The greeting of the commander of the Air Force was removed from the website of the Ministry of Defense channel

The website of the TV channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense “Zvezda” deleted the congratulation of the commander of the Airborne Forces on Airborne Forces Day. In the video, Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky indirectly acknowledges the high losses of the Russian military. The “Agency” publication drew attention to this.

In his congratulation, Teplinsky said that he was proud of the fact that in a year and a half of the war, “more than five thousand wounded paratroopers returned to the front after treatment, and more than three and a half thousand of our wounded refused to leave the front line at all.” Thus, it is recognized that at least 8,500 wounded have been recorded in the Airborne Forces, only one of the Russian military branches.

Russia does not disclose losses in the war with Ukraine, the estimate of 8.5 thousand wounded is the highest made by Russian officials during the entire war. Despite the fact that Teplinsky does not reveal the number of dead, it can be assumed that it is about thousands of paratroopers killed in the war.

At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there were reports of high losses incurred by the Airborne Forces. Journalists of “Mediazon” and the Russian Service of the BBC, the leading casualty count, confirmed that by July 28, at least 1,842 paratroopers, including 322 officers, had died. Among them are at least 37 senior officers, including Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky and eight colonels.

• In the study of “Meduza” and “Mediazon”, the total number of dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine since February 2022 is estimated at 47 thousand.