Russia has lost nearly 90% of its troops in Ukraine war: US intel report

Russia-Ukraine War: Losses are the reason Russia has loosened recruitment standards for deployment in Ukraine.

A declassified US intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops- nearly 90% of the personnel it had when the conflict began. The report also claimed that Moscow's losses in personnel and armored vehicles to Ukraine's military have set back Russia’s military modernization by 18 years, news agency Reuters reported.

Russia-Ukraine War: Ukrainian soldiers practice on a tank during military training in Ukraine.(AP)

Russian officials have said that Western estimates of death tolls in the war are vastly exaggerated and always underestimate Ukrainian losses.

The report assessed that Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with 360,000 personnel. Since then, the report found, 315,000 Russian troops, or about 87% of the total soldiers, have been killed or injured.

“Those losses are the reason Russia has loosened recruitment standards for deployment in Ukraine,” Reuters reported.

The assessment said, “The scale of losses has forced Russia to take extraordinary measures to sustain its ability to fight. Russia declared a partial mobilization of 300,000 personnel in late 2022, and has relaxed standards to allow recruitment of convicts and older civilians.”

The Russian army began the war with 3,100 tanks, lost 2,200 of them and has had to "backfill" that force with T62 tanks produced in the 1970s, leaving it only 1,300 tanks on the battlefield, it added. Earlier this year, a New York Times report cited US officials as putting the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000.

A report in Ukrainian journal Tyzhden said that 24,500 Ukrainian combat and non-combat deaths occurred. This was curated using open sources. The real figure was likely higher, it was reported.