Putin Spokesperson Admits ‘Significant Losses’ Of Russian Troops In Ukraine

Peskov said the loss of Russian troops in Ukraine was a “huge tragedy” to Russia, in a rare acknowledgement of the magnitude of Russian casualties.

Russia said on March 25 that 1,351 soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded in Ukraine.

A senior NATO military official told the Washington Post on March 24, a month into Russia’s attack on Ukraine, somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian troops had been killed in the war, which Russia began with around 190,000 troops. ​​

Peskov reiterated that Russia’s decision in late March to pull back troops from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv was “an act of goodwill” during peace talks with Ukraine, but military analysts have attributed it to Russia’s heavy losses and lack of progress on that front.

Russia has pulled as many as 40,000 soldiers from Kyiv and Chernihiv and will likely send them to eastern Ukraine in the coming weeks, the New York Times reported, citing a U.S. official.

Peskov disagreed with the characterization that the first weeks of the war didn’t go as the Kremlin had planned, though experts and think tanks have said Russia has focused on claiming control of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine after Russia’s initial plan to take over Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities fell through.