His blitzkrieg plan failed. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin (69) has been at war in Ukraine for more than a month. The losses are great. How many Russian soldiers have already fallen is unclear. Russia is trying to cover up the exact numbers.
However, estimates indicate that there must be thousands. As the «Bild» reported, the dead sometimes do not return to their homeland.
The morgues and hospitals in Belarus, where the dead and injured Russians are taken, are overcrowded. Selenski consultant Oleksiy Arestovych (46) recently spoke to the “Washington Post” of around 7,000 Russian dead who were currently being stowed in morgues and refrigerated wagons.
Mothers should bring their fallen sons back home
The morgues in Ukraine are now full. The Ukrainian city of Dnipro has even called on Russian families to pick up their fallen loved ones.
The remains of around 1,500 Russian soldiers are already being held in the city’s morgues. This is what Deputy Mayor Mikhail Lysenko said on Wednesday to the Washington-funded Russian-language media outlet Nastoyashche Vremya.
The deputy mayor hopes that “Russian mothers will come and pick up their sons”. According to Lysenko, Russian authorities should let Russian mothers collect the bodies of their sons.
Putin wants to keep the actual number of soldiers killed low
There are several reasons why Putin is leaving his dead soldiers behind and letting them rot in Ukraine instead. Dnipro lies on the border with eastern regions of Ukraine and might therefore become a target for Putin, according to observers. If Russian families were to pick up their fallen relatives in the city, they would become the city’s protective shield and an attack would be almost impossible.
It is therefore unlikely that the Russian authorities will agree to such a return operation.
Another reason the Kremlin doesn’t pick up the dead has to do with the image Russia wants to maintain in its homeland. According to expert estimates, the Kremlin has so far announced far too few losses.
Up to 40,000 Russian soldiers have already been injured or killed
The more corpses are shipped to Russia, the more likely it is that Putin’s fabrication of lies will collapse. Because if the Russians knew the actual number of those killed in action, it might cost Putin the approval of the population for his “special operation” in Ukraine, as he calls the war.
Last week, the Kremlin for the first time acknowledged “significant” losses in Ukraine. However, he did not give a specific number. Days earlier, Russia had claimed to have lost just 1,351 soldiers. 3825 people were wounded.
Ukraine, on the other hand, speaks of more than 19,000 Russian soldiers killed. NATO assumes that of the 150,000 to 200,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine, 30,000 to 40,000 are no longer fit for combat. That means they’re killed, wounded, or captured. (dzc)
