Russia Suffers 'Extremely Heavy Casualties' In Ukraine, Sends Poor Minorities To Frontline: UK MoD

The Russian army is suffering heavy casualties in the war in Ukraine as it continues to push toward the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, according to an intelligence report from the British Ministry of Defense.

Russia's massive troop losses have impacted the country's several regions except for Moscow and St. Petersburg. The deaths have heavily affected many areas in Eastern Russia, where the rate of deaths is "30 to 40 times higher than in Moscow," as per the intelligence update.

"As Russia continues to suffer extremely heavy casualties, the impact varies dramatically across Russia's regions. In proportion to the size of their population, the richest cities of Moscow and St Petersburg have been left relatively unscathed," the intelligence report read. "In many of the Eastern regions, deaths are likely running, as a percentage of population, at a rate 30-40 times higher than in Moscow."

In addition, the intelligence report said that Russia is sending ethnic minorities to the frontline. It is believed that 75% of casualties among Russian ranks were soldiers from the minority communities of Kazakh and Tartar.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Since then, Moscow has lost 159,090 military personnel in the war, estimates from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine showed. The figure included 1,090 soldiers who were killed over the past day.

As per the estimates, Ukraine has also destroyed a total of 3,466 Russian tanks, 6,769 combat armored machines, 2,487 artillery systems, 2,108 UAVs and 5,348 automobile equipment and auto cistern.

Despite suffering massive losses, Russia is continuing its efforts to take control of the city of Bakhmut — the outskirts of which are said to be littered with the dead bodies of Russian soldiers, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Oleksii Danilov said during a 24/7 national joint newscast, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

The city has been the site of fierce battles between Ukrainian forces and fighters for Russia's infamous Wagner private military company (PMC). The Wagner group has reportedly lost up to 30,000 mercenaries on the Bakhmut front.