Analysts point to data deficit about residents of Southern Russia who perished in Ukraine

The true death toll in the special operation in Ukraine cannot be assessed until it is over, the analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" assert.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that since the start of the special operation in Ukraine, it has become known that at least 142 natives of Northern Caucasus and 58 residents of the Southern Federal District (SFD) have perished; these figures are the result of the calculations run by the "Caucasian Knot" based on officially confirmed data.

In general, the army and other power structures have contract servicemen from poor Russian regions than from more successful ones, Akhmet Yarlykapov, a senior researcher at the Centre for Eurasian Studies at the Moscow State Institute for Foreign Relations (known as MGIMO), believes. "Depressed regions provide more contract soldiers and, accordingly, suffer more losses," he said.

Alexei Malashenko, Chief Researcher at the E. M. Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) has doubted that the true scale of losses could be judged during the ongoing military operation. "We'll learn about them (losses) much later," he has suggested.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 14, 2022 at 01:20 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.