Russia Now Suffering Highest Daily Casualties in Ukraine Yet, Says UK Defence Intelligence

While the war in Ukraine has become more static over the past year amid failed counter offences and the emergence of major minefields and trench networks, the butcher’s bill continues to mount, with the UK claiming average Russian casualties are approaching 1,000 men a day.

Data published by the British Ministry of Defence’s periodic Defence Intelligence digest claims the war in Ukraine continues to claim an ever higher number of Russian casualties incurred daily, on average, hits new levels. The new average daily loss by Russia estimated by the UK has now hit 983 per day killed and wounded, a considerable increase on the 172 a day experienced in the summer of 2022.

The British figures show that while the casualty figures have wavered in over two years of war, the strong overall trend has been upwards year on year. As noted by the digest, the steep increase “almost certainly reflects” Russia pursuing “mass and attritional warfare”, which the UK notes is costly to Russian life but also increases “pressure” on Ukraine, which is presumably less able to absorb mass casualties.

Based on its rolling aggregate of Russian casualties the United Kingdom estimates Russia has lost 355,000 men killed and wounded during its invasion of Ukraine so far. The number is comparable to Ukraine’s own numbers, which claims 416,00 “Russian invaders” killed and wounded. While there is a serious discrepancy between Ukraine’s claim and the British assessment, the gap is smaller there than in some other areas of the war where Ukraine states it has taken out twice as many Russian weapons as Western estimates suggest.

In armoured vehicles, for instance, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in February that Russia has now lost 3,000 tanks in the course of the war so far, and 8,800 armoured fighting vehicles. The Ukrainians, for their part, said they’d taken out 6,500 Russian tanks and 12,000 armoured vehicles.

Comparing Russia’s casualties, stated by the British Ministry of Defence, with Ukraine’s count of its own casualties is also difficult. While the country normally published no figures, President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare statement on the second anniversary of the conflict starting by saying a figure of 300,000 given for his side alleged by the Kremlin is a “deceitful” lie and the true number was 31,000 killed.

In August last year, U.S. government sources cited in reports said the number of killed and wounded on both sides had reached half a million including 120,000 Russian dead and 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead. As observed, if true the Ukrainians have already sustained more dead than the U.S. in 20 years in Vietnam.