1. The Biden administration is quietly circulating an estimate of Russian casualties in Ukraine that far exceeds earlier U.S. estimates, telling lawmakers that more than 75,000 members of Russia’s forces had been killed or injured. A legislator who recently visited Ukraine confirmed on Wednesday that the estimate had emerged in a briefing from the State Department, Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Earlier in the day, a reporter for CNN tweeted the estimate and said it had been shared in a classified House briefing. Casualty estimates for militaries on both sides are highly speculative, U.S. officials have said. They often give ranges rather than specific numbers, though just last week, the C.I.A. director estimated that 60,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or injured. And some estimates have gone as high as 80,000 casualties. If the Biden administration’s current estimate is accurate, it represents a staggering toll. (Source: nytimes.com)
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