MinorityRepublican: "I saw the same thing.
Seems plausible.
But no way to verify it."
This is the actual report:
- "Leo Docherty [U.K.] Minister of State, Minister for the Armed Forces, responded:
- “We estimate that approximately 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict.
The number of personnel killed serving in Russian private military companies (PMCs) is not clear.
We also estimate that over 10,000 Russian armoured vehicles, including nearly 3,000 main battle tanks, 109 fixed wing aircraft, 136 helicopters, 346 unmanned aerial vehicles, 23 naval vessels of all classes, and over 1,500 artillery systems of all types have been destroyed, abandoned, or captured by Ukraine since the start of the conflict.” "
Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses:
However, given the fog of war, we can understand that different groups use different definitions (i.e., "casualties") and different methodologies to arrive at numbers that don't necessarily mean exactly the same things.
Russian numbers for their own casualties are, naturally, much less and likely don't include whole groups, such as contract soldiers from other countries.
According to this report, Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy says total Ukrainian soldier deaths since February 2022 are 31,000.
US estimates were double that and
Russian claims say Ukraine has lost the same number as Ukraine estimates of Russian casualties -- circa 450,000.
Given now a years' long war of attrition, much of our understanding of who is "winning" or "losing" can be based on which set of numbers we find more believable.
And given Russia's circa 4 to 1 superiority in potential manpower, even if Ukraine's battlefield successes produce Russian casualties of, say, 3 to 1 over Ukrainian casualties, Ukraine is still "losing" in the gruesome long-term accounting numbers tally.
That's why it's important to point out that while Russia had some successes in 2024, year to date -- meaning they've conquered around 30+ square miles of Ukrainian territory -- so far Russian successes have been far less than even 2023 and at a far greater cost to Russia in lost soldiers and equipment.
And that's even with Ukraine's shortages of weapons and ammunition.