After British military intelligence last week reported an unusually high level of Russian casualties in recent months, the Pentagon confirmed yesterday that the last month of the war was the worst for the Russians.
Thus, while Russian losses in the fighting in Ukraine between May and June appeared to have reached an all-time high, Pentagon officials reveal that "Russian forces suffered more losses in action in both killed and wounded than in any other month of the war".
Russian losses in dead and wounded had already exceeded, in the first year of the war, all Russian and USSR losses in all other conflicts since the end of World War II combined, the officials also noted.
US intelligence reported in December 2023, according to Reuters, that the Russians had lost 315,000 soldiers, which was 90% of the force at the beginning of the invasion.
Another report, from the spring, made public by the British Ministry of Defense estimated, in May 2024, that Russian losses reached 465,000, with daily Russian losses exceeding a thousand soldiers.
The Pentagon's latest estimates far exceed previous estimates. The number of more than 600,000 dead, wounded and killed combined is practically double the Russian forces that invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 (although most initial estimates ranged from 150,000 to 190,000 troops, some sources put the forces involved in the entire operation would have been much larger, possibly even over 300,000 soldiers).
Even in the case of Russian equipment, they are not better
The Ukrainians destroyed more than two-thirds of the occupiers' pre-war tank stock, forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to equip front-line forces with weapons from Soviet-era stocks.
An anonymous official stressed that neither side of the conflict has changed its strategy. Russia is throwing troops into the fighting in Ukraine's eastern regions as part of its war of attrition strategy to exhaust the enemy's resources. "The Ukrainians are building a strong defense both behind the ground and to protect the airspace."
We remind that, according to information analyzed by experts, the Russians lost more than 1,600 armored personnel carriers during their advance through Avdiivka to Pokrovsk, ISW notes .
Russia's Kursk region and Ukraine's Donetsk region have been identified as the battlefields where the most fighting is taking place. "In Kursk, the Russians are trying limited counterattacks, but they are not producing results," a Western official noted.
In the Donetsk region, the Russians made some gains over the summer, but their advance has slowed. But now they have approached Kurachiv, Pokrovsk and on the streets of Torecko there are fights.
“We have seen several successful Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ammunition depots. We also saw attacks on fuel depots in Crimea. We believe this will have an impact on the battlefield," the US official added.
On October 9, the Ukrainian secret service SBU announced that it had managed to hit a warehouse in Oktyabrsk, Krasnodar region, where 400 Shahed drones used to attack Ukraine were stored.
Another Ukrainian attack in recent days targeted the Khanskaya Air Base in the Autonomous Republic of Adygea, which serves Su-34 bombers and Su-27 jets. According to Ukrainian channel Suspilne, there were 57 planes and helicopters there, but it is not clear if any were hit.
Regarding Russian airstrikes targeting infrastructure, a US official highlighted the Ukrainian air defense efforts: "It's a tough fight, with a large number of attacks coming from Russia every day, but the Ukrainians are doing a good job defending the infrastructure and the font their critic. lines." Of course, we're keeping a close eye on the stockpile of weapons that they have to defend, and we're working with our political counterparts to try to increase the stockpile (of air defense weapons) that they have."
