KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian private army Wagner says his force lost more than 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, with about 20% of the 50,000 Russian convicts he recruited to fight in the 15-month war dying in the eastern Ukrainian city.
The figure was in stark contrast with widely disputed claims from Moscow that it lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979-89. Ukraine hasn’t said how many of its soldiers have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
#Ukraine: Two Russian 2S19 Msta-S 152mm self-propelled howitzers, parked back to back, were destroyed by the Ukrainian army using two M982 Excalibur 155mm high-precision projectiles – both landed practically on the same point. pic.twitter.com/1RIS3ZH4Y6
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 23, 2023
