The total number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago is nearing 500,000, U.S. officials said, a staggering toll as Russia assaults its next-door neighbor and tries to seize more territory.
The officials cautioned that casualty figures remained difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not disclose official figures. But they said the slaughter intensified this year in eastern Ukraine and has continued at a steady clip as a nearly three-month-old counteroffensive drags on.
Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops. The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.
But Russians outnumber Ukrainians on the battlefield almost three to one, and Russia has a larger population from which to replenish its ranks.
Ukraine has around 500,000 troops, including active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops, according to analysts. By contrast, Russia has almost triple that number, with 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops — most of the latter from the Wagner Group.
The Biden administration’s last public estimate of casualties came in November, when Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more than 100,000 troops on each side had been killed or wounded since the war began in February 2022. At the time, officials said privately that the numbers were closer to 120,000 killed and wounded.
But that number soared in the winter and spring, as the two countries turned the eastern city of Bakhmut into a killing field. Hundreds of troops were killed or injured a day for many weeks, U.S. officials said. The Russians took heavy casualties, but so too did the Ukrainians as they tried to hold every inch of ground before losing the city in May.
The opening weeks of Kyiv’s counteroffensive this summer were particularly difficult for Ukraine. In the early phase, Western-trained Ukrainian troops struggled to employ “combined arms maneuvers” — a method of fighting in which infantry, armor and artillery are used together in synchronized attacks.
Ukrainian troops initially tried to break through dug-in Russian lines with mechanized combined arms formations. Equipped with advanced American weapons, the Ukrainians nonetheless became bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships.
In the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry Ukraine sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. and European officials. The losses included some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — that the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.
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2023-08-18 12:45:20
Link from www.nytimes.com
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