NATO Says Up to 15K Russian Troops Dead in Ukraine

NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where fierce fighting by the country's fast-moving defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought. By way of comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops over 10 years in Afghanistan.A senior NATO military official said the alliance's estimate was based on information from Ukrainian authorities, what Russia has released—intentionally or not—and intelligence gathered from open sources, the AP reports. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO.

When Russia unleashed its invasion Feb. 24 in Europe’s biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine’s government seemed likely. But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Moscow is bogged down in a grinding military campaign. With its ground forces slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops are bombarding targets from afar, falling back on the tactics they used in reducing cities to rubble in Syria and Chechnya.

Addressing Japan’s parliament Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said thousands of his people have been killed, including at least 121 children. "Our people cannot even adequately bury their murdered relatives, friends, and neighbors. They have to be buried right in the yards of destroyed buildings, next to the roads," Zelensky said.With cities like Mariupol cut off and heavily bombarded, death tolls are difficult to determine. In their last update, over a week ago, Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died, but the true toll is probably much higher. Airstrikes in the past week destroyed a theater and an art school where civilians were sheltering. (President Biden headed to Europe Wednesday for an extraordinary NATO summit.)

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)