The war in Ukraine has claimed the lives or injured 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, also said that 40,000 or so civilians perished as a result of being involved in the fight. The estimations are the highest ones a Western official has yet provided. However, he said that indications that Kyiv was prepared to resume discussions with Moscow provided "a window" for dialogue.
Ukraine has recently indicated a willingness to engage in some dialogue with Moscow after President Volodymyr Zelensky withdrew a demand that negotiations stop until Vladimir Putin was ousted from office.
Gen. Milley said, however, that in order for any negotiations to be fruitful, Russia and Ukraine would need a "mutual recognition" that a military triumph "is maybe not achievable through military means, and therefore you need to turn to other means".
The top general, who serves as President Joe Biden's top military advisor, claimed that the number of casualties could persuade Moscow and Kyiv to discuss during the upcoming winter, when fighting may slack off due to the cold. Both Russia and Ukraine carefully maintain their death tolls.
Only 5,937 soldiers have died in all since the conflict began, according to Moscow's most recent data from September, which dismissed reports of a significantly higher death toll. The estimate from Gen. Milley is noticeably higher. In contrast, it was estimated that 15,000 Soviet soldiers perished in the fight in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.
Ukraine has mostly avoided providing death toll information. However, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the head of the armed forces, was cited in Ukrainian media as saying 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have perished so far in August. According to Gen. Milley, there has been a great deal of human suffering. He added that since Russia's incursion began on February 24, between 15 and 30 million people have become refugees.
The UN has reported 7.8 million Ukrainian refugees across Europe, including Russia. The statistic, however, excludes people who were forced to evacuate their homes but remain in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Moscow declared that its troops will begin withdrawing from Kherson, the only major city to fall to Russian forces.
While "initial indicators" showed that a retreat had begun, Gen Milley noted that Russia had gathered between 20 and 30,000 troops in the city, and the withdrawal may take several weeks. Russia's pullout from Kherson comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin called up 300,000 reservists in September to fight in Ukraine. According to military experts in the West and Ukraine, the need for mobilization demonstrated that Russian troops were failing miserably on the Ukrainian battlefield.
