Nearly 500,000 Russians dead: How long can Putin keep fighting? | DW News
Nearly half a million Russian soldiers may have been killed in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Can Russia continue fighting at such an enormous human and economic cost?
Leaked records reportedly obtained from Russia’s state statistics agency, Rosstat, identify more than 412,000 deaths linked to the war. British newspaper The Guardian reports that the true death toll could be closer to 500,000. The full dataset has not been independently verified.
Some months saw more than 500 Russian soldiers killed every day. And the losses have fallen disproportionately on Russia’s poorer and more remote regions.
In this DW News interview, Janis Kluge, head of the Eastern Europe and Eurasia research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), examines what the leaked figures reveal about Russia’s military losses, recruitment crisis and war economy.
The leaked data comes as US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine conclude in Abu Dhabi without a breakthrough on ending the war. The two sides have agreed to a prisoner exchange, but fundamental disagreements remain.
Could mounting Russian losses eventually force Putin to compromise, or make him even more determined to continue the war?
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