Insider
Top Russian lawmaker makes ridiculous claim Russian troops aren’t really dying in Ukraine amid reports of staggering losses
John Haltiwanger – June 1, 2022
- A top Russian lawmaker claimed that Russian soldiers have essentially stopped dying in Ukraine.
- Russia has not provided an updated official death toll from the war in Ukraine since March.
- Russia is estimated to have lost 15,000 troops since the war began in late February.
Russia is estimated to have lost as many as 15,000 soldiers, if not more, in the war in Ukraine so far. It is a staggering death toll by any standard, particularly given the conflict started just a few months ago in late February. But according to a top Russian lawmaker, its soldiers have essentially stopped dying in the war, even as the fighting rages on with no end in sight.
Andrey Kartapolov, head of Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament’s defense committee and former Russian military officer who previously served as the deputy defense minister, said on Wednesday that “we have practically ceased to lose people,” according to Moskovskij Komsomolets, a Moscow-based paper. “Currently, of course, there are wounded, but there are no such number of dead,” Kartapolov added, stating this is why the government had not provided an updated death toll in awhile.
The outlandish claim, which echoes Kremlin talking points that have been contradicted by a slew of other reports, reflects Moscow’s extraordinary efforts to hide the true scale of the Russian military’s losses in Ukraine from the Russian public.
According to the Russian government’s latest official numbers — which were released back in late March — 1,351 troops have been killed in Ukraine. Western intelligence agencies have placed the Russian death toll somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000. Ukraine’s official numbers put the Russian death toll as high as 30,000.
A recent report from the independent Russian website IStories that was based on an analysis of open source data found that over 3,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine. Similarly, an investigation from the BBC’s Russian Service published this week found that 3,052 Russian troops have died since the war began. Both reports underscored that the true Russian death toll is likely far higher, but these were the deaths that could be confirmed based on available information.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine has worked overtime to keep Russians in the dark on how poorly the war has gone.
Beyond statements from government officials, Russian state news constantly churns out bombastic claims on the Ukraine war, assuring Russians that the conflict is going well while reiterating the Kremlin’s baseless assertions that Russian troops are fighting neo-Nazis.
In reality, Russia has struggled to make major gains in its unprovoked war in Ukraine, failing to take the country’s two biggest cities — Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Russian military has made incremental progress in the east, where its focus turned after its unsuccessful campaign to seize the Ukrainian capital, but overall, top analysts widely agree that the war has been disastrous for Russia thus far.