A Kremlin official has said that the number of soldiers wounded fighting in Ukraine had helped to make Russia a world leader in the manufacture of prosthetic limbs.
Deputy defence minister Anna Tsivilyova, reportedly a relative of President Vladimir Putin, told a conference in Vladivostok that those coming back from the battlefield had become a “driver” in pushing Russia’s innovation in prosthetics.
“We are probably leading in this direction now,” she said at the Eastern Economic Forum.
“It is precisely the participants in the special military operation who have allowed us to reach such a priority flagship level,” she said, using Russia’s term for its invasion of Ukraine.
Putin said last year that about 700,000 Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine, but Moscow has kept the number of soldiers killed or wounded in its invasion top secret and rarely discloses information about casualties.
According to the British Ministry of Defence, more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.
That estimate aligns with a recent study by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which puts Russian military deaths at up to 250,000 and total casualties, including the wounded, at over 950,000.
Signs of the high casualty rate can be seen in Russia’s booming funeral industry – between January and April 2025, funeral service providers saw a 12.7% year-on-year increase in earnings – and the rising number of veterans returning home without arms or legs.
Russian government data shows it issued 60,000 more prosthetic limbs in 2024 than in 2021 – a 65% increase.
Tsivilyova has been sanctioned by the United States, European Union and Britain for her role in Russia’s offensive on Ukraine.
She is the reportedly the daughter of Putin’s first cousin, with the UK naming her “Putin’s first cousin once removed” and the EU listing her as a “close relative” of the Kremlin leader.
With Agence France-Presse
