Putin’s Dark Gamble Paying Off as Russian Losses Revealed

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s convict army is making up a significant proportion of Moscow’s losses in the ongoing war in Ukraine, new casualty figures show.

A joint investigation by the BBC’s Russian service and independent Russian news outlet Mediazona updated on January 12 identified the names of 41,731 Russian military personnel who have died in the war in Ukraine since February 2022. It said that the actual number of losses was higher than the figures stated in the investigation.

Volunteers, prisoners and “recruits” of private military companies now account for 37 percent of all confirmed Russian casualties, while a further 12 percent of identified fatalities were enlisted under Putin’s September 2022 “partial mobilization” order.

The BBC’s Russian service said it has so far identified the names of 7,717 prisoners of Russian colonies who enlisted in the war and died in Ukraine. The bodies of some of those casualties remained on battlefields for several months, the investigation found.

The casualty figures haven’t been independently verified by Newsweek. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

Putin in 2022 revived the Stalin-era practice of throwing convicted murderers onto the battlefield to support his war in Ukraine, and these prisoners include at least two cannibals.

The Kremlin has recruited tens of thousands of prisoners since the war began to create its “Storm-Z” squads, which are deployed to carry out highly attritional, infantry-led frontal assaults on the most dangerous parts of the battlefield.

Newsweek learned in December 2023 that the total number of convicts who have been offered presidential pardons in exchange for six months fighting in Ukraine exceeds 100,000.

On January 3, Russia and Ukraine held their first prisoner exchange in six months. The Russian defense ministry said 248 military personnel returned home as part of the exchange. Of this group, 73 percent (180 people) were recruited by the Russian ministry of defense in prisons.

Independent news outlet iStories reported that the return of so many former prisoners to Russia “may be due to the fact that it is easier to force convicts to return to the front.”

“Prisoners are easier to control, they can be manipulated, and most importantly, they can be sent back to war. It’s hard to realize how the Russian government once again doesn’t care about the mobilized who are now in captivity in Ukraine,” the news outlet cited social activists present at the exchange as saying.

Estimates of casualty numbers vary, with Ukraine’s figures usually exceeding those of its Western allies. Russia rarely divulges information on the number of casualties it has sustained in the war.

In September 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 5,937 troops had been killed since the war began. The defense ministry has since reported casualty numbers a further three times, confirming the loss of another 162 troops.

At the start of May 2023, the U.S. National Security Council said Russia had suffered 100,000 casualties, including 20,000 dead, since December 2022 alone. This followed an estimate in November 2022 from General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of 100,000 casualties during the first eight months of the invasion.

An assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that was leaked in April 2023 found that Russia had suffered 189,500-223,000 total casualties, including 35,500-43,000 dead and 154,000-180,000 wounded.

Like Russia, Ukraine largely avoids releasing casualty figures for its own forces. However, they are also substantial, Western intelligence estimates suggest.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment leaked in April 2023 estimated that Ukraine had suffered 124,500-131,000 casualties, including 15,500-17,500 dead and 109,000-113,500 wounded.

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