minorities, experts say.
The Kremlin has not commented on the issue since March 25, that is, a month and a day after the start of the conflict.
At that time, the Russian government admitted that 1,351 soldiers were killed in the fighting, while the previous official balance sheet dated March 2 recorded 498 soldiers killed.
After seven weeks of devastating fighting and several Ukrainian videos showing heavy casualties on the enemy side, the Ukrainian government estimates the death toll at 27,000. A high number, according to several Western military and analysts, that Russian assessments have been greatly underestimated.
“Russia has probably suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force dispatched in February”, meaning 50,000 Russian soldiers were wounded or killed, the British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.
With the three casualties per dead rate recognized by Moscow at the beginning of February, this “special operation” would have had 12,500 Russian deaths in less than three months.
That is, very close to 15,000 Soviet deaths in the decade of the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989), which caused national trauma and the collapse of the USSR.
“We bow before our comrades-in-arms who were bravely killed in a just war for Russia,” said Vladimir Putin, in tribute he paid on May 9, Victory Day. Said.
“Irreparable Loss”
Explaining a series of measures to help the families of the wounded and dead, he added, “The death of every soldier or officer is a sorrow for us and an irreparable loss for our loved ones.”
The Russian-speaking website Mediazona reported that as of May 6, it had only confirmed 2,099 Russian soldiers killed in the fighting, from open sources. He stressed that most of them are between the ages of 21 and 23, and 74 of them are not even 20 years old.
Few of them live in Moscow or St., two cities richer than the Russian average. Coming from St. Petersburg.
According to the same source, most of the dead come from southern Russia, particularly the Muslim-majority North Caucasus region and central Siberia.
The highest death toll (135) was confirmed among soldiers from the Muslim region of the North Caucasus, Dagestan, followed by Buryati (98), a Mongolian minority from the Siberian province of Buryatia.
In an interview with AFP in Zaporizhzhia (southern Ukraine) in April, after living more than a month with the occupation and bombings in Mariupol, Dmitro spoke of the “three waves” slums in his city.
According to this doctor, who gave his statement on condition of anonymity, Buryatians who replaced pro-Russian separatists in Donbass “looted everything”, then Chechens are guilty of “manhunt”.
“Most of the army’s soldiers and infantry officers come from small towns and villages in Russia. It’s about socio-economic (…) and educational stratification,” Pavel Luzin, a commentator on the online information site Riddle, told AFP. Russia.
Heroism
This is because, he explains, “military service requirements in this armed force are relatively low.”
The best soldiers and future officers prefer other forces such as “aviation, strategic ballistic forces and the Navy”.
In Dagestan, one of Russia’s poorest regions, devastated by an Islamic uprising for years, local and social media are rife with images of grieving parents receiving condolences from the authorities.
The head of Dagestan’s Buinakski district, Kamil Iziiev, posted a video on the Telegram network in May, distributing awards received by widows and Muslim veil-wearing mothers to the families of five soldiers killed at the front.
The first Russian soldier officially confirmed by Russia was Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a young Dagestanian who died while rescuing his comrades, according to state media.
On March 4, he was awarded the Order of Heroes of Russia by Vladimir Putin.
On this occasion, the Russian president praised the performance of ethnic minorities in Ukraine and was “proud to belong to this world, this strong, powerful and multinational people, namely Russia”.
source: Noticias
