Russia's losses in Ukraine war are at least 500,000 personnel - Defense Express

He said this on Espreso.

"The number of Russians drafted under partial mobilization was known - 300,000. Putin said in his speech yesterday, December 14, that there are currently 617,000 Russian army personnel at the front, and also spoke about "volunteers," that is, people who signed a contract during 2023, which is 486,000. And starting in the summer of 2022, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the total number of the Russian group in Ukraine was 330,000. To this figure, we can add only one number regarding the losses on the part of the Russian Federation - 30,000 at that time, according to the General Staff's report," said the Defense Express editor-in-chief.

According to him, it turns out to be 360,000, then we add 300,000 mobilized under partial mobilization and 486,000 so-called contract soldiers, who were recruited this year. In total, we get 1 million 146 thousand people, of whom only 617,000 are fighting. It is worth noting that there has been no information about any demobilization or reduction of the Russian occupation army.

"That is, according to the calculation, 529,000 are the losses of the Russian forces. More than half a million are objectively losses. And this parameter can be considered only as "from", because it does not include the losses of those forcibly mobilized in the occupied part of Ukraine, where the entire male population was drafted. The next question is: have the losses of the Wagner PMC been calculated? That is, we are talking 100% about more than half a million. It also does not include figures that simply do not fit into Russian statistics because many Russian videos show that they do not take the corpses of their comrades from their positions. This situation is extremely common among the Russians, and there is only one explanation for this - as long as the dead soldier is lying there and is not on the list of casualties, all the maintenance and allowances go to the commander's pocket. This practice is widespread in the Russian army. And in this situation, the number of Russian losses of half a million is the minimum mark," Oleh Katkov summarized.

• The day before, Western officials suggested that the Russian army had lost between 300,000 and 400,000 troops since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• On December 13, The Washington Post reported that about 87% of personnel and 63% of tanks were lost to Russia since the start of the full-scale war.