Russia has lost 87 percent of its active-duty ground troops and two-thirds of its tanks since the start of the Ukraine conflict, according to a declassified US intelligence assessment disclosed to Congress.
The assessment, sent to US Capitol Hill, coincides with fierce debates in Washington over additional funding for war-torn Ukraine, CNN reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in the United States for the third visit within a year, sought crucial military and economic aid to sustain the fight against Russia.
Zelensky left the country on Tuesday after securing vocal support from US President Joe Biden, but his visit was unable to break a congressional deadlock that is holding up billions of dollars of aid. Several Republican lawmakers resist providing further assistance to Kyiv, complicating the Biden administration’s push for supplemental funding through Congress.
According to declassified US intelligence, Russia has relaxed its recruitment standards and relies on Soviet-era equipment stockpiles. US media reports suggest that the Ukraine war has setback Russian efforts to modernize its ground forces by 15 years. Of the 360,000 troops that entered Ukraine, 315,000 have been lost, along with 2,200 tanks and 4,400 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, according to the intelligence assessment.
However, Russian officials time and again say that Western estimates of Russian death tolls and other losses in the war are vastly exaggerated and almost always underestimate Ukrainian losses. Before the start of the Ukraine conflict, Russia had around 900,000 active-duty troops.
“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 quoted by Reuters.
Moscow has now announced plans to expand the armed forces to 1.5 million, with several rounds of conscription, including the regular fall cycle on October 1. As part of war efforts, Russia has also leveraged convicts enlisted by the Wagner Group and extended the age limit for certain citizens in the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
(With agency inputs)
