Over 30,000 Wagner fighters killed or injured in Ukraine, U.S. says
Of the 9,000 or so mercenaries killed, half misplaced their lives within the two months since mid December, Kirby mentioned. (Russia had freed the inmates given that they battle in Ukraine.)
Russian activists and U.S. officers have mentioned that Wagner has boosted its ranks with prisoner recruits, lots of whom are poorly skilled and ill-equipped to battle. A video final yr circulated that purported to point out Prigozhin promising inmates a pardon after six months of preventing.
The United States assessed in December that Wagner had not too long ago recruited 40,000 prisoners from throughout Russia to hitch its forces. The group treats its recruits like “cannon fodder,” Kirby mentioned Friday, “throwing them into a literal meat grinder here … without a second thought.”
Russia — and associates resembling Wagner — has confronted a scarcity of personnel to ship to the entrance of a battle that Putin initially believed would solely final days. While Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reserves final yr, many Russian males of navy age have fled the nation, forcing the Kremlin and Wagner to show to prisons.
But not too long ago, the group introduced an finish to jail recruitment. Prigozhin mentioned in a Feb. 9 assertion on Telegram that Wagner had “completely stopped” signing up inmates to battle in Ukraine, with out specifying a motive.
Western officers and analysts are skeptical. “We believe that Wagner continues to rely heavily on these convicts in the Bakhmut fighting, and that doesn’t show any signs of abating,” Kirby instructed reporters.
Experts on the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) additionally mentioned that such recruitment is more likely to proceed, although in a extra restricted capability. The Washington assume tank mentioned its evaluation of Russian jail inhabitants information between November 2022 and January 2023 confirmed {that a} drop in jail numbers had stabilized, suggesting that the Kremlin is shifting away from utilizing inmates.
Prigozhin has been a loud critic of how Russian navy brass has performed the battle in latest months. One of its fighters not too long ago posted a video on Telegram of useless our bodies in a room; the particular person claims the group is dropping a whole lot of males day by day because the Kremlin just isn’t offering them with adequate materiel, in response to an ISW translation.
A separate evaluation by the U.K.’s Defense Ministry on Friday famous that Wagner prisoner mercenaries are more likely to have a casualty price of about 50 % in Ukraine. London estimates that there have been as much as 200,000 mixed casualties notched by Russian troops and aligned mercenary forces for the reason that Feb. 24 invasion, with as many as 60,000 deaths between them.
The excessive fatality ratio could be attributed to a lack of adequate medical care, the protection ministry mentioned.