Russia’s military is suffering heavy losses fighting in Ukraine, with up to 25,000 soldiers killed a month, NATO’s top civilian official said this week, calling the carnage “unsustainable” for Moscow.
“The Russians, at the moment, are losing massive amounts of their soldiers thanks to the Ukrainian defense,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told European lawmakers at a forum in Brussels on Tuesday. He said that 20,000 to 25,000 troops are dying each month as the war drags on.
“I’m not talking seriously wounded. Killed.” Rutte clarified. He compared the incredibly high losses to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, where an estimated 15,000 of its soldiers were killed over a period of more than nine years.
“Now they lose this amount or more in one month,” he said of the number of Russian soldiers killed every month. “So that’s also unsustainable on their side.”
Russia has not disclosed official casualty figures, but Ukrainian and Western estimates paint a grim picture for Moscow.
Britain’s defense ministry said in an intelligence update last month that Russia had suffered more than 1.1 million battlefield casualties since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, with an estimated 1,000 soldiers killed and wounded every day.
Russia’s average estimated daily casualty rate from May to November last year was lower than during those same months in 2024, according to the ministry. It said that a decreased monthly casualty rate during the fall occurred despite Moscow pushing “a high operational tempo” across the front lines and making small territorial gains in the process. Still, KIAs remain high.
Russian forces have been focused on seizing the war-torn city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region for more than a year. It has been the site of some of the war’s most intense fighting.
Ukrainian officials have said that attack drones are the biggest battlefield killer of people and equipment, believed to be responsible for eliminating around 90% of all targets hit. Military units regularly publish footage of their combat kills on social media.
The casualty assessments underscore the significant attrition for Russia. It has a much larger population pool from which it can pull new soldiers and replenish losses than Ukraine does. However, Moscow has tried to avoid large-scale involuntary mobilization during the war, and conflict analysts believe it is unlikely to do so anytime soon.
Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia research fellow with the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, told Business Insider that Moscow has increasingly relied on covert and informal recruitment networks to avoid a full mobilization, which would likely come at a tremendous political cost.
Russian military efforts to bring fresh troops into its war against Ukraine include offering financial benefits to some informal recruiters, sourcing combat personnel from overseas, and playing with the legislation on the use of active and inactive reserves, among some other unofficial methods, Stepanenko said.
“Before, the Kremlin just assigned your military recruitment centers, some paramilitary organizations, and regional authorities to do recruitment,” she said. Now, Moscow has to think: “Where else can we squeeze recruits from?”
US and Ukrainian assessments from last year suggested that Russia was pulling an average of 30,000 to 36,000 new soldiers a month into the war, figures similar to its casualty rate. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said thousands more than that are volunteering.
“It is certainly a challenge for Russian forces to replace personnel and replace the casualties,” Stepanenko said, adding that Russia will eventually “hit a wall” if it doesn’t change its personnel and recruitment system eventually.
Meanwhile, Ukraine, which does not disclose official casualty figures similar to Russia, is believed to have suffered an estimated 400,000 soldiers killed and wounded. Those losses hit hard, as Ukraine faces a constant struggle for manpower.
The proliferation of drones over the battlefield has made it increasingly difficult to evacuate casualties from a widening kill zone that extends in both directions along the front line, significantly contributing to the heavy losses.
Ukrainian and Western soldiers and officers have said that “golden hour” — the first 60 minutes after a severe injury when medical treatment determines whether a soldier lives or dies — is long gone in this war.
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