The US intelligence has claimed that 188,000 Russians have been killed in Ukraine since the invasion, a news report stated.
The shocking figures were revealed with allies at yesterday’s Western summit to drum up support for Ukraine held at Ramstein Air Base in Southern Germany.
The figure is a significant increase to the estimation of 100,000 Russian soldiers who were wounded, deserted and killed, when outlined by UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace at the end of 2022.
Top US General Mark Milley said Russia has suffered a “tremendous number of casualties” – but stopped short of revealing the exact figure publicly.
Asked about Russian losses he told The Sun the toll was now “significantly well over 100,000”.
He said: “They have really suffered a lot… I would say significantly well over 100,000.”
But defense sources confirmed the startling estimate to The Sun.
Mr Milley expressed strong doubt on Friday that Ukraine would succeed in driving Russian troops out of its territory this year.
Ukraine, he said, “has also suffered tremendously”.
Milley added: “There’s a significant number of innocent civilians that have been killed as a result of the Russian actions.
“The Russians are hitting civilian infrastructure. There’s a significant amount of economic damage, a significant amount of damage to the energy infrastructure, and the Ukrainian military has suffered … This is a very, very bloody war.”
At a US-hosted meeting on Ukraine in Germany, Milley told reporters: “From a military standpoint I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all, every inch of… Russian-occupied Ukraine.”
In comparison, the Russians claimed they only ever suffered 15,000 losses in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the entire of 1980s.
