Russia Suffered 100,000 Casualties In Ukraine In Five Months, U.S. Says

Washington D.C./02.05.23/Turan:    The Biden administration estimates that since last December, Russia has suffered about 100,000 casualties in Ukraine, including more than 20,000 killed while nearly 10,000 of them believed to be Wagner mercenaries, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

“Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces,” White House national security council's John Kirby told reporters on a Monday call. "It’s really stunning, these numbers,” he added.

The source of the new 100,000 figure, as Kirby put it, is “based on some downgraded intelligence that we’ve been able to collect" while he attributed the high number of deaths among Wagner troops to a lack of combat training, leadership, or any sense of organizational command and control, given that many of them were ex-prisoners released in order to fight in the war.

The State Department, in its turn, said on Monday that it will continue to take steps to hold the Russians accountable amid their atrocities in Ukraine.

"We have seen members of Russian forces commit atrocities, but largely what we are doing is we are doing everything we can to support our Ukrainian partners to ensure that they have the tools and the systems necessary to defend themselves, to put them in the best position possible for a possible negotiating table, and we’ll also continue to take steps to hold the Russian Federation accountable as well" Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told TURAN's correspondent during a daily briefing.

Alex Raufoglu