Putin has lost nearly 90 per cent of his pre-invasion army with 315,000 personnel either killed or injured since war began, according to US intelligence

• Report assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military have set back Russia’s military modernization by 18 years

Putin has lost nearly 90 per cent of his pre-invasion army, with 315,000 personnel either killed or injured since war began, according to US intelligence. 

The declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military have set back Russia’s military modernization by 18 years, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Tuesday.

Russia also has lost almost two-thirds of its tank force, or 2,200 out of its 3,500 pre-invasion stock, the congressional source said. 

While it is widely known that Putin’s forces have been subject to huge losses in Ukraine, the assessment sheds new light on the extent of those setbacks. 

The Russian embassy referred a request for comment to the Russian defense ministry in Moscow. The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that Moscow ‘s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military have set back Russia ‘s military modernization by 18 years, a source familiar with the intelligence said (File Photo)

In this handout videograb of footage taken and released by the Russian Ministry of Defence on September 25, 2023, Russian troops prepare to shell Ukrainian positions around the area of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine

Fighters of the Russian Volunteer Corps stand next to a seized armoured personnel carrier during a presentation for the media in northern Ukraine, not far from the Russian border, on May 24, 2023, amid Russian military invasion on Ukraine

Russian officials have said Western estimates of Russian death tolls in the war are vastly exaggerated and almost always underestimate Ukrainian losses, which Russian officials say are vast.

The source said the recently declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with 360,000 personnel.

Since then, the report found, 315,000 Russian troops, or about 87 per cent of the total with which it started the war, have been killed or injured, the source said.

Those losses are the reason Russia has loosened recruitment standards for deployment in Ukraine, the source added.

‘The scale of losses has forced Russia to take extraordinary measures to sustain its ability to fight. Russia declared a partial mobilization of 300,000 personnel in late 2022, and has relaxed standards to allow recruitment of convicts and older civilians,’ the assessment said, according to the source.

The Russian army began the war with 3,100 tanks, lost 2,200 of them and has had to ‘backfill’ that force with T62 tanks produced in the 1970s, leaving it only 1,300 tanks on the battlefield, the source quoted the report as saying.

Kyiv treats its losses as a state secret and officials say disclosing the figure could harm its war effort. A New York Times report in August cited U.S. officials as putting the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000.

Writing in the Ukrainian journal Tyzhden, historian Yaroslav Tynchenko and volunteer Herman Shapovalenko last month said Shapovalenko’s Book of Memory project had confirmed 24,500 Ukrainian combat and non-combat deaths using open sources.

The real figure was likely higher, they said.

Rescuers respond at the site of a missile explosion in the yard of a high-rise residential building in Dniprovskyi district on December 13, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine. For the second night in a row, Russia is attacking Kyiv with ballistic missiles

The source spoke as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a last-ditch plea for more military aid to U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where he faced a skeptical reception from key Republicans.

At a news conference later in the day, U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed continued support to Zelensky, and warned lawmakers they risked handing a victory to Russia.

Zelensky today urged allies in Europe and the US to continue to back Kyiv, as disputes in Brussels and Washington hold up new aid packages.

He was speaking ahead of a meeting with the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, in which he will seek financial support for more weapons production.

‘You can’t win without help,’ Zelensky told reporters after talks with Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.

‘But you can’t lose, because (all) you have (is) your country.’

On Wednesday, a barrage of Russian missiles targeted Kyiv, wounding at least 53 people, officials said.

Loud explosions rocked Kyiv at 3 a.m. as the city’s air defenses were activated for the second time this week. 

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 10 ballistic missiles toward the capital and all were intercepted by air defenses, but their debris struck homes and a children’s hospital.

The attack underscored the continuing threat to Ukraine from the Kremlin’s missile arsenal in the 21-month war. 

Russia has been stockpiling its air-launched cruise missiles from its heavy bomber fleet, according to a recent assessment by the Ministry of Defence.

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