Russia’s plans did not materialize as President Vladimir Putin wanted in February 2022. Kyiv was not captured in three days, but Donbas was captured in 10-14 days. The Ministry of Defense of Great Britain calculated how much the battle of Bakhmut, which is considered the bloodiest since the war in Ukraine, cost the Russian army.

The Ministry of Defense of Great Britain states that one Russian soldier was wounded or killed for every 48 centimeters of conquered territory in Bakhmut.

“In February 2022, Russia probably planned to complete the capture of the entire Donbas in 10-14 days. But in Bakhmut there is one dead or one wounded for every 18 inches of ground. Ukraine continues to fight,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a post alongside a video showing a city destroyed by fierce fighting that has been going on there for months.

According to the estimates of the Ministry of Defense of Great Britain, Russian troops advanced 29 kilometers on the Bakhmut Front.

Since the beginning of May 2023, Russia has recorded 60,000 casualties among the army on this front, the military department of Great Britain also claims.

Ukrainian counteroffensive, in four directions

According to the latest assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, analysts believe that Ukrainian forces continued their counteroffensive on at least four areas of the front, including Bakhmut.

Russian sources reported shelling of the Ukrainian military in the Luhansk region, near Bilogorivka.

Colonel Serhii Cherevaty, spokesman for the Eastern Ukrainian Army Group, said that Ukrainian troops had advanced to 1,400 meters on the Bakhmut front, while Russian media bloggers reported Ukrainian advances to the northwest and northeast of Bakhmut.

At noon on Sunday, the Ukrainian army announced that it had liberated the first town in Donetsk region since the start of the counteroffensive.

h2; Independent assessment of victims in Bakhmut

Despite the figures released by the British Ministry of Defence, the independent Russian press, which initiated an attempt to identify Russian fighters, soldiers or mercenaries who died at Bakhmut, estimates lower losses.

Analyzing obituaries that include the city’s name or the fact that they were Wagner’s mercenaries, the BBC and MediaZone have come to the conclusion that between August 2022 and the present, approximately 5,700 people have died in the fighting in Bakhmut.

Most of them were former prisoners who joined the group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

However, journalists believe that the number of victims may be twice as high, observing changes in cemeteries in different regions of Russia.

In addition, in the case of Wagner’s mercenaries, the actual death toll may be much higher than this estimate, as the fighters are often buried in secret from the Russian military, and some of the ex-prisoners are even buried in new cemeteries, which are not easy to find. discovered At least one of them is outside Russia, near Luhansk.

Journalists estimated that in almost 10 months of attempts to conquer Bakhmut, the number of casualties will be more than 20 thousand, and the ratio of wounded, taking into account the poor training of the prisoners, may be 1:5 or even more.