30,000 Wagner Group fighters have been killed or injured in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, says White Home spokesman

• Greater than 30,000 Wagner Group fighters have been killed or injured, in accordance with US officers.

• John Kirby mentioned that half of the Wagner fighters who perished within the conflict have died since mid-December.

• Kirby mentioned that the Wagner Group are “treating their recruits as cannon fodder.”

Greater than 30,000 fighters from the Wagner Group, usually considered Putin’s de facto non-public military, have been killed or injured for the reason that invasion of Ukraine started, in accordance with US officers.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Coordinator for Strategic Communications on the Nationwide Safety Council within the White Home John Kirby mentioned, “whereas combating in Ukraine, we estimate now that Wagner has suffered greater than 30,000 casualties, together with roughly 9,000 killed in motion.”

He added that half of the Wagner fighters who’ve perished within the conflict had died since mid-December when combating across the jap metropolis of Bakhmut intensified.

Kirby acknowledged that, in accordance with US intelligence, 90% of the Wagner Group soldiers killed in the last two and a half months were convicts.

Kirby mentioned that the Wagner Group are “treating their recruits, largely convicts, as principally — as cannon fodder, throwing them right into a literal meat grinder right here, inhuman methods, with out a second thought.”

This bleak description comes because the Wagner Group launched a video on Telegram displaying stacks of our bodies piled up in Bakhmut, saying a scarcity of ammunition is killing their males.

“We’re dropping our fighters every single day: it might be half as a lot if the army officers had been to provide us with weapons and ammunition on time,” a person in a hazmat go well with mentioned within the video.

While the Wagner Group has made limited advances in BakhmutKirby mentioned this acquire has come at a “devastating price that’s not sustainable.”

“It’s potential that they might find yourself being profitable in Bakhmut, however it’ll show of no actual value to them as a result of it’s of no actual strategic worth,” the safety council official mentioned.

A current intelligence briefing from the UK Ministry of Defence acknowledged that the speed of Russian troopers being wounded or killed has “considerably elevated” since Putin’s mobilization in September.

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In response to British intelligence, 40-60,000 Russian troopers and Wagner Group fighters have been killed since February 2022.

“By trendy requirements, these figures characterize a excessive ratio of personnel killed in comparison with these wounded. That is nearly definitely attributable to extraordinarily rudimentary medical provision throughout a lot of the pressure,” mentioned the MoD.

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