LONDON — More than 75,000 Russian soldiers have been injured or killed since the Kremlin launched its brutal war on Ukraine on Feb.24, according to U.S. intelligence.
Speaking to CNN, Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin said that the estimate was revealed during a classified briefing with officials from the Biden administration. "We were briefed that over 75,000 Russians have either been killed or wounded [in Ukraine], which is huge...over 80% of their land forces are bogged down, and they're tired," Slotkin said.
That roughly correlates to the number of casualties estimated by CIA Director William Burns on July 20. "I think the latest estimates from the U.S. intelligence community would be, you know, something in the vicinity of 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded, so a quite significant set of losses," Burns told Aspen Security Forum.
The intelligence chief went on to say that Ukrainian soldiers had “suffered as well” but “probably a little less than” enemy forces. More recently, Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky’s senior advisor said that military casualties were between 100 and 200 per day.
Ahead of Russia's invasion, President Joe Biden said that Russia had amassed around 150,000 troops while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed 200,000 were stationed on Ukraine's borders. No figure has been disclosed by Russia's defense ministry.
In a briefing on Monday, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense said that the number of Russian soldiers who had died in the first three months of the invasion in Ukraine were comparable to the Soviet Union's losses during its decade-long conflict in Afghanistan.
"A combination of poor low-level tactics, limited air cover, a lack of flexibility, and a command approach which is prepared to reinforce failure and repeat mistakes has led to this high casualty rate, which continues to rise in the Donbas offensive," the department said.
Keeping relatively quiet on the number of casualties its military has suffered, Russia announced on March 25 that it had counted 1,351 deaths. No other public statements have been made since.
This article originally appeared on Yahoo News at https://news.yahoo.com/russia-has-suffered-an-estimated-75000-casualties-in-ukraine-invasion-us-officials-say-150659381.html