Russia Has Lost 7,000 Soldiers In Ukraine Invasion

Russian troop deaths in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022 have already exceeded the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, Julie Coleman reported for Business Insider.

Photo Insert: A convoy of destroyed Russian tanks photographed by Ukraine's Defence Ministry

At this rate, Russia is suffering what could soon be unsustainable losses. In the three weeks since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, the fighting has taken a heavy toll on both sides and the civilians trapped in cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol, where authorities are trying to rescue 1,300 people who had sheltered in a theater that was attacked.

The toll also appears to be huge and mounting for Russia's military. A US intelligence estimate reported by the New York Times has placed the total Russian fatalities at 7,000, which journalists say is still a conservative estimate.

Four Russian generals have died and the Times reported on March 16 that between 14,000 and 21,000 Russians troops had been injured.

Moreover, UK’s Mirror and Daily Express reported that Belarus has been running out of space in its morgues as Russian corpses pile up. Ukraine's military has also suffered heavy losses, likely to be much higher than the 1,300 troops Ukraine has confirmed as killed.

By this estimate, Russian military deaths are now much higher than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, at 4,825 and 3,576, respectively.

The Russian casualties appear to be of a scale similar to those at Iwo Jima — one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history – where about 6,852 US troops died and around 19,000 were injured in five weeks of fighting against an entrenched Japanese force, which sustained an estimated 18,000 dead and missing.

If Russia were to continue losing troops at this rate, in a year about 121,000 troops would be dead, with injured likely to be three or four times higher. That toll, for example, would be higher than American casualties during the Korean War, where 36,576 Americans died over the course of three years.

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