As the US claims that up to 80,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured in the combat, Vladimir Putin has already lost at least 100 colonels in the conflict in Ukraine.
The 36-year-old tank commander Lieutenant-Colonel Vitaly Tsikul was confirmed deceased by Russian media, which aired images of his burial in the central Russian town of Chebarkul.
His passing was made public when Colin Kahl, the third-ranking Pentagon officer, said that less than six months into the conflict, up to 80,000 Russian troops had already been killed.
It indicates that almost half of the 150,000–190,000 soldiers Putin is believed to have gathered on the Ukrainian border before to the start of the conflict have been evacuated from the front lines.
When considering the fact that “the Russians have accomplished none of Putin’s aims at the outset of the conflict,” Kahl said the assessment is “quite astonishing.”
“Russia’s overarching goal was to overtake the whole country, to engage in regime change in Kiev, and to put an end to Ukraine as an independent, sovereign, and democratic nation,” he said. All of that has not occurred.
His number approximately matches that of a Democrat representative who was briefed on the conflict last week and said that “at least” 75,000 Russian servicemen had died or been injured.
Many of them are believed to be mercenaries affiliated with the military contractor company Wager as well as thousands of Ukrainians enlisted into the army from the seized territory.
In recent weeks, Russia has started a recruiting campaign for new “volunteer battalions,” and it is also believed that it has recruited troops from Syria to fight.
Officers who are prepared to fight are being given salaries of up to £3,400 per month before incentives, with privates receiving promises of £2,400.
This is a fortune for individuals living in Russia’s or the Donbas’ poorer districts, where recruiting is apparently concentrated.
Prior to his demise in Ukraine, Tsikul served in the Russian 90th Tank Division in the Central Military District of Russia.
He was a married father of two, and during his burial in an Orthodox church in Chebarkul, he received full military honours.
Tsikul was slain last month, but the specifics of his burial have now come to light when his body was returned home.
Russia often postpones returning dead in order to conceal the full cost of the conflict.
It is unclear precisely how or where Tsikul perished in Ukraine.
Putin has not formally declared war or begun a broad mobilisation of Russia’s populace despite incurring a significant number of losses in Ukraine.
This is said to be because Putin worries that common Russians would rebel against his increasingly dictatorial rule.
Instead, Putin is mostly depending on volunteers, mercenaries, conscripts from occupied Ukraine, conscripts from Russia’s poorest or most distant districts, and conscripts to carry out his war.
Since the start of the conflict, tens of thousands of fresh recruits from these regions are said to have been dispatched to the front lines despite having had no prior training, subpar equipment, or assurances that they wouldn’t be engaged in combat.
Due to this, Russian losses have increased while its offensive have mostly stagnated in recent weeks.
Following the majority of Luhansk province’s seizure, Moscow’s operation in eastern Ukraine has largely paused, and numerous significant cities still stand in the way of Putin’s forces capturing the whole Donbas.
In the meanwhile, a counterattack is being carried out in the southern Kherson area, which Ukrainian authorities expect to regain control of by September.
And today, Crimea, which Russia has been occupying since 2014 and which Putin views as his own land, was attacked by almost a dozen bombs at once.
Despite there being little doubt that Kyiv was behind the strike, Ukraine has not made any statements about it. It claims to be “investigating.”
If true, it would be Crimea’s first significant offensive since 2014.
The peninsula is located a long way from the front line, and Ukraine is not known to have any weapons with that kind of range.
It either suggests that saboteurs were successful in launching a daring strike from beyond enemy lines or that Kyiv has access to longer-range missiles than its Western allies previously admitted.
The most probable contender is ATACMS, a long-range rocket with ballistic missile-like characteristics that can be launched from the rear of HIMARS or M270 multiple-launch rocket systems.
Despite President Biden earlier ruling out delivering the weapons, calls for their delivery to Ukraine have grown in recent weeks.
He said he would not provide missiles with the range to strike Russia’s interior.