Ukraine and Russia are engaged in a bitter battle not only on the battlefield but also in propaganda.
Kiev/Moscow – The information on the losses in Ukraine war are at best very difficult to verify independently, but are usually impossible to verify at all. Both sides, both Russia as well as the one who was attacked Ukraineclaim to inflict great personal and material damage on the other warring party.
On Tuesday (November 21), Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced at a meeting of senior military officials that Kiev’s attempts to establish a bridgehead on the Russian-occupied bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine had failed. “No attempt by the Ukrainian armed forces to conduct a landing operation in the Kherson area was successful,” Shoigu said.
Ukrainian losses in the war: Shoigu gives high numbers
The Russian troops did not allow their opponents to gain any space and inflicted “significant losses,” said the 68-year-old. He put the number of Ukrainian victims since the beginning of the month at almost 14,000 military personnel. According to a report by the Russian state media outlet, the enemy lost a “colossal” 13,700 soldiers, Shoigu said RT. Shoigu also claimed that Ukraine lost 1,800 tanks and “other heavy weapons” in November alone.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces also regularly releases figures on Russia’s losses at the front. Kyiv announced on Tuesday that Russia had lost a total of 319,820 soldiers since the war began on February 24, 2022, including 17,400 Russian soldiers who were said to have died during November.
Last week, Ukraine claimed that Russia suffered one of its worst days of the war, losing 1,330 military personnel in 24 hours. Less than a month earlier, on October 19, Kiev said 1,380 Russian soldiers had been killed in a single day.
Current information on Russian losses
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the military eliminated around 322,900 Russian intruders in Ukraine between February 24, 2022 and November 24, 2023, including 1,100 intruders in the past day alone. This emerges from the armed forces’ daily announcement on Facebook on November 24th. However, the information cannot be independently verified.
Independent information is hardly possible
Reliable figures from independent sources are difficult to obtain. Britain’s Defense Ministry said last month that Russia “probably” suffered up to 290,000 casualties during the war, including “temporarily wounded” soldiers but excluding private casualties Wagner mercenary group.
A leaked assessment from the US Department of Defense in April came from Newsweek concluded that Ukraine suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 dead and 109,000 to 113,500 wounded. These figures are in stark contrast to the information provided by Moscow, where President Wladimir Putin announced in October that Ukraine had lost 90,000 soldiers since its counteroffensive began in June alone.
No matter how this data is interpreted, the number of military casualties is high. But there are also many victims among the civilian population. The United Nations Human Rights Commission in Ukraine recently reported that the number of Ukrainian civilians killed in the war exceeds 10,000, including more than 560 children. A further 18,500 civilians are said to have been injured since the start of the war.
High casualty figures also among the civilian population in the Ukraine war
“Ten thousand civilian deaths is a grim milestone for Ukraine,” said Danielle Bell, head of the commission. “The Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine, now entering its 21st month, threatens to develop into a protracted conflict whose dire consequences for the population are difficult to assess.”
“Almost half of the civilian casualties in the last three months have occurred far from the front lines,” she added. “As a result, no place in Ukraine is completely safe.”
Exact casualty figures are difficult to determine in any war – but the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has exacted a heavy toll on both sides, regardless of the veracity of the information. It doesn’t matter whose numbers are closer to reality. (skr)
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