Russian war losses now exceed recruitment, Western officials say

MOSCOW – Russia sustained around 9,000 more battlefield losses in Ukraine than it was able to replace in January, according to assessments from Western officials, signalling progress for Ukraine’s ambition to inflict heavier damage on the front line. 

Russian forces were unable to achieve significant gains on the ground in January even as they sustained heavy losses, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The assessment, which could not be independently verified, could bolster Kyiv’s aim to drive up the cost for Moscow. 

The number of Russian soldiers killed in action jumped to as high as 35,000 in December, Bloomberg reported in January, a figure that was roughly double the monthly average calculated by NATO in 2025.

The Defence Ministry in Moscow did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Russia almost never discloses data on its casualties in this war.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has outlined a strategy of trying to increase Russian losses to 50,000 a month by the summer, an outcome that Kyiv views as making it difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to replace troops without some form of mobilisation. 

In December, Russian losses were about equal to Moscow’s monthly recruitment, the officials said.

The deficit faced by Moscow in January suggests Ukraine’s strategy appeared to be having some success, the Western officials said, although it remains to be seen whether Kyiv is able to maintain the recent dynamics.

Ukraine’s top general, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last week that the situation along the 1,200km front “remains difficult”, with Russian forces launching attacks across the breadth of a contact line stretching from the Donbas region in the east to the mouth of the Dnipro river in the south. 

But advances remind grinding and sluggish, with Russian territorial gains amounting to less than 1 per cent of Ukraine’s land area over the last three years, according to data from DeepState, a conflict mapping service that cooperates with Ukraine’s Defence Ministry. 

Gen Syrskyi said that while Russia had appeared to exceed its goals for military recruitment, the number of its troops on the battlefield had remained steady for six months.

He put the number at as many as 712,000.

The increasing losses being sustained by Mr Putin’s forces complicate the narrative pushed by Moscow – and at times echoed by US President Donald Trump’s administration – that Russia’s advantage on the ground means that its victory is inevitable. 

At the current rate, it would still take Russian troops another two years to fully take the eastern Donetsk region, the officials said.

The Kremlin has demanded full possession of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk as part of peace talks. 

Mr Putin would be unlikely to opt for such a mobilisation, an option that has proved deeply unpopular within Russia.

He has avoided any repeat of a September 2022 call-up of 300,000 reservists that prompted an exodus of hundreds of thousands from the country and triggered a spike in public discontent with the war.

Ukraine’s recent increased lethality has been attributed by Western officials to advances in its drone operations. BLOOMBERG