Russia is losing more than 1,000 soldiers a day as ‘cannon fodder,’ UK says

Russia is continuing to lose more than 1,000 soldiers every day fighting in Ukraine, with the latest average putting the losses at nearly four times what it was during the initial invasion, according to UK military officials.

While both Moscow and Kyiv have stayed silent on the number of troops killed in the war, the UK Ministry of Defense estimated Monday that Russia lost 1,187 troops daily in August, with September expected to have matching numbers.

UK officials said the Kremlin’s casualty count peaked in May with an estimated 1,262 troops killed a day, with the number remaining over 1,100 since then.

May’s number, which saw a dramatic uptick over the violent battles in Kharkiv, was nearly four times that of March 2022, the first complete month after Russia began its invasion where it lost about 386 soldiers a day, according to UK officials.

“Poorly trained Russian soldiers are being used as cannon fodder,” the Ukraine-ally said in a post tallying up the latest death count.

Since the start of the war, UK officials estimate that Russia has likely suffered more than 610,000 casualties, far beyond previous estimates reported about last week.

Western intelligence tallied Russian casualties closer to 200,000, with the number of wounded at about 400,000, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has lost an estimated 80,000 troops, with as many as 400,000 others injured.

The exact figures, however, are unclear and hard to determine as both countries have declined to release estimates — or have put out figures that could not be independently verified.

The latest death toll estimates come as intense battles return to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where a Russian airstrike left 21 people wounded after hitting a high-rise apartment.

President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strike as he urged his western allies to supply Kyiv with long-range missiles to fire directly at Russia.

Ukraine needs full long-range capabilities, and we are working to convince our partners of this,” Zelensky said on X during his visit to the US this week.