During the war in Ukraine, there were images of dead soldiers left behind when the fronts moved.
Nobody knows how many actually lost their lives in the war.
– There are many things we have no information about, NTNU Professor Jo Jakobsen tells Dagbladet. Jakobsen is an expert on international politics.
– Among the things we don’t know is the actual number of fallen Russian soldiers. The Russians say about 6,000, Ukraine says about 50,000, the United States says something in between, says Jakobsen.
– Have we been deceived by Putin?
Explain that it is part of the Geneva Convention, i.e. international rules of warfare, that fallen soldiers should be identified as much as possible before they are buried or cremated.
– Chaos
He also says that people usually go out of their way to take their fallen comrades with them, but that’s not always possible.
– Especially when you retire, you don’t always have the time and opportunity to take dead soldiers with you. He is going fast. They are ignored, often out of sheer necessity, Jakobsen says.
Recently, a number of dead Russian soldiers have been found in areas that the Ukrainian army has stolen from the Russians. Recently, numerous videos have been shared on social media, including Telegram, in which hungry livestock, such as pigs, dogs and cats, began to eat fallen soldiers.
– One side of this has to do with war, withdrawal and chaos. The other side has the Russian regime. In the eyes of the regime, soldiers exist to serve Russia, Jakobsen says.
– Cannon fodder
– The Russians are used to these problems. Soldiers are sent partly as cannon fodder and partly to serve the state, he says.
DEAD: A group of dead Russian soldiers lie in front as Ukrainian investigators try to identify them. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP / NTB
sea View
The professor believes that the vast majority of Russians who die in Ukraine will remain in Ukraine.
– If they die, they die, without doing much more. Russia has a terrible history in this regard, for example during the Second World War. Then there were millions of soldiers, and to that extent civilians, who were never found again, she says.
– It is also about the fact that you are not necessarily so interested in showing thousands of corpses at home in Russia, the professor believes.
A hoax about the bomb unmasked
As the Russians bring home many thousands of dead soldiers, it must be admitted to a greater extent that the casualty figures are significantly higher than previously stated.
– Basically, I don’t think the regime cares about individuals at all. It fits historical Russia. From their point of view, they are there for one purpose, which is to fight. It is not a disaster for Russia to see dead soldiers, Jakobsen says.
Use the dead as weapons
Steel settles: – The heaviest blow
It draws a parallel with the way the Norwegian public related to the Norwegian soldiers who fell in Afghanistan. Then there were the media reports and each death received a lot of attention. This would never happen in Russia, Jakobsen believes.
– In war, human dignity is always the first victim. War is cruel, and the way you behave in warfare, and particularly in long-lasting wars, gets worse and worse, she says.
One thing in particular
– Many of the bodies they left behind were linked to explosives, so-called booby traps. It is extremely grotesque and indicates that there is something different in the way individuals are viewed using partly dead soldiers as weapons, Jakobsen concludes.
