Russia would have lost, just in December 2025, about twice as many soldiers as the Soviet Union lost throughout the entire Soviet-Afghan war, stated on February 10 the former head of the British foreign intelligence service.
Sir Richard Moore made the statements in an interview given to journalist Yalda Hakim, during the World podcast by Sky News, on February 10. According to him, approximately 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine in December, a toll he described as “staggering”.
Moore compared this monthly number of deaths among the Russian army with the losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the war in Afghanistan, a conflict that lasted ten years (1979–1989) and resulted in the death of approximately 15,000 Soviet soldiers.
“The losses are horrifying, and even the Russians will find it hard to replace such a level of losses. Nevertheless, they continue to perform extremely poorly on the battlefield,” Moore said.
He added that, despite these losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin “feels more comfortable than he should”.
“We should exert more pressure. We should support the Ukrainians much more than we do now. We should grant them more permissions than we give now,” the former head of MI6 further stated.
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