Ukraine said earlier this month that some 36,200 Russian personnel had died. (File)
Washington:
About 15,000 Russians have been killed in the five-month-old invasion of Ukraine, the US and British spy chiefs said, as they estimated that President Vladimir Putin suffered much greater losses than expected.
Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6, said on Thursday the 15,000 deaths were “probably a conservative estimate” and a “very bloody nose” for Putin, who expected a quick victory.
“That’s probably a conservative estimate. That’s about the same number they lost in 10 years in Afghanistan in the 1980s,” he told the Aspen Security Forum in the US Rocky Mountains.
“And these are not middle-class children from St. Petersburg or Moscow,” he said.
“These are poor children from rural parts of Russia. They come from working-class towns in Siberia. They are disproportionately from ethnic minorities. This is his cannon fodder.”
CIA Director Bill Burns, speaking at the same conference a day earlier, said US intelligence estimated Russian losses “close to 15,000 killed and perhaps three times more wounded”.
“So quite a number of losses. The Ukrainians have suffered too, probably a little less than that, but significant losses,” Burns said.
Ukraine has given a much higher figure for losses inflicted on Russia, saying earlier this month that about 36,200 Russian personnel had died.
Russia has been very hesitant, taking official tolls only twice, the last on March 25 with a figure of 1,351 which experts say is far too low.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
