The Biden administration estimates that since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said Monday, The Hill reports.
Among those killed, Kirby estimates that nearly half were soldiers from the private military company Wagner Group, which is heavily involved in the grinding fight for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces,” Kirby told reporters. “Just since December, we estimate that Russia has suffered more than 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 killed in action. . . . It’s really stunning, these numbers.”
Kirby said the source of the new 100,000 figure is “based on some downgraded intelligence that we’ve been able to collect,” though he did not elaborate.
He would not give the estimated number of casualties for Ukrainians, deferring to Kyiv on the information.
“We’ve never talked about Ukrainian casualties in the war,” Kirby said. “I don’t suspect that we’re going to change that posture.”
The last Russian casualty estimate from the United States was in November, when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said more than 100,000 Russian were killed or wounded in the war.
