Russia has suffered thousands of casualties in recent fighting

Russia has allegedly lost more than 4000 soldiers and 500 pieces of military equipment in recent fighting on the eastern frontlines of Ukraine according to a statement from the commander of the country's ground forces. 

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported in a November 14th Telegram post that the Russian Armed Forces had suffered significant losses after trying to seize the initiative across several areas of the front in eastern Ukraine. 

Russia has a number of counterattacks according to Col. General Syrskyi, including around the ruined city of Bakhmut. Fighting around Kupiansyk has also been particularly fierce and there's been an increase in drone attacks as well. 

However, the colonel general noted that  Russia is "losing its offensive capabilities every day,” according to a translation from The Kyiv Independent. Moreover, the Russian Armed Forces are paying a heavy price for its new offensive actions just weeks after it reached a new casualty milestone. 

On October 23rd, Russia was only a few thousand casualties away from reaching 300,000 killed in action during the war according to an update from the Ukrainian General Staff at the time, which reported that Moscow had lost 294,000 soldiers since invading Ukraine. 

Those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt since neither side provides accurate totals of their own losses. Moreover, the numbers were coming from one of the belligerents in the conflict with a vested interest in inflating death counts. 

"It is very difficult to determine casualties in an ongoing conflict since both sides will try to keep the data secret and inflate the number of adversary casualties," Marina Miron, a researcher at King's College London, told Newsweek at the time.  

However, the ever-growing daily casualty figures provided by Ukraine's General Staff could have very well been close to the correct amount since Russia launched an earlier aggressive offensive in the east against the city of Avdiivka.

Russia’s limited offensive did not go well and Britain’s Ministry of Defense noted in an October 22nd war update that the campaign was responsible for a sudden rise in casualties that saw injuries and deaths jump by 90%. 

The British intelligence update gave some context on Russia’s current casualty figures and reported that Moscow has probably suffered around 150,000 to 190,000 permanent casualties, meaning killed or permanently wounded. 

Moreover, the update added that Russia had also likely suffered a temporary casualty figure between 240,000 and 290,000. These losses would eventually make their way back to the battlefield after recovering. 

The UK Defense Ministry's figures did not include the permanent and temporary casualty figures suffered by the Wagner Group before its mercenary members were unceremoniously forced to sign contracts with Russia’s Ministry of Defence following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt. 

On October 31st, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that more than 300,000 Russians had been killed fighting in Ukraine, and that number has only steadily risen since the gruesome milestone was passed with thousands more having been killed or wounded. 

As of November 15th, the General Staff claimed that 314,290 Russian soldiers had lost their lives during the full-scale invasion of the country. However, it's important to remember that this number may not accurately reflect the total number of Russians killed in Ukraine. 

On November 14th, the UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey revealed his country's estimates for the losses in Ukraine while responding to questions from his opposition counterpart John Healey, according to The Independent. 

“We estimate that approximately 302,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict,” Heappy said before detailing some the estimations around Russian equipment losses. 

“We also estimate that over 7,117 Russian armoured vehicles, including nearly 2,475 main battle tanks, 93 fixed-wing aircraft, 132 helicopters, 320 unmanned aerial vehicles, 16 naval vessels of all classes, and over 1,300 artillery systems of all types have been destroyed since the start of the conflict,” Heappey added. 

Heappy's estimates don't match those provided by Ukraine's General Staff, but they are quite close in some respects. Nevertheless, it seems that a very large number of soldiers and pieces of equipment have been lost as a direct result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.