More than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and more than 80,000 wounded in just five months of fighting in Ukraine, an acceleration of already heavy losses for Moscow, US intelligence officials estimate.
Most of the soldiers were killed in the brutal fighting for the small eastern town of Bakhmut, which Russia has repeatedly said it is on the verge of capturing, said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“Russia’s attempt to launch an offensive in Donbas, largely through Bakhmut, has failed… Russia has failed to capture any truly strategically significant territory,” Kirby said.
The losses represent an acceleration in the number of Russian casualties even from the first bloody days of the war and eclipse some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, Kirby added. These included the Guadalcanal campaign, the first major Allied offensive against Japan, which also lasted five months.
“That’s three times the number of combat deaths the United States faced in the Guadalcanal campaign in World War II,” Kirby said, as quoted by the AP.
Kirby did not elaborate on how the US calculated the death toll, but said about half of them were fighting under the Wagner mercenary group. They were being sent into battle without proper training or leadership, he added.
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