 The White House predicts that the expected counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops will turn into carnage the Washington Post wrote exciting government sources. The rate at which Russian forces are being killed or wounded in Ukraine has spiked in recent months. According to estimates disclosed by the White House this week, the Washington Post says since December alone some 20,000 Russians have been killed in action and another 80,000 have been wounded. According to US officials, many of these casualties have occurred in Bakhmat. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has said that nearly half of those 20,000 dead Russians are Wagner group fighters, particularly convicts recruited to the front. The US has said that such fierce fighting shows that the bloody carnage may become even worse after the start of Kiev's counteroffensive to retake the occupied territories. Russian Intelligence League at the end of February obtained by the Washington Post showed that 42,500 Russian soldiers and up to 17,000 Ukrainians have died in combat since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Robly, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who has closely followed the conflicts said that Russian forces have suffered significant losses during the winter offensive in Waldar, Crimea, Marinka and elsewhere. When you are attacking, you are typically going to take more casualties lead noted. Given this, he suggests that a Ukrainian counteroffensive may face similar obstacles and increase the number of casualties among Ukrainian soldiers.