NATO Estimates Russia's Ukraine Killed In Action Now 20-25,000 A Month

This report is interesting for a very specific reason: last month, Ukraine reported that Russia was losing 30,000 killed or wounded a month. That is the number the Kremlin claims they are recruiting each month, the implication being that Russian recruiting appears to be falling behind casualty replacement. 

Now NATO is saying 20-25,000 KILLED per month. Not wounded, dead. Which means they cannot be sent back to the front like the wounded are, healed or not. The NATO Secretary General's further point was that Russia's predecessor Soviet Union government lost 20,000 casualties in ten years, and that led to collapse of the Soviet government. So losing 20,000 dead a month - likely due to the increased lethality of Ukrainian weaponry - may be close to the tipping point for the Kremlin. JL

The Clash Report and Anzhelika Kalchenko report in Militarnyi:

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that the Russian army is losing between 20,000 and 25,000 soldiers killed every month in the war against Ukraine. These losses are directly caused by the strong and effective defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He suggested making a comparison to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, during which the Russians lost 20,000 soldiers over ten years. This is a striking contrast to Putin's Ukraine invasion, in which the Kremlin is losing the same number of soldiers, or more, on a monthly basis. NATO’s assessment confirms that the offensive capabilities of the Russian military are systematically being depleted under the pressure of Ukraine’s defense.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that the Russian army is losing between 20,000 and 25,000 soldiers killed every month in the war against Ukraine.

He explained that these losses are directly caused by the strong and effective defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as reported in the Clash Report.

 He suggested making a comparison to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, during which Soviet troops lost around 20,000 soldiers over ten years. This is a striking contrast to the Russian-Ukrainian war, in which the Kremlin lost the same number of soldiers, or even more, in just one month. 

Rutte emphasized that these numbers refer specifically to Russian soldiers killed, not those who are wounded or temporarily out of action.

He compared Russia’s current losses to the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where the Soviet Union lost about 20,000 soldiers over ten years.

At the current rate, Russia is losing that same number of soldiers in less than one month. According to the NATO Secretary General, such a scale of losses is unacceptable even from Russia’s own perspective.

Rutte made this statement during the Global Europe conference, which focused on security issues and the war in Ukraine.

NATO’s assessment confirms that the offensive capabilities of the Russian military are systematically being depleted under the pressure of Ukraine’s defense.