Russian minister Anna Tsivileva lets slip 50,000 soldiers ‘MIA’ in Ukraine

Times UK ^ | 12/4/2024 | Marc Bennetts

[marcusmaximus]

Up to 50,000 Russian soldiers could be missing in action in Ukraine, a senior defence official who is related to President Putin has revealed in an apparent slip-up.

Anna Tsivileva, a deputy defence minister, told a parliamentary roundtable that there had been tens of thousands of requests for DNA testing to identify the remains of servicemen.

“We accept the DNA of relatives, as I have said, free of charge,” Tsivileva said. “[There are] 48,000 relatives who have applied to us.”

However, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the parliamentary defence committee, stressed that the figures cited by Tsivileva were classified and said they should not be made public.

“I kindly ask you not to mention these numbers anywhere. This is classified information and quite sensitive. And when we draw up the final documents, these numbers should not appear anywhere,” he said.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Wouldn’t that make total sense as the war is not over so many bidies have not yet been recovered.

Probably millions were “mia” against the germans in ww2 until peacetime.

Ukraine likewise. Not picking a fight on this poibt.

[rxh4n1]

This isn’t unusual for the Russians. Historically they’ve been very callous about informing relatives of a soldier’s death. The Red Army would only send notices to the families of Party members. Being from the Ukraine, you should know this and not gloat about it.

[Allegra]