Cemeteries show price Russia pays for invasion

Satellite pictures capturing the massive expansion of Russian military cemeteries prove the “huge cost” of the Ukraine war for Moscow’s army, according to experts.

The “startling” pictures show cemeteries linked to elite units such as the Guards Airborne Division, the Guards Motorised Division and the Wagner Mercenary group have all grown substantially in size since the invasion began in February 2022.

Although Russia does not provide a death toll for its soldiers, the pictures – provided by Maxar Technologies and obtained by The Telegraph and National Security News – add weight to Western estimates of significant losses.

Images of just one section of Moscow’s Tula cemetery, for example, show the numbers of graves have roughly quadrupled between October 2021 and April 2023.

The nearby Bogorodskoye cemetery has had a whole new section added during that time, apparently tripling its size.

Both are near Ryazan, in western Russia, where units of the 106th Guards Airborne Division are based, according to Maxar, a private US-based satellite company.

Western intelligence estimates suggest that as many as 20,000 Russian troops could have been killed in the fight for Bakhmut.

Colonel Philip Ingram, a former British Army intelligence officer and Nato planner, described the images as “startling”.

They show “the huge price Russian conscripts are paying”, he said.

“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.”

Estimates of the number of Russian soldiers killed fighting in Ukraine vary enormously.

A recent study by Mediazona and Meduza, two independent Russian media outlets, suggested it was up to 88,000 as of the end of 2023.

The US thinks the figure could be as high as 120,000, while Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky last month suggested it was 180,000.

The size of the cemeteries did not reflect the death toll given many bodies were left on the battlefield, which concealed the casualty rate from public gaze and saved the Russian government from paying compensation to families, Ingram said.

“This year will likely see casualties from both sides reach the one million in total mark.”

Other cemeteries, in Bakinskaya and Berezovsky, are linked with the Wagner Group and have expanded significantly. .Up to 21,000 Wagner fighters are believed to have been killed since the start of the war.