The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) estimated this Wednesday, March 23, that the number of Russian soldiers who have died during the first month of the war in Ukraine would be much higher than the data reported by the Russian Government.

The special military operation indicated by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in his message to the nation minutes before the de facto start of the invasion in different parts of the Ukrainian territory was scheduled to take place, according to different analysts, quickly, with the taking of Kyiv and the deposition of the Government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian resistance at the front would be slowing down the Kremlin’s plans, whose consequences would also be felt on the battlefield, reported the France 24 portal.

This was confirmed on Wednesday by an estimate by the Atlantic Alliance, which calculates that Russian casualties during the first month of the offensive would be between 7,000 and 15,000.

A senior NATO military official stressed that the estimate was based on three sources: information from the Ukrainian authorities, data issued by a Kremlin-affiliated newspaper, and intelligence from open sources.

Last Monday, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, aligned with the Russian government, estimated that 9,861 Russian soldiers died during the first four weeks of the war in Ukraine, in addition to 16,153 wounded.

Within minutes of its publication, the information was modified on the media’s website, maintaining the note, but ignoring the number of deaths and injuries. From the newspaper, the dissemination of these data was attributed to a computer hack.

Other estimates reported in the last week by the BBC, citing US intelligence sources, would indicate that the number could be between 3,000 and 10,000 casualties.

Those reports would also include the report by The New York Times, which last Wednesday, March 16, underlined that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers would have died during clashes with Ukrainian forces.

According to European Union (EU) sources, quoted by the newspaper La Vanguardia, Russian troops would be suffering their most savage onslaught since World War II, with more than 1,000 daily losses between wounded and dead.

The latest Kremlin report on the number of soldiers killed in the dispute was made public on March 2, when the Russian Executive spoke of 498 casualties.

On the Ukrainian side, although there is no updated information on their military casualties, Zelensky said two weeks ago that about 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had already died on the front.

Despite the different versions, it is difficult to verify the data, because, in the context of war, declarations are subject to information transmitted by partisan entities with specific goals, which hinders access to the true magnitude of the armed conflict, which leaves more than 3.5 million Ukrainian refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).