Russia has lost up to 30,000 Wagner mercenaries in fight for Bakhmut, with one in three dead – Western intelligence
Western intelligence estimates Russia's losses in recent months in the battles for the city of Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, at 20,000-30,000 mercenaries from the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC); about a third of them may be dead.
Source: This was stated by a senior official of one of the Western countries at a briefing for journalists on Tuesday, 7 March, writes European Pravda, citing the British publication i.
According to the official, there is increasing evidence emerging that Russian conscripts are refusing to go into battle in other hotspots along the 750-mile frontline, including the section around the city of Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast, where hundreds of Russian troops are being killed or injured every day.
Additionally, Western officials believe that the Wagner Group is running out of reserves, as the number of men of draft age in Russian prisons, where the Wagner mercenaries are recruited, is beginning to decrease.
"The death rates of Wagner have been significantly higher than those of the Russian Armed Forces. [The battle of] Bakhmut has not been successful for the Russians. They've been grinding away for six months now. What we’re seeing is a really horrific level of Russian casualties for very minimal territorial gain, and the Russian army is really in a bad way," the Western official emphasised.
The official also clarified that he did not have numerical data on Ukraine’s losses, but they are "much lower" than those suffered by Russia. He added that the West considers Kyiv's decision to continue defending "a city that is not tactically important" the right one.
"They are killing a lot of Russians there," said the Western official. "It may well last for another month or Ukraine could decide to leave within a week."
Earlier, NATO intelligence estimated the losses of the Russian side in the battles for Bakhmut as five times higher than the Ukrainian losses. At the same time, British intelligence says that the Ukrainian defence of Bakhmut is continuing to wear down the forces of the Ukrainian defenders and the Russian invaders alike.
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