Around 7,000 Russian soldiers are said to have died in Ukraine. Losses over which the Kremlin spreads a carpet of silence. The dead do not return to Russia. Desperate families are waiting at home – and empty graves.
More than 7,000 Russian soldiers are said to have lost their lives in Ukraine in the first 20 days of the war. At least that’s how the US secret services assess the situation in Vladimir Putin’s army. These are estimates, there are no official casualty lists. Above all, satellite images, photos of the dead and wiretapped conversations between the Russian military, who surprisingly communicate via open channels, form the basis for this number.
Ruslan Lewiew, head of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CTI), considers this assessment to be realistic “given the scale of what is happening”. The organization is a group of independent Russian military observers that analyzes armed conflicts using open sources and has provided reliable intelligence on Russian troops in recent years. According to Lewieiv, the CTI assumes at least 2,500 to 3,000 dead Russian soldiers. He believes 7,000 dead is the upper limit of possible Russian casualties, he said in a survey launched by Alexei Navalny’s comrades-in-arms after independent media outlets in Russia were blocked or dissolved.
Possibly more dead than in the first Chechen war
The estimated death toll among Russian troops is enormous. For comparison: In the first Chechen war from 1994 to 1996, Russia put the number of its dead at 5,042, in the second Chechen war from 1999 to 2000 at 7,425. Within three weeks, more Russian soldiers could have fallen in Ukraine than in the entire first war about the Caucasus republic, which is still a trauma in Russia’s collective memory.
There are also surprisingly many victims among the commanders. At least three generals are presumed dead: Major General Andrei Kolesnikov, Major General Vitaly Gerasimov and Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky. The latter commanded the 7th Guards Air Assault Division. His death was personally confirmed by Vladimir Putin.
Sukhovetsky is one of the few Russian victims the Kremlin has acknowledged. The Russian Defense Ministry has only published casualty figures since the beginning of the war. On March 2, Moscow reported the deaths of 498 military personnel. All independent estimates assume a multiple.
Ukraine speaks of 14,700 dead
Ukraine put the number of Russian soldiers dead at 14,700 on the 25th day of the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the people of Russia with martial words. “At the focal points of particularly heavy fighting, our front lines of defense are practically overwhelmed with the bodies of Russian soldiers. (…) And these bodies, these bodies are not recovered by anyone,” said the Ukrainian president. “That’s 14,000 mothers, 14,000 fathers, wives, children, relatives, friends. And you don’t notice that?”
The information provided by the Ukrainian side is likely to be excessive. It is standard war practice: the opposing factions tend to exaggerate the enemy’s casualties in their reports and downplay their own. And yet: The 498 fallen who were named by the Kremlin also mean 498 tragedies. The case of Maxim Chanygin shows how little the leadership in Moscow cares about its own soldiers and their families.
One of 498
Maxim died on the first day of the war, February 24. A day before his 22nd birthday. He visited his family in Russia – and his empty grave.
On February 23, Maxim called his mother Lyudmila and his fiancee Daria for the last time. In the military unit 34670 of the Belgorod region he served as a conscript, was a mechanic. The next day he was to be transferred to an exercise, he said. The phones of his troops had been taken, so no communication would be possible for some time, he warned his relatives. Lyudmila still hoped that her son would report on February 25, she told journalists. On his birthday. But instead, on February 25, the military commissioner called.
The head of the Military Registration and Recruitment Bureau of Tatishchevo District broke the news of her son’s death to her. The official notification of his death did not come by post – but as a photo via messenger.
“What death notice?”
After Lyudmila regained consciousness after hearing the terrible news, she called her son’s unit in Belgorod: “Where is my child?” she asked. “On an exercise,” she got the answer. “What exercise, I got the death notice?” she recalled replying. The answer on the other end of the line: “What death notice? We have no information.”
The last phrase has become a universal response from Russian officials and military to grieving loved ones. Lyudmila does not know where her son’s body is. Not even when and if he will be brought home. Or where to pick him up. The grieving mother tried to get information from everywhere: from the Belgorod Prosecutor’s Office, the Saratov Region Prosecutor’s Office, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia. Everywhere she gets the same answer: “We have no relevant information.” During the last attempt, the officer on duty in her son’s unit told her: “I don’t know how to help you. Call the FSB.”
“What did I raise my son for? For whom, for what?”
When the journalists from “Radio Swoboda” visit the grieving family, the news is on state television. The representative of the Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov appears again in front of the cameras and talks about a “special operation”. “He says there is no war. But then why and where did my grandson die?” asks the fallen Maxim’s grandmother.
“Why was my child sent there? What for? Who needs it, this war? Ukrainians don’t need it, we don’t need it. What did I raise my son for? For whom, what for? So that he would be killed there?” The words of a desperate mother.
“I don’t want mothers crawling around in the trenches looking for their sons”
The same questions plague thousands of Russian families. Not only those of the fallen, but also those of the prisoners. The Ukrainian military parades dozens of new captured Russian soldiers every day. The Kremlin calls these messages “fakes”.
Antonina Aksenova, deputy chairwoman of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, said how devastating the lack of any information is for the families: “I am the mother of a fallen soldier myself and I know better than anyone how difficult it is when you have no information about has her own son. A mother carried a future soldier under her heart, raised him to a man. And now, in such a situation, not getting any information is so difficult that I cannot put it into words,” said her in a .
She recalled that during the Chechen war, the parents of fallen soldiers were informed of their deaths on the same day or the next. At that time, the mothers were still traveling through Chechnya for years looking for their children. “Then the sons would be identified by their bones and DNA analysis. Sometimes a match would be found decades later and then the mothers would bring the bones home. And I really don’t want it to be the same now, with the mothers in the Crawling around trenches looking for their sons, I really don’t want that!” So far, however, the Kremlin has not brought back its dead or missing people from Ukraine.
A rumor that has been making the rounds across the country in recent weeks shows how much the Russian population mistrusts their own government: the ejection seats on Russian planes and helicopters are being made dysfunctional on purpose so that the soldiers do not survive crashes and are not taken prisoner be able. A rumor. But it speaks volumes.
Source: Stern
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