“[I] came back
from the war zone. It is impossible to call it an ATO zone – it is a real merciless
war there,” Vasilieva writes on her official website. “I’m already afraid to write these numbers. The Russian army has huge losses over the past three
days. 382 people – selected Special Forces, marines, paratroopers. Up to 500 injured.
More likely the number of wounded is much higher. But we have no access to the
full information about the injured from the Russian side.”

The activist said that, counting the most recent 382 deaths, the total loss on the Russian side is 6,242 killed.

It’s impossible to verify Vasilieva’s claim because the Russian government insists that no Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine — only volunteers — and the Ukrainian government also does not have reliable figures on the number of enemy casualties.

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Vasilieva in early August said she created the group called “Cargo 200
from Ukraine to Russia” in social networks. Its name is a reference to dead
bodies carried across the border. The name caught attention of tens of
thousands of people, and the group started receiving information about regular
army soldiers, officers and former military who volunteered to fight and were
killed in eastern Ukraine.

Vasilieva became the source of information for
hundreds of Russians women whose sons and husbands secretly went (or were sent)
to war. Vasilieva is the one who tells them what military units of the Russian
Federation took part in which fights, and what to do if a soldier has not been
in communication for some weeks. 

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