BY NICK REYNOLDS ON 1/3/23 AT 4:32 PM EST
A view shows destroyed Russian Army multiple rocket
launchers with the letter "Z" painted on their sides in Kharkiv,
Ukraine February 25, 2022. REUTERS/Maksim Levin
Russia's 2023 death toll
from the war has already climbed past 2,000, with no end to the conflict in
sight, Ukrainian military officials said.
According to estimates
posted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense over the last several days, Russia
has lost an estimated 2,230 personnel combined in just three days of fighting,
bringing the number of Russian dead to an estimated 108,190 since the war began
on February 24, 2022.
Those numbers are already in dispute, however,
in a conflict in which the dead are not easily accounted for. Following a missile strike in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine Monday
that Ukrainian officials estimated killed about 400 Russians, the Kremlin
issued a statement saying that the total was closer to 63, prompting the
Ukrainian military to pursue clarification of the number.
Other observers have had significant challenges estimating the
death toll. Russian independent news outlet Mediazona had confirmed the names
of just over 10,000 casualties as of mid-December, though U.S. President Joe Biden's top military official,
General Mark Milley, suggested that both sides had cleared the 100,000 dead
mark in November. Russia, meanwhile, has been reluctant to release its own
estimates of the overall death toll.
Anger
in Russia over the mounting losses has been simmering. Following polling that
showed increasing war opposition in the country at year's end, Monday's strike
in the Donetsk region sparked a wave of criticism of Russia's military
leadership, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), with some
pro-Russian bloggers going as far to criticize the concentrated placement of
the soldiers, and reporting death tolls substantially higher than the 63
reported by the Russian government.
Meanwhile,
the ISW reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense was attempting to deflect
blame for the incident on officials in the occupied Donetsk People's Republic
as well as the soldiers, claiming that the strike occurred when Russian
servicemen "violated operational security by using personal cellphones,
allowing Ukrainian forces to conduct a precision strike at the base."
READ MORE
·
Russia ready to lose 70K more soldiers before June, Ukraine
predicts
·
China, Russia to boost ties "at all levels" in 2023
despite U.S. pressure
·
Russia's Wagner Group resorting to recruiting prisoners from
Belarus-Report
Several of those bloggers, the ISW said, referred on Telegram to
December 21 statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin about
the need for the Ministry of Defense to take accountability and listen to
criticism of its failures while also calling on the Kremlin to punish military
leaders responsible for failures in the field.
Those,
the ISW said, presented signs that Putin's command of the conflict was
slipping.
"Such
profound military failures will continue to complicate Putin's efforts to
appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the dominant narrative in the
domestic information space," the ISW wrote.
"Russian
sources claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the military and
the Investigative Committee to investigate the incident in Makiivka by January
6. Putin's inability to address the criticism and fix the flaws in Russia's
military campaign may undermine his credibility as a hands-on war leader."
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment