This would be one of the biggest setbacks for Moscow since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The Pentagon recently estimated that September was the bloodiest month for Russia, says the American newspaper The New York Times. “Russian forces suffered more losses in combat killed and wounded than in any other month of the war,” a U.S. official said of this month’s death toll. Adding that “Russian losses, both killed and wounded in combat, during the first year of the war exceeded the total of all Russian or Soviet losses in all conflicts since World War II.”
Since the start of the war, Vladimir Putin’s troops have suffered 600,000 losses, including 115,000 killed and 500,000 wounded. For the month of September alone, recent estimates from the British Ministry of Defense put Russian losses at more than 38,000, with a daily average of 1,271, reports the British daily The Daily Telegraph. Losses averaged 172 to 559 per day in 2022, before peaking at 967 in 2023 and now at more than 1,000, since May, five months.
Fierce war of attrition
“The increase in casualties since May 2024 is almost certainly due to the expansion of the combat zone to include the Kharkiv and Kursk military operations, and the increased intensity along the front line” , says the British Ministry of Defense. While U.S. officials said the heavy losses were due to a fierce war of attrition, with both sides attempting to wear the other down by inflicting maximum damage, and hoping to break the enemy’s capability and desire to continue.
According to British and American intelligence analysis, Moscow sacrificed thousands of infantrymen, sending them in wave after wave to wear down Ukraine’s defenses. “It’s sort of the Russian way of waging war,” the U.S. official said. Despite heavy losses, Russia has made steady progress in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass regions, capturing several strategically important towns in recent months. On the Ukrainian side, according to American estimates, losses amounted to more than 57,500 killed and 250,000 wounded. Despite its losses, Russia is still recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers per month, the same American officials said. This allowed his army to continue sending troops in the face of Ukrainian defenses, hoping to “crush” them and “break through the trench lines.”