Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel of the United States Army and a political analyst, told Tucker Carlson in an interview on his program on the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter, that Ukraine has already lost 400,000 soldiers in its war with Russia. His revelation comes as the New York Times reported that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is struggling because some of Kiev’s best troops are “in the wrong places.”
“I think all of the lies that have been told for more than a year and a half about “the Ukrainians are winning”, “Ukrainian causes just”, “the Russians are evil”, “the Russians are incompetent” - all of that is collapsing. And it's collapsing because what’s happening on the battlefield is horrific,” Macgregor told Carlson.
In this sense, the former adviser to the Department of Defense during the Presidency of Donald Trump affirmed that Ukraine had lost 400,000 men during the conflict with Russia.
“Ukrainians now we think have lost 400,000 men killed in battle. We were talking about 300-350,000 a few months ago. Within the last month of this supposed counteroffensive which was to sweep the battlefield, they lost at least 40,000 killed,” he said.
Just as disturbing is his claim that 40,000 to 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers are amputees, likely from the deadly minefields laid by Russia. The retired colonel said that Ukrainian commanders are surrendering so that those who have sustained heavy injuries can survive, adding that the Russians “have always treated the Ukrainian soldiers very fairly and very gently from the very beginning.”
The specialist spoke of Russia’s superiority on the ground and said that Ukraine’s heavy losses were not being reported in the Western press, adding, “I think we're going to see this army we've spent so heavily on increasingly melt away.”
However, his claim is not entirely accurate as the Western press, since around the middle of July, has been more openly reporting about the struggles and failures of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. It is worth remembering that the New York Times, a newspaper that in recent months has hardened its criticism of the Kiev regime, pointed out the links between the Ukrainian political and military elite with neo-Nazi movements and warned that Ukraine was not respecting the human rights of Conscientious objectors. Other outlets report similar news and the high mortality rate among Ukrainian personnel.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is struggling because some of Kiev’s best troops are “in the wrong places,” according to The New York Times, citing senior US and UK officials on condition of anonymity. Kiev’s primary goal is to reach the Azov Sea to separate the Crimean Peninsula from mainland Russia. According to the newspaper, Ukraine currently has more troops on the eastern front, in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), than in the South, a “far more strategically significant” battlefield sector.
“American planners have advised Ukraine to concentrate on the front driving toward Melitopol, Kyiv’s top priority, and on punching through Russian minefields and other defenses, even if the Ukrainians lose more soldiers and equipment in the process,” the NYT reported.
Russia's Ministry of Defense estimates that Ukraine has lost 45,000 troops and more than 5,000 vehicles in the last two months of fighting, failing to penetrate Russian defence lines.
“Only with a change of tactics and a dramatic move can the tempo of the counteroffensive change,” a US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the paper.
Kiev’s insistence on maintaining a significant force in the East baffles US and British officials, as Western doctrine demands a commitment to an apparent main effort. They argue that a smaller force in the east could pin down Russian troops, and although Ukraine theoretically has enough troops to retake Artyomovsk, doing so “would lead to large numbers of losses for little strategic gain.”
Kiev is currently drawing on its “last strategic reserves,” and anonymous Western analysts fear that Ukrainian forces “may run out of steam” by mid-September, even before a change in weather turns the terrain into impassable mud.
If the death toll already stands at 400,000, according to Macgregor, it can only be reasonably assumed that this number will drastically increase by the time mid-September arrives in a few weeks. This will leave Ukraine at the mercy of the Russian military, who will then be able to liberate territories currently occupied by Kiev’s forces and even push on to take Kharkov and Odessa if Moscow chooses.
