2024-06-08 07:37:30
Russian chief Vladimir Putin spoke to international journalists at an financial discussion board in St. Petersburg this week. Along with denying the intention to assault a NATO member nation, threatening nuclear weapons and making extraordinarily aggressive remarks in opposition to Germany, he publicly indicated for the primary time what he believed to be Russia’s losses within the battle it launched in Ukraine greater than two years in the past.
“I can say with absolute certainty that our losses are a number of occasions decrease than on the Ukrainian aspect. In a ratio of 1 to 5,” Putin mentioned. On the identical time, he mentioned that the Ukrainian military loses about fifty thousand folks on the battlefield each month – wounded or lifeless.
Though the figures given by Putin in regards to the Ukrainian aspect are most likely exaggerated, along with his assertion he formally commented on Russian losses for the primary time in two years. His phrases would imply that he admits to shedding ten thousand of his troopers each month. The same old ratio of troopers killed to wounded is about one lifeless to a few wounded.
Western intelligence providers estimate the variety of Russian troopers who died within the battle to be within the tens of 1000’s. On the finish of final 12 months, the American CIA reported about fifty thousand lifeless, French International Minister Stéphane Séjourné spoke of greater than 100 thousand in April this 12 months. The Russian exile server Mediazona, citing its sources within the Russian Ministry of Protection and the stories of its informants in numerous areas of Russia, not too long ago counted the lifeless at round fifty thousand.
Ukrainian army intelligence HUR estimates that the enemy now has roughly 550,000 troopers alongside the border with Ukraine and on Ukrainian occupied territories. Ukrainians at present have virtually 900,000 folks in lively service. Kyiv additionally doesn’t disclose its losses, however in February, on the event of the second anniversary of the aggression, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 31,000 Ukrainian troopers had died.
In St. Petersburg, Putin additionally surprisingly launched figures on prisoners of battle. Based on him, there are 6,456 Ukrainian troopers in Russian captivity, and within the case of Ukraine, it’s 1,348 Russians. However the knowledge can’t be verified, Kyiv didn’t touch upon Putin’s assertion in regards to the prisoners. On the finish of Could, the Kremlin introduced that it was suspending the trade of prisoners for a number of months.
The St. Petersburg Financial Discussion board, the place Putin exceptionally gave an interview to Western journalists, is going down this 12 months with a lot much less fanfare than earlier than 2022. It lacks representatives of Western international locations, and quite the opposite, delegations from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Bolivia or the Afghan ruling Taliban motion are current.
“Gone from the discussion board are the Western buyers and bankers who as soon as flocked there to take a chunk out of Russia’s huge mineral wealth and considered one of Europe’s largest shopper markets. There are not any massive Western firms, and as for the banks, there are solely Russian,” Reuters described.
Putin took over the patronage of the St. Petersburg Financial Discussion board in 2006 and needed to make it a Russian competitor to the celebrated World Financial Discussion board held yearly in Davos, Switzerland.
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