Russian Casualties In Ukraine Exceed 600,000

Something on the order of 6-10% of casualties in the Ukraine war are deaths. But injuries still remove soldiers from the field. The entire active duty Russian military at the start of the conflict was about 900,000, of which 300,000-500,000 of which were naval and air force personnel. A huge percentage of Russian soldiers in this war have been killed or injured.

The losses mean that a lot of current soldiers on the Russia side in the Ukraine war are either recent conscripts or reactivated reserve forces who often had only relatively brief conscript service before moving to reserve status.

On one hand, Russia is notorious for having ill-trained enlisted soldiers anyway and having a very thin and ill-trained corps of non-commissioned officers. So, at those ranks, maybe the difference between a former career enlisted soldier and a new conscript might not be that great. But, the casualties appear to have affected officers as well as enlisted soldiers at very high rates, and skilled Army officers are very challenging to replace quickly. So, the casualties greatly degrade the competence of the soldiers currently serving, in addition to demoralizing them and stretching them thin.

Russia has suffered more than 600,000 casualties in the war with Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday.

The number of Russian dead or wounded is significantly higher than the last official update from the U.S., which had estimated more than 300,000 casualties since the war began in February 2022.

The U.S. official said Russia sustained more casualties in September of this year than at any other point in the war, and explained it was important to disclose the casualties even if it is not a “definitive metric” of success in the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to avoid a mass mobilization because of the effect that would have on Russia’s domestic population,” the official told reporters. “At this point, he has been able to significantly increase the pay of these voluntary soldiers, and he has been able to continue to field those forces without doing a major mobilization.”

“And I think we’re just watching very closely how long that stance can actually be one that he can maintain, and I think it’s an important one for all of us to watch very closely,” the official added.

Russia has also lost 32 medium-to-large naval vessels to Ukraine, which has hammered Russian forces in the Black Sea with drones, and “destroyed more than two-thirds of Russia’s prewar inventory of tanks,” according to the U.S. official. Ukraine has also destroyed hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds in targeted strikes.

The U.S. has not disclosed the number of Ukrainian casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that some 31,000 troops had been killed.

Russian forces have continued to press forward on the battlefield stretching across a 600-mile front of eastern Ukraine, using a strategy of deploying mass waves of troops to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses despite the risk of high casualties.

Russia has made some progress in the eastern Donetsk region, taking the town of Vuhledar earlier this month and pressing toward the city of Pokrovsk, a railroad hub and critical supply station for Ukraine that could hinder Kyiv’s defense efforts if it falls.

A senior U.S. military official said the Russian strategy, particularly around Vuhledar and Pokrovsk, has incurred “substantial casualties” for minor gains.

“The number of Russians in [Pokrovsk] is astounding, it’s tens of thousands of forces,” the official said. “When you have that many forces in a very small area, indirect fire of any kind, or any direct fire, for that matter, it’s a target-rich environment.”

Heavy fighting is also in Russia’s region of Kursk, which Ukrainian forces invaded in early August in a largely failed bid to divert Russian troops from the front lines. Kyiv has said other goals, including preventing a Russian assault from Kursk, have been achieved in the incursion.

The senior military official said Wednesday that the Ukrainian troops can hold onto the territory in Kursk for months or longer.

The military official added there have been “overall minor changes” on the battlefield in both Kursk and Donetsk in recent weeks, adding that Russia is expected to continue its mass pressure campaign, but Ukraine is “thinking forward to 2025” with an eye on boosting brigades with recruitment. 

From the Hill.