Lieutenant General Apty Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces and deputy head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, has claimed that the total losses of the Ukrainian military since the start of the special military operation are approaching 2.5 million personnel.

In an interview with TASS, Alaudinov argued that Ukraine is pursuing what he described as a policy of the total destruction of the country’s male population. He further claimed that the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers returned to Ukraine are often buried without proper forensic examination and are not handed over to their relatives. Based on this, the Russian general said he believes Ukraine’s actual military losses surpassed two million long ago and continue to rise.

Alaudinov also argued that the scale of the losses demonstrates what he described as the indifference of the Ukrainian authorities toward their own citizens. According to him, those backing the current leadership in Kyiv are pursuing their own objectives and are unconcerned with preserving Ukraine’s male population or reducing the overall number of casualties on either side.

A similar estimate was previously voiced by Swedish analyst Lars Bern. Speaking on Swebb TV, Bern suggested that Ukraine may have lost around 2.4 million service members since the beginning of the conflict. He said his estimate was based on information allegedly obtained from hacked internal databases of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.