How many dead are there among Russian troops in Ukraine? Difficult to say: we only know the names of five generals probably seven who were actually killed and numerous highranking officers who lost their lives in combat. Since the leaders of Putin’s army have died proportionally more since February 24 than in any Russian war of the twentieth century, it is easy to deduce that the troops can see death no less clearly than their leaders.
Since the Defense Ministry has been silent since March 2 after revealing a large number of dead (see article) and Putin angrily speaks of “speculations on military casualties”, we can only rely on the Western and Ukrainian estimates. But in fairness, we prefer to look for something close to the truth ourselves.
Fortunately for us, some information for guidance has leaked from neighboring Belarus, and this country has not yet become as impenetrable to the media as the Russian Federation (see article).
Apparently, the hospitals in the big cities in the south of the country would collapse “worse than in the times of COVID” because soldiers and officers from Moscow who urgently need surgery and treatment are arriving without interruption. Limb amputations and lifesaving procedures would now be carried out “without interruption”. Deutsche Welle encountered surgeons who had to amputate limbs from dozens of Russian soldiers in two or three consecutive rounds almost without a break.
One doctor, whose anonymity is being maintained, told the Daily Mail that “there aren’t enough surgeons. Previously, bodies were transported by ambulance and loaded onto Russian trains. After someone made a video about it and the internet went dead, the bodies were uploaded at night to avoid being noticed.”
A doctor from Mazyr told the Times of Israel less than a week after the war began that there were lines of tinted glass buses loaded with victims from Ukraine.
Since the beginning of March, that is, more than two weeks ago, due to the large number of wounded Russian soldiers requiring treatment, all interventions and hospitalizations in the cities of southern Belarus were canceled, which caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the population.
The Belarusian Foundation for Medical Solidarity confirmed to Deutsche Welle that all hospitals are under strict control: “There are FSB employees. All buildings are monitored. Many doctors who theoretically could have said something have been removed from the hospitals and replaced. “Russians.” It goes without saying that the local medical, nursing and administrative staff are too frightened to tell the horror stories that everyone day on the wards and in the operating rooms. Once, in the last few days, they were put on special trains for the transfer of the wounded to Russia.
Meanwhile, residents in Belarusian regions bordering Ukraine are reporting a rising tide of horribly mutilated bodies and soldiers being shipped out of Ukraine and then sent elsewhere for further treatment or burial. Up until a week ago more than 2,500 bodies of soldiers would have already been transferred from Gomel to Russia: considering that only the wounded and dead can arrive there from the famous/infamous 64 km column that had come down from here in early March towards Kyiv and was largely disrupted or destroyed by the Ukrainian resistance fighters, you understand that with at least four other open fronts in the east and south of Ukraine perhaps an estimate is halfway between that of Washington and that of Kyiv, that is of at least 10,000 Russian dead in three and a half weeks of war does not seem unrealistic. To put it into perspective, over the course of a year, this equates to over 140,000 dead, practically an entire army.
why are they dying Because a bitter fight is raging, but also and above all because the length and depth of the fronts do not allow the wounded to be rescued easily. In short, they are dying from the strategic planning errors of Putin and his commanders in chief.
Frankly, even if we want to halve the casualties compared to our estimates, i.e. imagine fewer casualties in Moscow than the Americans imagine, we have to ask ourselves how resilient the Russian armed forces are compared to an unsustainable number of casualties Dead and wounded for any armed force of the 21st century: Certainly, the soldiers of Moscow have not practiced any of this, and no matter how powerful a military instrument, it should not, from a rational perspective, win and destroy itself at the same time.
Photo: Twitter