Where were the most Russian soldiers killed in the war: Huge differences between Moscow and the poor regions of the east

The invasion troops sent by Vladimir Putin to Ukraine are suffering heavy troop losses, but most of them are coming from poor regions of Russia, the British Ministry of Defense noted in its assessment on Sunday morning.

Russian soldiers in uniform at a training center for mobilizationPhoto: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia

What British military experts say:

• While Russia continues to suffer extremely high losses of human life, their impact varies enormously between Russian regions.
• Relative to their population sizes, the richest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, were relatively untouched. This is especially true for the families of the country’s elite.
• On February 21, 2023, senior Russian officials were photographed making up the first two rows of the audience for President Putin’s State of the Nation address. None of them are known to have children serving in the military.
• In many of the eastern regions, deaths (recorded in the war), as a percentage of the population, are more than 30 times higher than in Moscow.
• In some areas, ethnic minorities are the most affected; in Astrakhan, about 75% of the victims are from the Kazakh and Tatar minority populations.
• As the Russian Ministry of Defense attempts to address the ongoing shortage of combat personnel, the isolation of the more affluent and influential individuals in Russian society is likely to remain a major issue.

According to Saturday’s Ukrainian estimate, 158,000 Russian soldiers have been “liquidated” since February 24, 2022.