Warsaw: The BBC and the independent Russian news site Mediazona said on Friday they had documented the deaths of around 70,000 Russian soldiers since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The toll comes from publicly available information such as official statements, death notices in the media and announcements on social media, as well as tombstones in Russian cemeteries.
“We have identified the names of 70,112 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher,” the BBC said.
“Some families do not share details of their relatives’ deaths publicly — and our analysis does not include names we were unable to check, or the deaths of militia in Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine,” the British broadcaster added.
The same two organizations had put the toll at 66,000 in mid-August.
Mediazona and another independent Russian news site, Meduza, have also analyzed official data from notaries on inheritance cases.
This has led them to estimate that the military death toll could be much higher — at 120,000.
The toll is considered secret in Russia.
Ukraine also communicates very little about losses for fear of demoralizing its citizens after more than two and a half years of Russia’s invasion.
In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky said around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died, although analysts and observers have said they believe the real number to be much higher.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the war had killed or injured a total of one million soldiers on both sides.
“A confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at 400,000, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Western intelligence estimates of Russian casualties vary, with some putting the number of dead as high as nearly 200,000 and wounded at around 400,000,” it said.
Media reports put Russian military death toll at 70,000
https://arab.news/p5zau
Media reports put Russian military death toll at 70,000
- The toll comes from publicly available information such as official statements, death notices in the media and announcements on social media
Danish general says there are no Chinese or Russian ships near Greenland
- “There are Chinese and Russian vessels in the Arctic Ocean, but not near Greenland,” Major General Soren Andersen said
- He had extended an invitation for the US to join exercises planned on the island this year
NUUK: The head of Denmark’s military Joint Arctic Command said on Friday that there were no Chinese or Russian ships observed near Greenland, despite repeated claims by US President Donald Trump to the contrary.
Trump says Greenland is vital to US security and has not ruled out the use of force to take it. European nations this week sent small numbers of military personnel to the island at Denmark’s request.
“We don’t see any Russian or Chinese vessels around Greenland... there are Chinese and Russian vessels in the Arctic Ocean, but not near Greenland,” Major General Soren Andersen told Reuters.
Speaking on board a Danish warship in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, Andersen said that he had extended an invitation for the United States to join exercises planned on the island this year.
“We had a meeting today with a lot of NATO partners including the US and invited them to participate in this exercise,” said Andersen. When asked if the Americans will join, the general replied “I don’t know that yet.”
Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command enforces sovereignty and conducts surveillance, fisheries inspection and search-and-rescue across Greenland and the Faroe Islands, drawing on patrol vessels, aircraft, helicopters and satellite-based monitoring.
Headquartered in Nuuk, it also fields Greenland’s Sirius dog-sled patrol for long-range land operations and maintains about 150 staff across command, logistics and fixed Arctic stations.
Responding to Trump’s criticism that Denmark does too little to defend Greenland, Copenhagen last year announced a 42 billion Danish crowns ($6.54 billion) Arctic defense package.
