Russia is estimated to have clocked 100,000 casualties during the war in Ukraine in the last five months alone, according to U.S. intelligence estimates announced Monday. The White House’s National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the gargantuan figure included 20,000 fighters who have been killed, around half of which were Wagner Group mercenaries. Kirby said the Kremlin’s attempt at a winter offensive in eastern Ukraine had “failed” and that Russia had “been unable to seize any strategically significant territory.” He said that Moscow had made marginal gains in the bitterly contested city of Bakhmut, but they had come at a “terrible, terrible cost” and that Russia has “exhausted its military stockpiles and armed forces.” “It’s really stunning, these numbers,” Kirby said of the casualty figures.
