September was the bloodiest month of the war for Russian troops in Ukraine, U.S. officials said, with a costly offensive in the east taking Russian troops to more than 600,000 casualties since the war began.
U.S. officials described the high number of Russian casualties as an intense war of attrition, with each side seeking to exhaust the other by inflicting maximum losses, hoping to break the enemy’s capabilities and will to continue. It is said that this is due to the war that took place. In recent months, Russian troops have continued to steadily but gradually build up forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, U.S. officials said.
This is a style of warfare that puts the Russians through a meat grinder, and commanders seem intent on sending thousands of infantrymen to their deaths.
“This is a very Russian war in that it continues to throw a lot of people at the problem,” a senior U.S. military official said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments as he released the Pentagon’s latest estimates of Russian casualties. That’s the way to do it.” “And the losses on the Ukrainian side are likely to continue to be large.”
According to U.S. estimates, Russian casualties in the war have so far reached 615,000 people, including 115,000 Russians killed and 500,000 wounded. Ukrainian officials have zealously guarded their own casualty numbers, even against Americans, but one American official said Ukraine suffered just over half of Russia’s casualties, or 57,500 dead. It is estimated that more than 250,000 people were injured.
The official did not say how many Russian casualties there were, only saying that last month was the deadliest month for the Russian military. U.S. and British military analysts estimate Russian casualties at an average of more than 1,200 per day, slightly higher than the highest daily death toll of the war recorded in May. .
Despite the losses, Russia is recruiting between 25,000 and 30,000 new soldiers a month, about the same number of troops it withdraws from the battlefield, U.S. officials said. Therefore, the Ukrainian military continues to send waves of troops into Ukrainian defensive positions, hoping to overwhelm the Ukrainian army and break through the trench lines.
U.S. officials said Russian President Vladimir V. Putin was trying to avoid a large-scale mobilization that would be highly unpopular at home. U.S. officials said Russia offered large bonuses and other pay increases to volunteers to avoid mass mobilization.
“We’re looking at how long that posture can actually be maintained,” a senior Pentagon official said.
Russian casualties have spiked at other times, most notably during the raids on Avdiivka this year and Bakhmut in 2023. However, attacks on these cities were spread over several months.
The September advance included an attempt to advance along the front in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine and a defense against invading Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of southern Russia. This included heavy Russian attacks, funneling small infantry forces into a relatively small area and creating what one Pentagon official called a “target-rich environment” for Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s use of infantry in waves of small-unit attacks reflects one of Russia’s advantages in the war. Russia has a population of approximately 146 million people, three times that of Ukraine, so it has a larger pool of potential recruits.
But U.S. officials say casualties have forced Russia to send recruits to Ukraine relatively quickly, meaning soldiers sent to the front are often poorly trained. It is said that there is.
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
