General Staff: Russians burn dead soldiers’ bodies to hide losses

A local crematorium is cremating dead Russian soldiers around the clock in Krazna Zorka, a village in occupied Crimea, to hide losses, the General Staff reported on Feb. 15.

A constant line of up to 10 trucks bringing soldiers’ dead bodies has been spotted near the crematorium, according to the report.

A Feb. 12 report by the U.K. Defense Ministry says that Russia has likely suffered from its highest rate of casualties over the past two weeks since the first week of its full-scale invasion that began on Feb. 24.

“The mean average for the last seven days was 824 casualties per day, over four times the rate reported over June-July 2022,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said.

The deadliest battles are ongoing near Bakhmut and the town of Vuhledar, located more than 100 kilometers south of the city, according to the ministry's report.

“Lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front” are among the factors that led to the sudden spike in Russia’s casualties, according to the report.

As Russian forces attempt to advance in Donetsk Oblast, Western intelligence reports that both sides suffer from an increasingly high casualty rate.

As of Feb. 15, Russia has lost 139,770 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

In April 2022, the Mariupol City Council reported that Russia’s special brigades were collecting and burning the bodies of murdered residents, using mobile crematoriums to hide their war crimes. Tens of thousands of civilians may have been killed in Mariupol, it added.

Ukraine war latest: Wagner boss says Russia won't capture Bakhmut soon, West says no planes for now

The Kyiv Independent