U.S. says 20,000 Russians killed in Ukraine struggle since December

WASHINGTON — The White House stated Monday it now estimates that simply since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, together with greater than 20,000 killed, as Ukraine has rebuffed a heavy assault by Russian forces in jap Ukraine.

In what has turn into a grinding struggle of attrition, the fiercest battles have been within the jap Donetsk area, the place Russia is struggling to encircle town of Bakhmut within the face of dogged Ukrainian protection.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stated the U.S. estimate is predicated on newly declassified American intelligence. He didn’t element how the intelligence group derived the quantity.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in November that Russia had suffered effectively over 100,000 killed or wounded within the first eight months of the struggle. The new figures counsel that Russian losses have dramatically accelerated in latest months.

Troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group and different forces are combating Ukrainian troops house-to-house to attempt to achieve management of what has turn into often called the “road of life” – the final remaining highway west nonetheless in Ukrainian fingers, which makes it essential for provides and recent troops. Both sides have cited features in latest days.

Kirby stated almost half these killed since December are Wagner forces, lots of them convicts who have been launched from jail to hitch Russia’s combat. He stated the Wagner forces have been “thrown into combat and without sufficient combat or combat training, combat leadership, or any sense of organizational command and control.”

The White House has repeatedly sought to focus on the price – each human and weaponry – to Russia of Bakhmut, which it argues has restricted strategic significance to the general trajectory of the struggle. Some analysts, nonetheless, be aware that taking management Bakhmut might be useful to Russian efforts to advance on the bigger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk within the Donetsk area

Kirby stated the Russian casualty depend for “this little town of Bakhmut” was according to a number of the fiercest durations of combating throughout World War II, together with the Battle of the Bulge, the final main German offensive marketing campaign on the Western Front, and the Guadalcanal marketing campaign, the primary main Allied offensive in opposition to Japan.

”It’s thrice the variety of killed in motion that the United States confronted on the Guadalcanal marketing campaign in World War II and that was over the course of 5 months,” Kirby stated.

Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the pinnacle of Ukrainian floor forces, stated Russia continued to exert “maximum effort” to take Bakhmut however that it up to now had failed.

“In some parts of the city, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions,” he stated.

Kirby declined to say what number of Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded within the combating. Milley stated in November that Ukrainian casualties have been most likely additionally about 100,000.

–