In the nearly 32 months since it first invaded neighboring Ukraine, Russia has suffered massive losses as it continues to seek to gain territory they claim is rightfully theirs.
This week, both the British Defense Ministry and the Pentagon released numbers that show the losses Russia is suffering on a daily basis can only be termed as staggering.
The Pentagon estimated that more than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been dead or injured since the country first invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The British Defense Ministry’s estimate was more than 648,000 casualties.
On Wednesday, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters gathered at the Pentagon:
“Russian forces sustained more casualties in terms of both killed and wounded in action than in any other month of the war. Russian losses, again, both killed and wounded in action in just the first year of the war exceeded the total of all Russian losses, or Soviet losses, in any conflict since World War II combined.”
On Monday, the U.K. defense intelligence posted on the social media platform X that the average number of casualties Russia suffered on a daily basis reached a new high in September.
Last month, Russia suffered an average of 1,271 casualties per day, compared to its previous high of 1,262 back in May.
As Britain’s assessment reads:
“The increase in the casualty rate since May 2024 is almost certainly due to the extension of the combat zone to include both Kharkiv [in Ukraine] and Kursk [in Russia] military operations, an increased intensity along the front line. Russian forces highly likely continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by utilizing mass to overwhelm defensive positions and achieve tactical gains.”
Officials from the U.K. and U.S. wouldn’t discuss how many casualties Ukraine has suffered. Many experts believe that the numbers are very high as well, though not quite as high as that of Russia.
It’s expected that Russia is trying to hurry up and push forward with more offensive attacks in the next few weeks, ahead of what is known as the mud season in Ukraine.
A recent assessment from the Institute for the Study of War reads:
“Poor weather conditions in fall 2024 and early winter 2024-2025 will likely complicate and constrain both mechanized and infantry maneuver, but Russian forces may seek to maintain their consistent offensive pressure in eastern Ukraine despite these difficulties.”
Russia continues to push ahead and looks to be trying to win a war of attrition against Ukraine. After all, Ukraine has only about a third of the total population of Russia, which means that they theoretically will run out of manpower before Russia does.
The New York Times published a report last week that said Ukrainian strategies and military commanders said the country has since adopted a new “rope-a-dope” strategy that aims at “trading space for Russian losses.”