The United States estimates the number of Russian dead in Ukraine at about 15,000, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday. He estimates that another 45,000 Russian soldiers were wounded in the fighting in the neighboring country. Ukraine has also suffered significant losses, but the exact number is unknown.
Since the invasion on February 24, Moscow has emphasized that everything is going according to plan in the “special military operation” in Ukraine. However, critics and foreign military experts point out that Russia may have lost far more soldiers and equipment in recent months than Moscow officially admits.
The Russians give hardly any information about the losses they have suffered in Ukraine. On March 25, Moscow reported that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed. After that there have been no updates. The Ukrainian government in Kyiv said in June that 100 to 200 Ukrainian fighters are killed every day.
Russia is after more than just Donets basin
Russia wants to conquer more areas in Ukraine than just the Donets Basin region, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. Burns infers from the concentration of Russian troops in that region that “hard lessons” were learned from the failures at the start of the campaign, when the attack on Kyiv faltered.
He says Russian forces are now focusing on “a more comfortable way of waging war. They are using their advantages and long-range firepower to effectively destroy Ukrainian targets and to make up for the manpower weakness they still experience,” Burns said.
Zelensky: Moscow also wants to attack other European countries
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia is using his country as a testing ground for possible further attacks on other European countries. “Russia is testing everything that can be used against other European countries in Ukraine,” he said in his video address on Wednesday. “It started with gas wars and ended with a full-scale invasion, with missile terror and burnt Ukrainian cities.”