First modification:
The Atlantic Alliance estimated this Wednesday, March 23, that the number of Russian soldiers who would have died during the first month of war in Ukraine would be much higher than the data reported by the Kremlin. The Ukrainian resistance slowed down plans for a quick and effective invasion of the neighboring country, the cost of which also has consequences on the ground.
The war in Ukraine celebrates this Thursday, March 24, its first month. The “special military operation” that Vladimir Putin mentioned in his message to the nation minutes before the de facto invasion began in different parts of the Ukrainian territory, was scheduled to develop, according to different analysts, quickly, with the taking of kyiv and the deposition of the Government of Volodímir Zelenski.
However, the Ukrainian resistance at the front is slowing down the Kremlin’s plans, the consequences of which are also being felt on the ground.
This was confirmed this Wednesday, March 23, by an estimate by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which calculates that Russian casualties during the first offensive would be between 7,000 and 15,000.
A senior military official from the Atlantic Alliance stressed that the estimate was based on three sources: information from the Ukrainian authorities, data issued by a newspaper related to the Kremlin, and intelligence from open sources.
The dance of numbers
This Monday, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravdaaligned with the Russian Government, encrypted in 9,861 Russian soldiers killed during the first four weeks of the war in Ukraine in addition to 16,153 wounded.
A few minutes after its publication, the information was modified on the newspaper’s website, maintaining the note but ignoring the number of dead and wounded. From the media, the dissemination of these data was attributed to a computer hack.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, says that according to the 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. pic.twitter.com/LHrBWIQ49z
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 21, 2022
The data reported by the American newspaper would also be placed in that bracket New York Timeswhich last Wednesday, March 16, highlighted that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers would have died during the military offensive.
According to European Union sources cited by Spanish newspaper La Vanguardiathe Russian troops would be suffering their most savage onslaught since the Second World War, with more than a thousand daily casualties between wounded and deceased.
The latest Kremlin report on the number of soldiers killed in the conflict was made public on March 2, where the Russian Executive spoke of 498 casualties.
On the Ukrainian side, although there is no updated information on their military casualties, President Zelensky said two weeks ago that nearly 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had already died on the front.
Despite the dance of figures, it is difficult to verify the data because in the context of war the declarations are subject to the information transmitted by partisan entities with specific objectives, which makes it difficult to access the real magnitude of the conflict on the ground.
Russia reorganizes in the face of Ukrainian resistance
The Ukrainian resistance on the ground has undermined the aspirations of the Kremlin, which has not yet achieved its main objectives, such as the capture of kyiv, which has been repeatedly bombed in recent weeks but has not even been surrounded by Russian troops.
So far, the most affected city continues to be Mariupol, in southern Ukraine. Besieged by the Russian army for more than ten days, it has yet to fall into the hands of the Kremlin, impeding its apparent desire to secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, according to the Associated Press.
In the face of Ukrainian opposition, Vladimir Putin’s troops would be reorganizing and preparing a “large-scale” offensive in the north of the country, as British intelligence confirmed.
This Wednesday, March 23, Russian forces bombed a bridge in the city of Chernigov through which humanitarian aid was being transported and the evacuation of the civilian population was proceeding.
For its part, at the gates of the European Council that will take place between March 24 and 25 and the extraordinary meeting of NATO members, which will have the physical presence of US President Joe Biden, the European Union approved a new package 550 million dollars in military aid for Ukraine, as well as new sanctions on Moscow are planned in the next few hours.
While Russia prepares new offensives and the conflict on the ground and the war for data continues, UNHCR acknowledged that in the first weeks of the conflict 3.5 million Ukrainians have already fled their country, in what became the largest exodus of people since World War II.
With AP, EFE and local media
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