Don’t have any resolution on the casualty counts for the fighting on 7 February, but do have a few additional newspaper reports of interest:
- The Guardian reposts that the Russian foreign ministry reports that dozens were killed or wounded.
- So, if 9 were killed (a figure that is probably the lowest possible count), then you would certainly get to dozens killed or wounded. As this is a conventional fight, I would be tempted to guess a figure of 3 or 4 wounded per killed, vice the 9 or 10 wounded per killed we have been getting from our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (see War by Numbers, Chapter 15: Casualties).
- Guardian article is here:
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/20/russia-admits-several-dozen-its-citizens-killed-syria-fighting
- The BBC repeats these claims along with noting that “…at least 131 Russians died in Syria in the first nine months of 2017…”: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43125506
- Wikipedia does have an article on the subject that is worth looking at, even though its count halts on 3 February:
- The original report was that about 100 Syrian soldiers had been killed. I still don’t know if this count of 100+ killed on 7 February is supposed to be all Russians, or a mix of Russians and Syrians. It could be possible there were 9 Russians killed and over 100 people killed. On the other hand, it could also be an inflated casualty count. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html
- Some counts have gone as high as 215 Russians killed: https://thedefensepost.com/2018/02/10/russians-killed-coalition-strikes-deir-ezzor-syria/
Conclusions: A significant fight happened on 7 February, at least 9 Russians were killed and clearly several dozen wounded. It might have been over 100 killed in the fight, but we cannot find any clear confirmation of that. I am always suspicious of casualty claims, as anyone who has read my book on Kursk may note (and I think I provide plenty of examples in that book of claims that can be proven to be significantly in error).