Some 1.6 million Russian troops killed or wounded in war, Kyiv says

Russia lost more than 54,000 troops last month alone, Kyiv said. Russia has suffered more than 1.6 million casualties in its more than four and a half year long war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian foreign minister has said. Andrii Sybiha provided the updated figure, which includes killed and wounded soldiers, on social media on Sunday, adding that last month alone Russia lost more than 54,000 troops.

The tally provided by Ukraine’s foreign minister is roughly in line with a figure provided by the UK’s defense ministry, which said in September that Moscow has lost one and a half million military personnel killed or wounded in the war. If confirmed, the staggering figure far exceeds Soviet and Russian losses in all armed conflicts since World War II put together.

Moscow does not publish casualty numbers from the war in Ukraine. Despite the high number of casualties, Russia “has not achieved a single goal of its invasion,” Sybiha said, adding that “Ukraine liberated more ground than Russia managed to seize” in October.

“At this stage, the most [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can negotiate is a fair ceasefire along the current line of contact, not spheres of influence in Europe,” Sybiha said. The Ukrainian foreign minister’s comments come amid reports this week that Washington has asked Moscow to propose a new security arrangement for Europe as part of renewed US-led negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

The reports sparked concern among European leaders, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Thursday saying: “Under no circumstances will we allow anyone to establish new security rules in this part of the world over our heads.” Sybiha on Sunday said Putin “sees himself at Yalta in 1945”, referring to the Yalta Conference between the leaders of the Soviet Union, the US and the UK in the waning days of World War II

which helped shape the postwar Europe order without the participation of many countries affected..

“The problem is, to propose ideas on that scale, you first need to win a world war,” Ukraine’s foreign minister said. “Frankly, Europe does not need a new security order. It already has one, which Russia keeps violating. The best plan for a safe and free Europe is to end Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” Sybiha added.