The Kremlin-affiliated newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published in its online edition on Sunday, for a few hours, a particularly heavy account of the losses of the war in Ukraine in the ranks of the Russian army – before deleting it.
The day before yesterday, the newspaper, citing the Ministry of Defense, referred to 9,861 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war.
This is a multiple of 498 dead, the only official report released to date by Moscow.
However, the controversial excerpt from the newspaper text was deleted a few hours later. So far no explanation has been given by its editorial director.
International media are wondering about the report and whether it was accurate. Some pointed out that on Sunday no report was announced in the daily briefing by the Ministry of Defense.
Article ️ An article about losses from Russian side has appeared on the website of Komsomolskaya Pravda. The article refers to 9861 dead and 16153 injured. The publication refers to #Russian Ministry of Defense.
A few minutes later, article was deleted but internet remember everything. pic.twitter.com/d0w77OYdOf
– NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 21, 2022
A Wall Street Journal reporter commented via Twitter that either Komsomolskaya Pravda’s website had been hacked, or the newspaper had this information from its own sources in the ministry and published it.
If the published figure is accurate, it means that the losses of the Russian army in Ukraine are extremely heavy, even more so because it suffered them in less than a month. In comparison, in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s the army of the former Soviet Union lost some 15,000 soldiers in a period of nine years.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that some 14,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the invasion began on February 24.
Neither the number published by the Russian newspaper, nor the number given by the head of the Ukrainian state can be verified independently.
The Kremlin is closely monitoring the media coverage of the war, which it refers to as a “special military operation.”
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