NATO: 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in Ukraine

KYIV (AP):

NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where fierce fighting by the country’s fast-moving defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought.

By way of comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops over 10 years in Afghanistan.

A senior NATO military official said the alliance’s estimate was based on information from Ukrainian authorities, what Russia has released – intentionally or not – and intelligence gathered from open sources. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO.

When Russia unleashed its invasion on February 24 in Europe’s biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine’s government seemed likely. But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Moscow is bogged down in a grinding military campaign.

WAR CRIMES

With its ground forces slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are bombarding targets from afar, falling back on the tactics they used in reducing cities to rubble in Syria and Chechnya.

As US President Joe Biden left for Europe to meet with key allies about new sanctions against Moscow and more military aid to Ukraine, he warned that there is a “real threat” Russia could use chemical weapons.

The US has also determined that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine, and it will work to prosecute the offenders, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. He cited evidence of indiscriminate or deliberate attacks against civilians, and the destruction of apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shopping centres and other sites.

Addressing Japan’s parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said thousands of his people have been killed, including at least 121 children.

“Our people cannot even adequately bury their murdered relatives, friends and neighbours. They have to be buried right in the yards of destroyed buildings, next to the roads,” he said.

Still, major Russian objectives remain unfulfilled. The capital, Kyiv, has been bombarded repeatedly but is not even encircled.

Near-constant shelling and gunfire shook the city on Wednesday, with air raid sirens wailing and plumes of black smoke rising from the western outskirts, where the two sides battled for control of multiple suburbs. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 264 civilians have been killed in the capital since the war broke out.

In the south, the encircled port city of Mariupol has seen the worst devastation of the war, enduring weeks of bombardment and, now, street-by-street fighting. But Ukrainian forces have prevented its fall, thwarting an apparent bid by Moscow to fully secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Zelenskyy said 100,000 civilians remain in a city that had 430,000 people before the war. Efforts to get desperately needed food and other supplies to those trapped have often failed.