Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars, previously said that out of 50,000 convicts recruited by the Wagner Group, 40,000 were either dead or missing.
Russia’s Wagner Group, the paramilitary outfit founded by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, has suffered “significant” losses in the fight for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, a think tank has said.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted in its latest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine that Western officials have reported that Wagner Group and conventional Russian forces have likely lost a substantial amount of manpower in the Bakhmut area, and that this will further constrain Russia’s offensive on the city.
Russian and Ukrainian forces have been engaged in a bloody fight for Bakhmut since July. It has become the longest-running battle since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow is hoping to secure its first major battlefield victory since last summer by capturing Bakhmut, a small city with a pre-war population of 70,000.
The ISW noted that on March 29, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley reported that the Wagner Group has around 6,000 professional personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 recruits, mostly convicts, fighting in the Bakhmut area.
