20,000 Russians killed in Ukraine war since December, US says

Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region (Libkos/AP)

The White House said it now estimates that just since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including 20,000 killed, as Ukraine has rebuffed a heavy assault by Russian forces in the east of the country.

In what has become a grinding war of attrition, the fiercest battles have been in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is struggling to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian defence.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US estimate is based on newly declassified American intelligence.

He did not detail how the intelligence community derived the number.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby (Susan Walsh/AP)

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Russia had suffered well over 100,000 killed or wounded in the first eight months of the war.

The new figures suggest that Russian losses have dramatically accelerated in recent months.

Troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group and other forces are fighting Ukrainian troops house-to-house to try to gain control of what has become known as the “road of life” – the last remaining road west still in Ukrainian hands, which makes it critical for supplies and fresh troops.

Both sides have cited gains in recent days.

Mr Kirby said nearly half those killed since December are Wagner forces, many of them convicts who were released from prison to join Russia’s fight.

He said the Wagner forces were “thrown into combat and without sufficient combat or combat training, combat leadership, or any sense of organisational command and control”.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukrainian ground forces, said that Russia continued to exert “maximum effort” to take the city but that it so far had failed.

“In some parts of the city, the enemy was counter-attacked by our units and left some positions,” he said.

Mr Kirby declined to say how many Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in the fighting.

Gen Milley said in November that Ukrainian casualties were probably also about 100,000.