More Russians died in ten-month battle for Bakhmut than in ten-year Afghan war

Alec Luhn

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Almost 20,000 fighters from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group were killed in the intense battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last year, more men than the Soviet Union lost in the decade-long invasion of Afghanistan.

Up to 213 mercenaries were killed each day, according to documents obtained by the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, an independent Russian media outlet. Wagner lost more than 19,500 men in the ten-month campaign to take the city, most of whom were recruited from prisons. That makes the “Bakhmut meat grinder” Russia’s bloodiest battle since the Second World War.

Bakhmut had minor strategic value but took on totemic importance for both sides as troops fought from building to building, and near-constant shelling reduced the city to rubble.