US and British spy chiefs have said that some 15,000 Russians have died in the five-month-old invasion of Ukraine, explaining that President Vladimir Putin was suffering far greater losses than expected. The AFP news agency, in an article that can be read on the Future Media website, quotes Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6, as saying that this was “probably a conservative estimate” and marked a “very bloody nose” for Putin who expected quick victory. “… These are not middle-class kids from Saint Petersburg or Moscow,” he said, “these are poor kids from rural parts of Russia. They’re from blue-collar towns in Siberia. They are disproportionately from ethnic minorities. These are his cannon fodder”.
