US intelligence assesses Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 casualties: Source

WASHINGTON – A declassified United States intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, or nearly 90 per cent of the personnel it had when the conflict began, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Dec 12.

The report also assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military have set back Russia’s military modernisation by 18 years, the source said.

The Russian embassy in the US referred a request for comment to the Russian Defence Ministry in Moscow. The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Russian officials have said Western estimates of Russian death tolls in the war are vastly exaggerated and almost always underestimate Ukrainian losses – which Russian officials say are vast.

The source spoke as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a last-ditch plea for more military aid to US lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where he faced a sceptical reception from key Republicans.

At a news conference later in the day, US President Joe Biden reaffirmed continued support to Mr Zelensky, and warned lawmakers they risked handing a victory to Russia.

The source said the recently declassified US intelligence report assessed that Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with 360,000 personnel.

Since then, the report said, 315,000 Russian troops, or about 87 per cent of the total with which it started the war, have been killed or injured, the source said.

Those losses are the reason Russia has loosened recruitment standards for deployment in Ukraine, the source added.

“The scale of losses has forced Russia to take extraordinary measures to sustain its ability to fight. Russia declared a partial mobilisation of 300,000 personnel in late 2022, and has relaxed standards to allow recruitment of convicts and older civilians,” the assessment said, according to the source.

The Russian army has been left with 1,300 armoured vehicles on the battlefield and is having to bolster those forces with T-62 tanks produced in the 1970s, the source said.

Kyiv treats its losses as a state secret and officials say disclosing the figure could harm its war effort. A New York Times report in August cited US officials as putting the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000.

Writing in the Ukrainian journal Tyzhden, historian Yaroslav Tynchenko and volunteer Herman Shapovalenko in November said Mr Shapovalenko’s Book of Memory research project had confirmed 24,500 Ukrainian combat and non-combat deaths using open sources.

The real figure was most likely higher, they said. REUTERS