According to the US and UK intelligence services, about 15,000 Russians died during the five-month occupation of Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin believed had suffered far more casualties than expected.
Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6, said on Thursday that those 15,000 deaths were “probably a conservative estimate” and represented a “defeat” for Putin, who was hoping for a quick victory.
“This is almost the same number they lost in 10 years in Afghanistan in the 1980s,” he said at the Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, USA.
“And this is not about middle-class youth from St. Petersburg or Moscow,” Moore commented. “They are poor children from rural Russia. They are from working-class villages in Siberia. They come disproportionately from ethnic minorities. They are their cannon fodder.”
CIA Director Bill Burns said at the same conference that US intelligence estimated Russian casualties at “about 15,000 dead and perhaps three times as many injured.”
“This is a pretty significant loss. The Ukrainians also suffered significant losses, probably a little less than that,” Burns said.
By contrast, Ukraine assures that Russia’s losses were greater, with about 36,200 Russian soldiers killed.
Russia talks about landing losses and although experts find it very low, it has only given an official casualty figure twice, with the latest on March 25 with 1,351 dead.
source: Noticias
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