UK intelligence chief says nearly 500,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine war

International

ALMOST 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of Russias’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to Britain’s largest intelligence agency.

In a report by BBC News, the estimate was revealed by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) Director Anne Keast-Butler during her first public speech as head of the agency.

Speaking at Bletchley Park, the historic site known for code-breaking operations during World War II, Keast-Butler warned that Russia continues to pose a serious and growing threat to the United Kingdom and its allies.

She said Russia has been “relentlessly targeting” the UK’s critical infrastructure, democratic institutions, supply chains, and public trust through cyberattacks, espionage, sabotage, and other hostile activities.

Keast-Butler also claimed that Moscow has been carrying out what she described as an undeclared “hybrid war” against Western countries supporting Ukraine.

Despite this, she said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “going backwards on the battlefield” as the war continues.

Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly released estimates of enemy casualties but have rarely disclosed their own losses.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said around 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began.

Mediazona and a team of volunteers, has been independently tracking Russian military deaths since February 2022.

Using official reports, newspaper articles, social media posts, cemetery records, and memorials, the group has so far verified the deaths of at least 223,539 Russian soldiers and officers.

However, military experts believe the actual number of Russian deaths could be significantly higher, estimating that the confirmed names may only represent 45 to 65 percent of the total casualties.((Erica Casquejo, CNU Main Campus, Comm Intern)