Russia’s “massive” losses in Ukraine have pushed it to breaking point, top NATO official says

• The Secretary General of NATO said that up to 25,000 Russian soldiers are being killed in Ukraine every month.

• Mark Rutte described the cut as “unsustainable” for Moscow.

• This suggests that a breaking point has been reached, although it is not yet clear when.

Russia’s military is suffering heavy losses in 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 large amounts of their soldiers thanks to the defense of Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told European lawmakers during a forum in Brussels on Tuesday. He said that between 20,000 and 25,000 soldiers are dying every month as the war drags on.

“I’m not talking seriously injured. 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 a month,” he said of the number of Russian soldiers killed each month. “So this is also unsustainable on their part.”

Russia has not released official casualty figures, but Ukrainian and Western estimates paint a grim picture for Moscow.

The British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update last month that Russia had suffered more than 1.1 million battlefield casualties since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, with around 1,000 soldiers killed and wounded every day.

Russia’s estimated average daily casualty rate from May to November last year was lower than those same months in 2024, according to the ministry. She said the reduced monthly casualty rate during the fall occurred despite Moscow pushing a “high operational tempo” along the front lines and making small territorial gains in the process. Still, KIAs remain high.

Russian forces have been focused on capturing the town of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s war-torn eastern Donetsk region for more than a year. It was the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Ukrainian officials say attack drones are the biggest battlefield killer of people and equipment, believed to be responsible for eliminating about 90% of all targets hit. Military units regularly post footage of their combat kills on social media.

Casualty assessments highlight significant attrition for Russia. It has a much larger population pool from which to draw new soldiers and fill 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 researcher with the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, told Business Insider that Moscow increasingly relies on covert and informal recruitment networks to avoid full mobilization, which is likely to come at a tremendous political cost.

Russian military efforts to bring new troops into its war against Ukraine include offering financial benefits to some informal recruiters, acquiring combat personnel from abroad, and playing with 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 must think: “From where else can we squeeze recruits?”

US and Ukrainian assessments from last year suggested Russia was drawing 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 said thousands more are volunteering.

“It is certainly a challenge for Russian forces to replace personnel and replace casualties,” Stepanenko said, adding that Russia will eventually “hit a wall” if it does not eventually change its personnel and recruitment system.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, which does not disclose official casualty figures similar to Russia, is believed to have suffered around 400,000 soldiers killed and wounded. That loss hit hard, as Ukraine faces an ongoing struggle for workers.

The proliferation of drones on the battlefield has made it increasingly difficult to evacuate casualties from an expanding killing zone that extends in both directions along the front line, contributing significantly to the heavy losses.

Ukrainian and Western soldiers and officials say the “golden hour” — the first 60 minutes after a serious injury when medical treatment determines whether a soldier lives or dies — has long passed in this war.

Read the original article on Business Insider