7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in Ukraine: NATO

KYIV, (PTI): NATO has estimated that around 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in a month of fighting in Ukraine.

A senior NATO military official said Wednesday the estimate was based on information from Ukrainian officials, what Russia has released — intentionally or not — and intelligence gathered from open sources. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO. When Russia unleashed its invasion February 24 in Europe’s biggest offensive since World War II and brandished the prospect of nuclear escalation if the West intervened, a lightning-swift toppling of Ukraine’s democratically elected government seemed likely.

But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Russia is bogged down in a grinding military campaign, with untold numbers of dead, no immediate end in sight, and its economy crippled by Western sanctions. U.S. President Joe Biden and key allies are meeting in Brussels and Warsaw this week to discuss possible new punitive measures and more military aid to Ukraine.

As Biden left the White House on Wednesday for the flight to Europe, he warned there is a “real threat” Russia could use chemical weapons and said he will discuss that danger with the other leaders.

The war’s economic and geopolitical shockwaves — with soaring energy prices, fears for global food supplies, and Russia and China aligning in a new world order with echoes of the Cold War — have reverberated across a planet yet to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis.

With his olive-drab T-shirts, unshaven face and impassioned appeals to governments around the world for help, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been transformed into a wartime leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s No. 1 antagonist.

Addressing Japan’s parliament on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said four weeks of war have killed thousands, including at least 121 of Ukraine’s children. (PTI)