WASHINGTON. When Russia took over Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin was so worried about Russian casualty figures coming out that authorities approached journalists who were trying to cover the funerals of some of the 400 soldiers who died in the month-long campaign.
But Moscow may be losing as many soldiers every day in Mr. Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, US and European officials have said. Growing Russian troop losses expose the potential weakness of the Russian president at a time when he still publicly claims to be involved in only a limited military operation in Ukraine’s separatist east.
No one can say with certainty how many Russian troops have died since last Thursday when they launched what turns into a long march on Kyiv, the capital. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said some Russian units had laid down their arms and refused to fight. Until now, large Ukrainian cities have withstood the onslaught.
American officials expected, for example, that the city of Kharkiv in the northeast would fall in a day, but Ukrainian forces resisted and regained control despite a ferocious rocket attack. The bodies of Russian soldiers remained in the vicinity of Kharkov. Videos and photos shared on social media show the charred remains of tanks and armored vehicles, their crews killed or wounded.
Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, acknowledged for the first time on Sunday that “there are dead and wounded” Russian servicemen, but did not give figures. He insisted that Ukrainian losses were “many times” higher. Ukraine said its forces killed more than 5,300 Russian troops.
Neither side’s claims have been independently verified, and Biden administration officials declined to publicly discuss the casualty figures. But one US official estimated Russia’s losses as of Monday at 2,000, and two European officials agreed with that estimate.
Senior Pentagon officials told lawmakers in private briefings on Monday that Russian and Ukrainian military casualties appeared to be the same: about 1,500 on each side in the first five days, Congressional officials said. But they warned that the numbers based on satellite imagery, message intercepts, social media and local media reports are estimates.
For comparison, during the 20 years of the war in Afghanistan, about 2,500 American servicemen were killed.
For Mr. Putin, the rising death toll could harm any remaining domestic support for his efforts in Ukraine. Russian memories are long — and mothers of soldiers in particular, US officials say, can easily remember the 15,000 soldiers killed when the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan, or the thousands killed in Chechnya.
Russia has deployed field hospitals close to the front lines, say military analysts who have also monitored ambulances traveling back and forth from Russian units to hospitals in neighboring Belarus, a Moscow ally.
“Given the numerous reports of the deaths of more than 4,000 Russians, it is clear that something dramatic is happening,” said Admiral James G. Stavridis, who served as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO until his retirement. “If Russian losses are so significant, Vladimir Putin will have a hard time explaining himself behind his lines.”
Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, added, “The longer this goes on, the more Russians will be coming home in body bags, and the more Russian families will be grieving.”
In particular, Pentagon officials and military analysts said it was surprising that Russian soldiers left behind the bodies of their comrades.
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March 1, 2022 5:54 pm ET
“It was shocking to see them abandon their fallen brothers on the battlefield,” said Evelyn Farkas, a senior Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration. “In the end, moms will be like, ‘Where’s Yuri? Where is Maxim?
The Ukrainian government has already begun to answer this question. Authorities launched a website on Sunday that they say was supposed to help Russian families find information about soldiers who may have been killed or taken prisoner. The site, which claims to have been created by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, says it provides videos of captured Russian soldiers, some of them injured. Pictures and videos change throughout the day.
“If your relatives or friends are in Ukraine and are participating in the war against our people, here you can get information about their fate,” the website says.
The site’s name, www.200rf.com, is a grim reference to Gruz 200, a military code word used in the Soviet Union to refer to the bodies of soldiers placed in galvanized coffins for transport from the battlefield. ; it is a euphemism for troops who died in the war.
Understand Russia’s attack on Ukraine
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What is at the heart of this invasion? Russia sees Ukraine as its natural sphere of influence and is unnerved by Ukraine’s proximity to the West and the prospect of the country joining NATO or the European Union. Although Ukraine is not part of either, it receives financial and military assistance from the US and Europe.
Are these frictions just beginning now? Antagonism between the two countries has simmered since 2014, when Russian troops crossed into Ukraine after an uprising in Ukraine replaced a Russian-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Russia then annexed Crimea and instigated a separatist movement in the east. A ceasefire was agreed in 2015, but fighting continues.
How did Ukraine react? On February 23, Ukraine declared a state of emergency for 30 days as cyberattacks disabled state institutions. After the attacks began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law. The Foreign Minister called the attacks a “full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
The website is part of a campaign launched by Ukraine and the West to counter what U.S. officials characterize as Russian disinformation, which includes Russia’s pre-invasion claim that troops surrounding Ukraine were there simply for military exercises. Information and the struggle for public opinion around the world began to play a huge role in the war, which began to seem like a David vs. Goliath contest.
On Monday, Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Serhiy Kyslitsa read to the General Assembly what he said was the last text message from a Russian soldier to his mother. They were obtained, he said, by Ukrainian forces after the soldier was killed. “We were told that we would be welcomed, but they get under our armored vehicles, throw themselves under the wheels and do not let us pass,” he wrote, according to Mr. Kislitsa. “They call us fascists. Mom, it’s so hard.”
According to Russia experts and Pentagon officials, the decision to read the texts was a less-veiled reminder to Mr. Putin of the role of Russian mothers in drawing attention to military casualties that the government was trying to keep under wraps. In fact, the group, now called the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, played a key role in opening up the military to public scrutiny and influencing perceptions of military service, writes Russian historian Julie Elkner in The Journal of Power. Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.
On Tuesday, a senior Pentagon official said entire Russian units had laid down their arms without a fight after facing surprisingly tough Ukrainian defenses. On some occasions, Russian servicemen punched holes in the gas tanks of their vehicles, the official said, allegedly to avoid combat.
A Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity when discussing operational developments, declined to say how the military made those estimates — presumably based on a mosaic of intelligence data, including claims by captured Russian soldiers and intercepts of communications — or how far-reaching those failures might be. be on a vast battlefield.
According to a Biden administration official, images of body bags or coffins or soldiers killed and left behind on the battlefield will prove most devastating for Mr. Putin at home.
Ukrainian officials are using social media posts and images of Russian casualties to try to undermine the morale of the invading Russian forces.
On Monday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov offered Russian soldiers money and an amnesty if they surrendered.
“Russian soldier! You were brought to our land to be killed and die,” he said. “Do not follow criminal orders. We guarantee you a full amnesty and 5 million rubles if you lay down your arms. There will be no mercy for those who continue to act like an occupier.”
Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Cathy Edmondson provided reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed to the study.