Ukraine war: Russian newspaper publishes 9,861 soldier death toll – then deletes it
- Pro-Kremlin tabloid cites Ministry of Defence in report about Russian casualties in Ukraine
- Recent US intelligence assessment placed the Russian death toll after three weeks at almost 7,000
The pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda briefly published a high number of Russian soldiers thought to be killed in Ukraine, before deleting the information.
An online report on Sunday citing the Ministry of Defence reported that 9,861 Russian soldiers had died and 16,153 injured since the beginning of the war, as an archived version circulated on Monday showed.
That would be significantly higher than the 498 dead that Moscow has officially confirmed so far.
A few hours later, however, the corresponding passage from the Komsomolskaya Pravda article disappeared again. There was initially no statement from the newspaper on the report.
Various media and other observers were puzzling over the meaning of the article on, with some pointing out that no information on killed Russians had been given in the Defence Ministry briefing on Sunday.
Journalist Yaroslav Trofimov of The Wall Street Journal wrote on Twitter: “Either [the newspaper’s website] KP.ru has been hacked or someone there got the leaked numbers and posted them.”