During a speech before the Russian Parliament, the Deputy Minister of Defense reveals secret figures. Spicy detail: she is one of Putin’s close friends.
Thomas Wanhoff / t-online
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Anna Tsivileva, Deputy Defense Minister and second niece of Vladimir Putin, recently made a mistake in the middle of a television broadcast. She mentioned figures relating to war victims, a taboo subject in Russia. Indeed, the Kremlin keeps the numbers of human losses linked to the war in Ukraine strictly confidential.
Find the missing soldiers
During a session in the Duma, Anna Tsivileva addressed the subject of requests for DNA tests filed to find missing soldiers. She even put forward a figure: 48,000 requests were recorded, which suggests that at least as many Russian soldiers were killed.
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His comments immediately provoked a rebuke within parliament. According to sources, notably the American magazine NewsweekAndrei Kartapolov, a deputy, reportedly told him:
“I politely ask you not to disclose these figures anywhere. This information is secret and extremely sensitive. When we write the final documents, we don’t want these figures to be published either.”
-745,000 soldiers died
The incident became public because the Duma session was broadcast on television. From, the recording was removed from the website of the Russian parliament, but extracts from his speech are still circulating on social networks.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine officially communicates the number of victims. However, according to Ukraine, the Russian army lost 745,000 soldiers. British intelligence services estimate this figure to be at least 696,000 dead. In October alone, the Russian army reportedly suffered 41,980 casualties. The Kremlin’s incessant efforts to recruit new troops confirm the scale of the losses. Recently, up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers were even sent as reinforcements.
Anna Tsivileva was only appointed deputy minister last June. She succeeded Tatiana Shevtsova, who was dismissed at the same time as the then Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu. Coming from a distant branch of the Vladimir Putin family, she has been responsible for the veterans’ budget since 2023. Before that, she worked as a psychiatrist and is the wife of Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsiviliov.
(Translated and adapted by Chiara Lecca)
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