The month of May has been particularly deadly for the Russian occupiers in Ukraine, who have been losing around 1,000 soldiers a day in the fighting at the front, reported the “New York Times”.
The newspaper refers to American, British and other Western sources. According to data, an average of about 1,000 Russian soldiers are killed or wounded per day.
Vladimir Putin's regime, however, does not stop the war. He doesn't even care about his own soldiers and sends wave after wave of cannon fodder to the front. This style of warfare has been compared to a meat grinder where Russian military commanders send their soldiers to certain death.
Sometimes this tactic is successful – such as the capture of Bakhmut and Avdeevka, but this spring the tactic proved less successful. The Russian army was defeated in its offensive in the Kharkiv region.
Throwing troops forward en masse reflects one of Russia's advantages in the war: its population is much larger than Ukraine's, giving it a larger pool of manpower. But the losses forced Russia to send recruits to Ukraine relatively quickly, meaning the soldiers sent to the front are poorly trained.
Russia has lost its ability to create more combat-capable units. This also increases the number of victims. The changing nature of modern warfare has also led to an increase in casualties in recent months.
Since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, at least 350,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, the US defense secretary said recently. According to British estimates, the number of Russians killed and wounded was over 500,000. Kiev, on the other hand, reports 540,000 “eliminated“ Russians.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has significantly strengthened its position on the frontline as Western weapons and ammunition began to arrive. The big problem for Kiev is that Russia is willing to sacrifice a huge part of its army to make progress on the front.