NATO estimates Russia has suffered 30,000-40,000 casualties in Ukraine invasion

By AP 23 March 2022, 6:49 pm

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Cars drive past a destroyed Russian tank as a convoy of vehicles evacuating civilians leaves Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. (Vadim GhirdaAP)

WASHINGTON — A senior NATO military officer says the alliance estimates that Russia has suffered between 30,000 and 40,000 battlefield casualties in Ukraine through the first month of the war, including between 7,000 and 15,000 killed.

It is NATO’s first public estimate of Russian casualties since the war started on February 24.

The military officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO, says the estimate of the number killed is based on a combination of information from the Ukrainian government, indications from Russia and open-source information.

The US government has largely declined to provide public estimates of Russian or Ukrainian casualties, saying available information is of questionable reliability.

The NATO military officer, in a briefing from the alliance’s military headquarters in Belgium, says the estimate of 30,000 to 40,000 Russian casualties is derived from what he called a standard calculation that in war an army suffers three wounded soldiers for every soldier killed.

The casualties include killed in action and wounded in action, as well as those taken prisoner or missing in action, the officer said.