Putin has lost more troops in Ukraine than US did in whole of Vietnam war – report

Russia has lost around 65,000 soldiers since its invasion of Ukraine, officials in Kyiv say, a death toll which would rank well above the fatalities suffered by the US in the Vietnam War.

The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces gave the figure in its latest war update on social media. As of 17 October, it listed “about 65,320 (+320) persons eliminated” as among the “total combat losses of the enemy” since the war began almost eight months ago on 24 February.

If confirmed, it would mean Russia has lost close to 2,000 soldiers a week during the conflict. The 65,320 estimate was up about 10,000 on the previous figure provided by the Ukrainian military on 21 September.

By way of comparison, according to the Defence Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files, around 58,220 US military casualties were recorded in the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund states that 58,281 Americans died in the prolonged proxy war between the US and Indochina forces in Vietnam.

There is no confirmation of the exact losses suffered by the Russian forces in its war with Ukraine, which Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation” to oust the so-called “neo-nazi” leadership of the neighbouring country. Russia provides few updates and the figures they do provide are inevitably far lower than those maintained by Ukraine.

In late September the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu claimed Moscow had lost 5,937 soldiers in the war with Ukraine between 24 February and 20 September.

The top Russian official also claimed that at least 61,207 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the war and 49,368 have been injured in the same period.

Another estimate, from Washington, pegged Russian casualties – including those wounded – at between 70,000 and 80,000 up to August this year.

The Pentagon’s undersecretary of defence for policy, Colin Kahl, had claimed then that Vladimir Putin’s forces were taking a “tremendous number of casualties”.

“There’s a lot of fog in the war but I think it’s safe to suggest that the Russians have probably taken 70 or 80,000 casualties in less than six months. Now that is a combination of killed in action and wounded in action and that number might be a little lower, a little higher, but I think that’s kind of in the ballpark,” Mr Kahl said.

Nearly eight months into the war, Russia is recording significant losses amid a strengthening counterattack from Ukraine in the besieged country’s northeastern and southern territory.

To further bolster its military offensive in Ukraine, Mr Putin had ordered the drafting of Russian men in a partial mobilisation order last month.

Russian police and military officers have conscripted hundreds of men in the past week, grabbing them from the street without any notice to be deployed in the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, reported The Washington Post.

The Russian police officers searched for conscripts in places including a business centre in Moscow where they seized almost every man in sight, the report added.

Last week, more than 200 men were taken away from the dormitories of the Mipstroy1 construction company and on 9 October, officials grabbed dozens at a shelter for the homeless.