What 10,000 Russian deaths mean for Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine plan

Russia seems to have let slip that almost 10,000 of its troops have died in the Ukraine invasion – 20 times the amount it has admitted previously.

The true Russian death toll from the war has reached around 10,000, according to a report published by Komsomolskaya Pravda on Sunday that was quickly deleted from the newspaper’s website. The Kremlin-supporting tabloid claimed to have been hacked and said that “inaccurate information” was published.

Prior to being scrubbed from the internet, “the article quoted the Russian Defence Ministry as saying that 9,861 Russian soldiers had been killed and 16,153 were injured in more than three weeks of fighting”, The Telegraph reported. Russia has previously admitted to the deaths of only “around 500 soldiers” during the almost month-long war.

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‘Brink of collapse’

Coupled with suggestions that Russia has “botched” its invasion and the refusal by major Ukrainian cities to surrender to the invading force, the true death toll has heightened concerns that Vladimir Putin could adopt more brutal tactics to break the country’s resistance.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda article has been replaced with a version that does not include the Ministry of Defence’s casualty numbers. The original quoted a figure “similar to a conservative estimate by US intelligence” that “at least 7,000 Russian soldiers had died… with up to 21,000 injured”, The Telegraph said.

If 9,861 troops have lost their lives during the Ukraine conflict, it would mean that Russia has already lost more soldiers in just under four weeks of fighting than were killed during US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

It would also suggest that Russia is closing in on losses similar to that of “the Soviet Union’s long war in Afghanistan in the 1980s”, the paper added, when “around 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed” during nine years of fighting against the Mujahideen.

The scale of Russian losses emerged as its foreign ministry summoned US ambassador John Sullivan. America’s most senior diplomat in Russia was told that Joe Biden’s description of Putin as a “war criminal” had pushed relations between the two countries to the brink of collapse.

“Such statements from the American president, unworthy of a statesman of such high rank, put Russian-American relations on the verge of rupture”, the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that hostile actions would receive a “decisive and firm response”.

The scale of Moscow’s losses in Ukraine means “low morale among Russian troops” could “become an issue”, said The New York Times (NYT). Such a “high rate of casualties” also explains “why Russia’s much-vaunted force has remained largely stalled” outside of the capital city Kyiv, where troops have been massing for weeks.

Russia has lost three senior generals in recent weeks, the paper added, and as a result its forces “may have pushed closer to the front to boost morale”.

“Losses like this affect morale and unit cohesion, especially since these soldiers don’t understand why they’re fighting,” Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration, told the NYT. “Your overall situational awareness decreases. Someone’s got to drive, someone’s got to shoot.”

Escalating force

Faced with massive losses, concern is mounting that Putin could escalate his use of force after Biden warned that the Russian president’s “back is against the wall”.

The US president yesterday warned that Putin is “talking about new false flags he’s setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe – simply not true. I guarantee you.”

Biden added: “They are also suggesting that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine. That’s a clear sign he’s considering using both of those. He’s already used chemical weapons in the past, and we should be careful of what’s about to come.”

Faced with the continued bombardment of civilian areas in major cities across the country, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has “again called for direct talks” with Putin, Al Jazeera reported, stating that “he is ready for a compromise to end the nearly one-month war that has triggered an unprecedented refugee crisis”.

The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly suggested that “the status of contested territories in the country’s east could be up for debate and that Kyiv was willing to shelve its Nato ambition in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian forces”, the broadcaster added.

Lessons of history

Putin may also have one eye on ending the war. Ben Judah, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told CNN that he has “become the most isolated Russian leader since Stalin”, adding that he may be “more isolated in his daily routine than Stalin was”.

“Stalin will be on his mind. Putin is a great reader of history, he spends a lot of time reading about the lives of Russia’s tsars and great Soviet leaders. He will be remembering that at the start of the Second World War, Stalin made various miscalculations,” he explained.

Asked if Putin will be considering whether he has misjudged the war, Judah said: “The danger for a dictator when they go to war is showing any sign of weakness on the battlefield or in negotiations. A dictator is always thinking ‘what does this war mean for my personal security’. Dictators cannot retire, they can only be removed.

“We can already see that Putin is worried. He gave this frightening speech – using a lot of the language of Stalinism – a few days ago warning of fifth columns and almost preemptively declaring war on any oligarchs or officials that might challenge him.”

There are signs of growing disquiet within the Kremlin, with Politico reporting that Putin has turned to “purges and paranoia” amid the stalled invasion.

Daily Beast contributing editor Craig Copetas told CBS’s Inside Edition that Putin has replaced his entire personal staff of 1,000 people. And Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator at Bellingcat, tweeted that General Gavrilov, deputy head of the National Guard, has been arrested for “leaks of military info” or “squandering of fuel”.

“One thing is clear”, Grozev said. “Putin recognises the deep s**t this operation is in. It’s so bad that he changes horses in midstream – a big no-no during war.”

The leak of Russia’s troop losses will only heighten Putin’s sense of isolation in the Kremlin. But “Putin’s paranoia” only “encourages escalation”, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russian-born founder of the Washington-based Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank.

“Three weeks into Russia’s brutal war” the conflict is “clearly not going as planned for the Kremlin”, he said on Foreign Affairs. Russia is “losing the global information war” and “few expected the invasion to unfold in this way – least of all its architects in Moscow”.

Alperovitch added: “Putin has always been cagey and mistrustful.” He is a “creature of the KGB – and, more specifically, the KGB’s conspiratorial counterintelligence division”. But as his invasion goes from bad to worse, “he is likely more desperate than ever for a decisive victory”.