The Kremlin has already lost 17,800 Russian soldiers in its invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported on Saturday. In these figures, all casualties are added together: dead, wounded, prisoners, missing. According to the government in Kyiv, these figures are increasing every day – even on days when combat activity is weak and limited to a few sections of the 1,800-kilometer front.
Military experts in Great Britain and the USA do not doubt that the Russian army has suffered high losses in an offensive that has now lasted more than a month. However, they consider the data announced by Kyiv to be too high.
But one thing stands out in this propaganda battle: the Ukrainian armed forces are very sparing with information about their own losses. Numbers were last mentioned three weeks ago: 1,300 Ukrainian army members were killed in the fighting. According to the experience of military experts, there are at least three wounded soldiers for every fallen soldier, which means that the Ukrainian army would have lost around 4,000 men.
On the Russian side, the losses can be quickly replaced by regrouping on the front line and recruiting conscripts: 135,000 men have currently been drafted into the army. Those 135,000 conscripts who started their 12-month service six months ago would now be trained and deployable in Ukraine.
The balance of power between the conflicting parties will therefore not change in the long term. And the current information strategy of the government in Kyiv only allows one conclusion: the number of casualties is much higher than one would like to openly admit.
