As of: March 6, 2024, 5:26 a.m
By: Alexandra Heidsiek
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Press
Split
Putin is reluctant to provide official information about losses in the Ukraine war.
Now Russia is editing data sources, making informal investigations more difficult.
Moscow – The Kremlin is manipulating data, presumably to conceal its own losses in the Ukraine war.
This emerges from research by the independent Russian medium
Verstka
, which was analyzed by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Estimates of casualties in the Ukraine war vary greatly
According to the latest official data, 5,937 Russian soldiers died in the Ukraine war.
Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu named this number in September 2022. The real losses on both sides are difficult to determine.
In December, US intelligence agencies said there were 315,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded.
After evaluating various public databases,
the two independent Russian portals
Mediazona
and
Meduza came to a figure of between 66,000 and 88,000 deaths on the Russian side.
BBC Russia
and
Mediazona
were able to identify 45,123 soldiers killed in Russian service using this practice, but stated that the real number of casualties was probably twice as high.
Putin supports his defense minister's mission with all means © picture alliance/dpa/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP |
Alexander Kazakov
Putin's authorities apparently manipulate statistics from 2022
The Kremlin probably wants to make such an approach more difficult.
According to Verstka,
data from 2022 was
initially deleted from the state database on social spending distribution.
The database is divided by categories, including “widows of military personnel killed during special military operations,” “family members of killed military service members,” “citizens who were wounded, injured or maimed during military service, or who suffered a concussion.”
The information has now been restored.
In January, the exiled media
iStories
reported that the Russian pension fund had already issued a letter to its employees in December 2022 asking them not to publish information about social security contributions of front-line soldiers.
Embellished data is intended to influence the Russian election
Russia has been using cover-up tactics of this kind for a long time.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the governors tasked with combating the virus revised down the death toll in their regions.
This emerges from data that an international expert committee
published in an article for the
British Journal of Political Science in 2022.
According to the article, politicians in Russia wanted to legitimize the regime and the measures it has taken in the wake of the pandemic in view of the upcoming regional elections and the referendum to extend Putin's term of office.
In addition, low death rates would suggest stability and competence and prevent public protests.
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Four years later there is another election and data is being manipulated again.
The hoped-for effect is likely to be similar: low losses in the Ukraine war give the illusion of success and downplay the danger of the mission - possibly also with a view to a new wave of mobilization.
The ISW also suspects that the tactic serves to reduce social discontent and to cover up the fact that the Kremlin was unable to provide all of the promised social assistance.
The presidential election is taking place in Russia from March 15 to 17, 2024.
By then, President Vladimir Putin will have to get a large portion of the population behind him if he wants to credibly announce an approval rating of over 80 percent.
(uh)