Russian Death Toll To Hit 90,000 As Grisly Cost of War Revealed: Ukraine

Ukraine's armed forces said on Thursday that 540 Russian troops had been killed over the previous 24 hours, as its estimate of the death toll faced by Moscow's forces approaches 90,000.

The Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its update that Russia has lost 89,440 troops since the start of its invasion on February 24.

With Ukraine's estimate that around 500 Russian troops were being killed every day, the milestone of 90,000 is expected to be reached by the weekend.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry regarding Ukraine's unverified figure which is higher than other international assessments.

An independent investigation conducted by the BBC Russian Service and independent Russian news outlet MediaZona of officially confirmed fatalities said on November 25, that in a "conservative estimate," at least 9,311 Russian soldiers had been killed.

The BBC said that the list may contain up to 60 percent fewer names of the dead than had been buried in Russia while MediaZona reported that the numbers could be in the "tens of thousands."

"The losses of the Russian army and Russia's National Guard in Ukraine could be more than 18,600 people," the BBC said, adding that 15 percent of the toll consisted of officers, including four generals and 47 colonels.

After Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of troops on September 21, his defense minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the Russian army had lost 5,937 soldiers.

However, the number of casualties on both sides is difficult to pinpoint independently and is prone to exaggeration from both sides.

On Wednesday, the European Commission rowed back on a comment made by its president Ursula von der Leyen in a video address in which she said there had been 100,000 Ukrainian military deaths. Russian media outlets pounced on the fact that her video address had been edited to leave out the 100,000 figure.

Bohdan Senyk, spokesperson for the armed forces of Ukraine, said that the number of Ukrainian losses was "classified information."

Meanwhile, Ukrainian presidential spokesperson Sergey Nikiforov said the number of losses was "sensitive" and could only be revealed by his country's commander-in-chief, the minister of defense, or the president.

The European Commission's deputy chief spokesperson Dana Spinant corrected the number which she said came "from external sources" and should have referred to those both injured and killed.

Chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff General Mark Milley said in November that Russia's military had seen more than 100,000 of its soldiers killed and wounded. He said that Ukraine's armed forces had "probably" suffered a similar level of casualties, Reuters reported.