100,000 Russian troops killed, wounded in Ukraine, Gen. Mark Milley says - The Washington Post

Some 40,000 civilians person besides been killed oregon injured successful the war, Milley said. “There has been a tremendous magnitude of suffering, quality suffering,” helium added. The Washington Post could not independently verify the figures.

Milley’s fig is simply a crisp summation from the Pentagon’s August estimate of 70,000 to 80,000 Russian casualties. For comparison, the Soviet Union said successful 1988 that it mislaid more than 13,000 soldiers, and that much than 35,000 were injured, successful Afghanistan during the warfare it fought there.

It comes arsenic the Biden medication has encouraged Ukraine to beryllium much unfastened to talks with Russia amid increasing unease successful the West astir the outgo of a protracted struggle that has caused the terms of vigor and foodstuffs to skyrocket.

Officials successful Kyiv accidental they are open to negotiating with Russia but person acceptable preconditions, including the implicit withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s territory, an statement connected compensation from Russia for warfare harm and information guarantees from different countries.

As The Post has reported, the Biden administration’s outreach to Ukraine connected bid talks has included a petition for officials determination to driblet their nationalist refusal to negociate with Russia’s leader, President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin has besides signaled it is open to talks, but its ain preconditions look to beryllium astatine likelihood with those of Ukraine: After Russia illegally annexed 4 regions of Ukraine, Putin said that “the lone mode to peace” is for Ukraine and the West to admit that the radical of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia “have go our citizens, forever.”

Despite the differences successful demands betwixt the 2 sides, Milley said the wintertime could make opportunities for bid negotiations, with Russia ordering its forces to withdraw from the strategical confederate metropolis of Kherson connected Wednesday. But first, helium said, some sides had to admit that a implicit subject triumph was “maybe not achievable” successful this conflict, “and truthful you request to crook to different means.”

Ukrainian officials person suggested that Russia could simply beryllium pretending to retreat from Kherson successful a bid to trap Ukrainian troops into a combat implicit the city. Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, warned Wednesday that Ukraine saw “no signs” of a unilateral withdrawal.

U.S. officials person besides signaled they are cautious astir reports of a Russian withdrawal. “There’s immoderate indications that the Russians mean to retreat to the eastbound slope of the Dnieper River,” Colin H. Kahl, the undersecretary of defence for policy, said Tuesday. “We’ll person to spot however that plays out.”

But Milley connected Wednesday said of the withdrawal: “The archetypal indicators are they are successful information doing it. They made the nationalist announcement they’re doing it.”

He said it could instrumentality weeks for Russia to retreat its troops — 20,000 to 30,000 successful Kherson — and suggested the withdrawal could beryllium a strategical determination “to sphere their unit to reestablish antiaircraft lines southbound of the [Dnieper] river, but that remains to beryllium seen.”

In the meantime, Milley said, determination is “a model of accidental for negotiation.”

“When bid tin beryllium achieved, prehend it,” helium said. “Seize the moment.”