Russia sustained the highest number of casualties in a single month in September, according to a new assessment.
Russia’s average daily casualty count hit 1,271 in September, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said on Monday.
U.K. estimates suggest Russia’s total casualty count in the full-scale war is rapidly approaching a milestone of 650,000. According to its latest intelligence assessment, posted to social media, 648,000 Russia soldiers have been likely injured or killed.
Casualty counts and battlefield losses are disputed during active conflicts, and experts urge caution when considering tallies offered by either party in a war. Moscow and Kyiv very rarely acknowledge their own casualty counts.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Heavy fighting on multiple fronts has pulled up the number of fighters injured and killed, as the conflict heads into the tough winter season.
Russia’s next-highest casualty count was reported in May 2024, when it stood at 1,262, the British government added.
Image of Russian soldiers carrying ammunition to their self-propelled cannon, released on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Russia’s average daily casualty count hit 1,271 in September, reported the U.K.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP
Figures from Ukraine’s military on Monday put Moscow’s total casualty count since February 2022 slightly higher than the British assessment at 661,630, which includes 1,160 fighters killed or wounded in the previous 24-hour period.
Russia does not offer regular updates on purported Ukrainian casualties, but it said on Monday that Ukraine had sustained more than 1,700 casualties across the front lines in the northeast and east of the country in the previous day’s fighting.
Ukrainian tallies and Western estimates broadly agree that the invasion effort Moscow launched more than two and a half years ago has cost Russia dearly, not least among its experienced personnel and its valuable military equipment.
The Kremlin has long used massive waves of soldiers attacking Ukrainian defensive positions, also known as “meat grinder” assaults, to slowly but surely advance in eastern Ukraine.
In July, the Chief of the Defence Staff for the British Armed Forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said it would take the Kremlin five years “to reconstitute the Russian army to where it was in February 2022.”
Andriy Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said on Sunday that Russia planned to recruit at least 225,000 contract soldiers into the Russian army each year, over the next three years.
At the time, Russia had sustained around 550,000 casualties, according to U.K. assessments.
Ukraine’s soldiers have been bearing the brunt of Russia’s slow but steady advances in eastern Ukraine and fighting within Russian territory, as well as in the northeast of Ukraine.
The uptick in casualties is likely down to Russia’s offensive into Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region from May, plus Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region from early August, the U.K. said.
The frontline has generally felt an “increased intensity” of fighting, the British government added.
The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-September that the combined casualty count for Ukrainian and Russian forces had reached approximately one million.
The British government predicted on Monday that Russia’s reported casualty count will stay upwards of 1,000 each day heading into the winter.
