Russia Loses 780 Soldiers, 28 Artillery Systems in One Day: Kyiv

Ukraine is reporting sustained high Russian battlefield losses as both sides move into winter warfare mode. Kyiv's units are largely shifting to a more defensive posture while Moscow's troops press new attacks at multiple points along the 600-mile front.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Thursday reported the "elimination" of 780 Russian troops in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of claimed Russian casualties to 362,280 since February 24, 2022.

Among the other reported daily losses fighting were 12 tanks bringing the war's total to 6,002, 28 artillery systems bringing the total to 8,574, and one air defense system bringing the total to 630.

Newsweek is unable to independently verify the figures and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Ukraine's tally of Russian losses is staggeringly high, though largely chimes with estimates produced by the U.S. military and intelligence officials. In December, Reuters cited classified U.S. intelligence analysis suggesting Russia has suffered 315,000 dead and injured troops in the full-scale invasion.

If accurate, this means Russian casualties are equivalent to almost 90 percent of the total personnel it had when the conflict began in February 2022.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv releases their own casualty figures. In August, The New York Times cited unnamed U.S. officials who put the Ukrainian toll at some 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. These figures will be significantly higher after a summer and fall of failed counteroffensive efforts, as well as defense against grinding Russian attacks.

Winter is expected to be difficult for Ukraine, with its cities again under Russian missile and drone bombardment while its troops face another round of massed Russian attacks in hotspots like Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and Kupyan.

"Our resilience, strength and results at this very moment determine the outcome of this winter of full-scale war and our expectations for the next year," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to the nation at the end of December.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears fully committed to the war, despite its many failures and high costs. "We have no desire to fight indefinitely, but we are not going to give up our positions, either," Putin said during a visit to a military hospital this week.

But Moscow is not impervious to manpower stresses, despite its massive population and the apparent popularity of the war among its citizens.

Kusti Salm, the permanent representative at the Estonian Defense Ministry, told Newsweek in December that Russia's "cannon fodder" strategy is unsustainable in a long war of attrition.

Tallinn estimates that Russia can recruit some 130,000 troops every six months but can only form 40,000 into coherent units. The remaining 90,000, Salm said, are "biomass" used to plug holes at the front, but not to advance.

"The Ukrainians are currently killing or severely wounding more than 50,000 [every half year]," Salm said. The current attrition—the real rate, which might be higher than Estonian estimates—means Moscow is losing a portion of troops equivalent to around 37 percent of those being newly recruited every six months.

"Russia put itself into fatal strategic disaster since February 2022," Pavel Luzin, a Russian political analyst and visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Newsweek. The consequences will "weaken it for decades," he said.

The clear costs of Putin's war may be a concern to him as the 2024 presidential elections approach. The poll will neither be free nor fair. Putin is expected to win and potentially pave the way for himself to stay in power until 2036. But the vote will be important for the Kremlin to project the image of a robust and united Russia committed to victory and immune to the efforts of its Western adversaries.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank suggested this week that Putin's saber-rattling towards the "collective West" may indicate he is expanding his war aims "to include confrontation with the West in an effort to set conditions for permanent Russian military buildup and to justify high battlefield sacrifices."

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