About 50,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded or injured during that country’s ongoing occupation of parts of Ukraine which began five months ago, estimates the UK’s equivalent to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USA Today reports.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the UK’s defense staff, said during a BBC interview that the Russians have also lost 1,700 tanks and 4,000 armored personnel vehicles. Analysts believe that somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. For comparison, during the ten year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, 17,000 Russians died from all causes: combat, disease and accident.
Source place the total number of tanks available to Russia prior to the Ukraine invasion at around 12,800, including 10,000 in reserve. If the British estimate is correct, more than half of the operational tanks at the start of the invasion have been destroyed.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general says more than 1,000 children have been killed during the Russian invasion, while the head of the National Police Department of Kyiv region said more than 1,300 bodies of civilians have been recovered in the city, with another 300-400 people still missing.