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1351 servicemen from Russia were killed. This is official data. How many actually died - no one knows

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This is Meduza's daily mailing list. Here we briefly talk about the main events related to the war in Ukraine that took place during the day.

Russia acknowledges the death of 1351 servicemen during the war with Ukraine

“Unfortunately, during the special military operation there are losses among our comrades. To date, 1,351 servicemen have died, 3,825 have been injured,” said the Russian General Staff on March 25. This is the second time during the war that Russia talks about its losses.

The losses of Ukraine in the Russian General Staff were estimated at more than 14 thousand people - about the same as Ukraine estimates the losses of Russia (more than 16 thousand people).

It is impossible to objectively estimate the number of those killed in the war. Experts most often talk about the likely death of several thousand people on both sides, based not least on data on destroyed equipment from open sources.

There are resources that count according to reports of the death of specific people. telegram channel At the time of sending this letter, the Goryushko contained data on the death of 823 Russian soldiers.

During the same briefing, the Deputy Head of the General Staff of the Russian Federation called the “liberation” of Donbass the main goal of the operation. The context was this: the operation is proceeding according to plan, the “main tasks” of its first stage have been completed, Ukraine’s military potential has been reduced, which allows Russia to focus on the “main goal”.

The General Staff also stated that “Kyiv, Kharkov, Chernihiv, Sumy and Nikolaev are blocked by Russian troops” - let’s say right away that independent data do not confirm this for most of the cities listed. Perhaps more important in the statement of the military is the assertion that Russia allegedly "initially did not plan" to storm these cities, but "does not rule out such a possibility."

Ukraine accuses Russia of kidnapping 14 mayors

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk spoke about this, speaking about Russia's demand to proceed from the principle of "border guards for border guards, sailors for sailors" when exchanging prisoners. “And I have a logical question: for whom will we change the mayors, of whom there are already 14 held hostage by Russia?” - she said.

The Russian authorities do not comment on the numerous reports of abductions in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Perhaps the only indirect confirmation from the lips of a Russian official was the recent words of Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova that the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, was indeed exchanged for nine Russian servicemen. On what basis Russia detained the mayor of the Ukrainian city, she did not explain.

The UN was able to confirm 36 cases of kidnappings in the occupied territories.

Russia has essentially introduced martial law (although it has not been declared)

The head of the International Agora, Pavel Chikov, and the head of Network Freedoms, Damir Gaynutdinov, analyzed what has been happening in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine and came to the conclusion that basic constitutional rights are limited in the country. The situation is analogous to martial law.

• There is no freedom of assembly: actions are not coordinated, participants are detained, and force is used against them.
• Military censorship has been introduced (this is precisely what the laws on “fake” and “discrediting” of the Russian military are). Among the defendants in criminal cases under the new articles are journalists.
• More than 800 information resources and major Western social networks have been blocked.
• Freedom of movement is limited: 11 Russian airports are closed because of the war, and Western countries have closed the skies for Russian aircraft. You can freely travel by land only to Belarus.

The authors of the report also believe that the defeat of the opposition and the launch of the 2021 anti-media campaign were domestic political preparations for war:

“Both of them formed public opinion and would inevitably create a powerful opposition to state propaganda. The replacement of the leadership of Roskomnadzor and the intensive technical preparation of the regulator for blocking foreign Internet services, filtering external traffic and isolating the Runet may be related to the same.

No war. Your Medusa