Liberation: Did the Russians lose 10,000 soldiers in a month in Ukraine?

Almost a month has passed since Russia's attack on Ukraine, the French newspaper Liberation said, there are still significant differences between sources regarding the death toll of the Russian army.

, the newspaper

asked whether what was published by the Russian newspaper, Komsolskaya Pravda on Monday, March 20, was a mistake or a breach, when it announced on its website that “the Russian armed forces recorded the killing of 9,861 people and the wounding of 16,153,” before claiming, minutes later, that she was a victim. A hacker hides information obtained from the Russian Ministry of Defense during a press conference dedicated to the Russian media.

According to Liberation, the only figure officially announced by the Kremlin was on March 2, at the beginning of the war, and indicates the deaths of 498 soldiers, a toll that has not been updated since then, and it is still very far from the more than 15,000 Russian deaths provided by the authorities. Ukrainian yesterday.

For its part, the American intelligence services talk about the killing of more than 7,000 Russian soldiers after 3 weeks of fighting, and according to the New York Times, “the percentage of Russian losses, of whom more than 150 thousand soldiers are currently participating in the war in Ukraine, is close to 10%, according to estimates.” It reports the killing of 14,000 soldiers and the wounding of 21,000."

A natural tendency to exaggerate

Analyst Vincent Tourette from the Foundation for Strategic Research in France believes that among the numbers 7 thousand, 10 thousand and 15 thousand that were presented, the number 7 thousand provided by the American services seems to be the closest to the truth because it relates to measurable losses, as it is estimated according to the number of passengers on a destroyed tank, for example. He pointed out that the figure given by the Ukrainians "is undoubtedly a bit exaggerated, but it is not entirely imaginary."

For his part, historian and soldier Michel Goya supports the American toll, saying, "It seems to me that the Ukrainian numbers are exaggerated, and the numbers of the Pentagon (the US Department of Defense) should be closer to reality. As for my estimates, I think that there are 200 deaths per day, which is about 5,000 deaths currently." An analysis shared by Pierre Razzo, historian and academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies, estimates casualties "twice less" than Ukrainian data provide, noting that the natural trend according to the history of armed conflicts is to significantly overestimate casualties during the war.

He explained that both the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Americans, in the midst of an information war, have their own cards, agendas, and interests in manipulating the numbers, particularly through leaking statistics that will be widely reported in the press.

As for researcher Edward Jolly from the Institute for Strategic Research at the French Military School, he refuses to comment, saying that it is "difficult to determine the number of dead after the end of the war, and how it is continuing," but one number - according to him - can shed light on the importance of losses on the Russian side. , which is the number of generals who died in the fighting, and they are between 3 and 6 according to the sources.

“When you have this many generals who are killing, it means that the losses at the troop level can be large,” unless “these generals have been ordered to go to the front lines to set an example for the soldiers,” adding that “ Talking about thousands of dead Russians, whether it's 3,000, 7,000, or 15,000, it's really a huge number."

Feeling completely unprepared

Liberation asked about the explanation for such large losses in such a short time, to which political analyst Torit replied that "when (Russian President Vladimir) Putin talks about a special operation we can take it literally, which means that the Russians have really thought about a commando operation in the capital Ukrainian Kyiv, with elite forces tasked with overthrowing the Ukrainian government within a few days, followed by troops whose mission was to occupy the territory, not necessarily to fight.

"I am thinking in particular of the 41st Army, which we see moving in ranks with little protection, making them vulnerable to the well-prepared Ukrainian army. In general, we have seen the Russian forces advance in groups, as if they were moving in peacetime, which gives a sense of lack of Full readiness, at least for the forces in the northeast."

According to Michel Goya, the Russians were not good and suffered a lot of losses in the early days of the war. The Ukrainians were the first during the battles, as "Ukrainians have an advantage in defense, especially in urban areas."

Jolie explains that the Russians in most cases remain around the cities, and since the beginning of the conflict they suffer from major logistical problems caused in part by corruption, and it also seems that in order to maintain the element of surprise, the decision to war was kept secret at a very high level, which made its transportation difficult To all levels of the military hierarchy, especially since an operation of this scale requires a lot of coordination, and the Russians "have not yet gained complete air superiority."

The most expensive Russian war since 1945

According to historian Pierre Razzo, the war turned from a "flashing" conflict as Russia wants to a "brutal war", and therefore the level of Russian casualties, fully consistent with the consequences of this type of war, is very costly for the attacker and defender at the same time, like the Arab wars. Israel, especially the October 1973 war, as well as the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties, “with losses of approximately 15% to 25% of the combat forces.”

On the other hand, Russia has not participated in such sharp wars since World War II. In Afghanistan (1979-1989), for example, it lost 15,000 soldiers, but it was a different kind of war in which it did not face a regular army, according to Pierre Razo’s analysis, just like the wars of Chechnya.