Russia lost more soldiers in the first 3 months of its war in Ukraine than the Soviet Union lost in 10 years of occupying most of Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to a British intelligence report, some of whose details were provided by the British newspaper “The Times” today, Tuesday.
Almost the same, defense experts reported that the conflict in eastern Ukraine had turned into a “war of attrition” as Ukrainian President Zelensky warned that his country was losing up to 100 soldiers a day in the Donbas region, rich in coal-mining and mining, which has become a major battlefield.
In the intelligence report, the Soviet Union suffered 15,000 dead in the conflict that began in December 1979 and ended in February 1989 in Afghanistan, and “caused the disintegration of the Soviet Union,” according to some historians. According to the British Ministry of Defense, the Russian army has already lost a greater number of deaths, and that “the Russians’ tolerance for deaths is starting to wear out as their number increases, which may increase public discontent with the war and a willingness to express it,” according to the newspaper.
The report also points out that there is a very great similarity in the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict and the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, where the Soviets faced a guerrilla war with missiles supplied by the United States, in the way that the Ukrainians are currently using “hit and run” anti-tank tactics, which is what the video addresses. Al-Arabiya.net presents it above, and also indicates that the losses of 3 months in Ukraine are equivalent to the losses of 10 years for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia and a lecturer at Mayak Intelligence, known in London as a consulting center, says that Ukraine has become like Afghanistan in the Soviet military campaign against it in the 1980s, and that the size of the losses means that President Putin will struggle to maintain the “Donbass” attack for a longer period without a complete mobilization. .
Galeotti also said: “Although the Ukrainians seem to be losing territory, Western officials believe that by disrupting the Russian campaign, they have succeeded in limiting the ability of the Russians to launch large-scale attacks,” explaining that their forces tried yesterday to storm the towns of Severodonetsk and its neighbor Lyman To achieve a breakthrough in the “Donbas”, however, Western intelligence reports indicate that its “advance is slow and gradual” in the region, because the Ukrainians are weakening the Russian ability to advance and allow time for their forces to continue improving their defenses elsewhere.
