For imperialist megalomania
Scholz: Putin sacrifices 24,000 Russian soldiers per month
26.05.2024, 17:26
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The number of Russian soldiers killed and injured in Ukraine remains a mystery. There are many estimates circulating, but little is documented. At a citizens’ dialogue, Chancellor Scholz mentioned an immense number of Russian soldiers that President Putin would sacrifice.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of sacrificing a very high number of Russian soldiers in the war against Ukraine. “There is a figure that says 24,000 dead or seriously injured Russian soldiers per month,” said Scholz at a citizens’ dialogue. “All for the imperialist megalomania of the Russian president,” added Scholz.
Putin sees both Ukraine and Belarus as parts of Russia and has therefore broken with the decades-old principle of no longer moving borders. Putin is also responsible for the deaths of many Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian soldiers.
In fact, both Ukraine and Russia rarely, if ever, provide official information about their own casualties. The number of casualties of their respective opponents, on the other hand, is sometimes greatly exaggerated. In February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first reported 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed. However, he rejected other, much higher, figures – for example from Russia and the USA.
Russian blogger to delete report
In Moscow, on the other hand, no official information is ever given on dead or wounded soldiers. On the contrary, the publication of concrete figures is apparently actively prevented. This is shown, for example, by the case of the Russian military blogger Andrei Morozov. He presumably committed suicide in February after the Russian military command apparently put pressure on him to delete reports on casualty figures. Morozov had previously left a suicide note on his Telegram channel. In it, he reported that his report had been requested to be deleted. In the report, Morozov had given the number of Russian soldiers killed in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka alone as 16,000.
During the battle for the city of Bakhmut, the now dead founder of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also reported a five-digit number of casualties on the Russian side. British intelligence had previously given the number of Wagner mercenaries killed as 20,000. Prigozhin’s figures confirmed this.
45,000 dead Russians confirmed
The figures provided by Western observers differ in some respects. In mid-March, NATO estimated the number of Russian casualties – killed and injured – at 350,000. In December 2023, US intelligence put the figure at 315,000. The Russian media company Mediazona does not estimate the figures, but documents the number of Russian soldiers killed based on publicly available data and reports. In mid-February, the media outlet came up with a figure of 45,000 Russian soldiers killed. Accordingly, 6,600 deaths of Russian soldiers have been reliably documented for the attack on Avdiivka.
Most recently, the new Russian Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov, made headlines. He too did not give any concrete figures for Russian casualties, but made it clear that he wanted to reduce their number significantly. An indication that the number of Russian casualties is considerable.