[HotAir] I can't understand how, or why, a pro-Kremlin paper would publish a number like this. As juicy as it is, surely they would have realized how embarrassing it is for their masters and what sort of consequences there might be for revealing it.I can't understand either who would have leaked it, as this information must be closely held.
And frankly, given how incompetent the Russians seem and how indifferent they are to loss of life, I'm surprised they're keeping a count of their own fallen troops to begin with.
But the figure is shocking if true. In less than a month of war, this would easily exceed the number of U.S. KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan, two conflicts that spanned nearly 30 years combined.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, says that according to Russian ministry of defense numbers, 9,861 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine and 16,153 were injured. The last official Russian KIA figure, on March 2, was 498. Fascinating that someone posted the leaked number.
The Red Army lost 15,000 men during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Over 10 years.
As gaudy as the apparently leaked number is, it's in line with other estimates. Five days ago, sources in U.S. intelligence told the Times they believed 7,000 Russians had been killed - conservatively.
Other estimates circulating are higher:
A former internal affairs minister of #Ukraine
@AvakovArsen
shared the intercepted Russian military summary for March 18: Rus. Army troops killed 12,814. Private company Liga (former Vagner) troops killed 4,451. Total number of service members killed at war in Ukraine: 17,265.
That's not wildly out of line with the number published in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Maybe the Ukrainian figures encompass regular Russian forces plus "separatists" fighting in the Donbas while the KP figures are limited to regular forces only.
If it's true that 10,000 Russians have been killed and another 16,000 wounded, that's more than 10 percent of the total force out of action in less than a month, with no obvious prospects for mass reinforcements to fill the manpower vacuum.
Someone on the Pravda staff is going to get shot.