The Ukraine war’s cost on Russia has been laid bare in a series of photos showing the inside of Russian cemeteries.
Western military officials believe that, since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, between 70,000 and 120,000 Russians have died in the conflict.
Shocking images captured by satellites have shown the impact of those dizzying totals in Russia, where officials have visibly tacked significant extensions onto existing graveyards.
The imagery, released by IT firm Maxar Technologies, has followed developments in six large cemeteries across the country.
Each one, the firm found, has added dozens of new plots between 2021 and 2023, a sight military experts have dubbed “startling”.
Maxar’s imagery captured the Bogorodskoye, Blyzhnie, Mikhaylovsk, Alabino, Bakinskaya, and Tula cemeteries.
The cemeteries are the final resting places for Russia’s elite military units, with Wagner Mercenary group members among the soldiers laid to rest inside.
In Tula alone, Maxar estimates the number of plots has quadrupled between October 2021 and April 2023, with Bogorodskoye appearing to have tripled in size.
Most of the images show new sections being added to each cemetery to accommodate fatalities.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Colonel Philip Ingram, an ex-intelligence officer with the British Army, dubbed the images “startling”.
He said they show the “huge price” Russian conscripts have paid for Putin’s now two-year-long invasion.
He added: “I am not surprised at the clear growth in cemeteries near bases as Russia is losing more than 900 troops a day at the moment for minimal territorial gains.”
“The Russian losses in the battle for Avdiivka, where over 16,000 of their soldiers died are testament to that.”
The number quoted by Colonel Ingram is near the total of Russian soldiers aged between 35 and 39 alone who have reportedly died in the conflict, with between 15,000 and 17,000 having died since 2022.
More alarmingly, recent data has suggested that up to one percent of all Russian men aged 20 to 50 may have died or sustained severe wounds in the conflict.
