Russia has likely seen up to 350,000 casualties in Ukraine, the UK Defense Ministry said.
But that figure is an estimate, and even Russia probably doesn’t know the real figure, it said.
Russia has “a long-established culture of dishonest reporting within the military,” it added.
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Russian officials likely don’t know how many of their own soldiers have been killed or injured since the invasion of Ukraine because Russia’s military has a history of dishonesty in reporting those figures, the UK Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said in an intelligence update on Monday that Russia had likely seen up to 350,000 casualties since it launched its invasion in February 2022.
But it gave the number as an estimate, as there’s no confirmed accurate measure for Russian losses.
Russia likely doesn’t have an accurate count itself, the ministry said.
“Even amongst Russian officials there is likely a low level of understanding about total casualty figures because of a long-established culture of dishonest reporting within the military,” it said.
The ministry broke down Russian casualties into likely numbers of injured and killed between the traditional military and soldiers with the Wagner Group, a mercenary force that played a key role earlier in the war and experienced huge losses.
Russia’s traditional military has likely experienced between 180,000 and 240,000 personnel wounded and about 50,000 killed, the ministry said, while the Wagner Group has likely seen about 40,000 wounded and 20,000 killed.
This would mean about 290,000 to 350,000 total casualties.
That’s in line with other estimates: The head of NATO said last week that Russia had more than 300,000 casualties but added that those losses didn’t mean it would stop its war efforts.
Ukraine said that as of Monday, Russia had more than 332,000 casualties in its invasion.
Ukraine also doesn’t share figures for its losses.
US officials said in August that Ukraine’s casualties were likely notably smaller than Russia’s, with almost 70,000 Ukrainians killed and between 100,000 and 120,000 wounded at that time.
Ukraine has also suffered civilian casualties. The UN said last month at least 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 560 children, had been killed.
Russia has a much larger population than Ukraine, making it easier to replenish its troops after its losses.
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