Leaked documents claim Russia's 41st Army suffered 'catastrophic' losses fighting in Ukraine
Russia's 41st Combined Arms Army fighting in eastern Ukraine has suffered "catastrophic" losses, according to internal documents published on July 17 by Ukraine's "I Want to Live" project.
Launched in September 2022 by Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR), the 24-hour "I Want to Live" hotline helps Russian soldiers willingly surrender themselves or their units to the Ukrainian army.
"Russians who are not indifferent to the fate of Russia have given us documents that reveal the scale of losses of Russian troops in Ukraine," the project said in a post on social media.
The documents detail the toll on Russia's 41st Combined Arms Army, a major military formation made up of four motorized infantry brigades, with soldiers primarily drawn from Siberia and southern Russia.
As of June 1, 2025, at least 8,625 troops from this army had been killed in combat, 10,491 were listed as missing in action, and another 7,846 had deserted.
Most of the 41st Army's units are operating near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast.
The worst-hit is the 74th Motor Rifle Brigade from Kemerovo Oblast in Siberia, which has lost 2,479 soldiers killed, 2,732 missing, and 2,789 deserters, more than double the brigade's original size of around 3,500 troops.
Other brigades show similar figures. The 35th Brigade from Altai Krai in Southern Siberia reported 1,975 killed, 3,163 missing, and 2,229 desertions.
The 55th Brigade from Tuva, bordering Mongolia, once a small formation of 1,600, has lost 1,430 troops killed, 1,467 missing, and 1,616 deserting.
The 137th Brigade reported at least 1,158 killed, 2,319 missing, and 948 desertions.
Desertion rates reportedly remain high. On a single day, May 31, 42 soldiers fled their units, according to the project. Over the course of one week, 175 deserted, nearly half the size of a typical battalion. Of those, 28% were former prisoners recruited into penal assault units known as "V companies."
"It is also worth noting that the 'V companies' exist exclusively in motorized rifle brigades, where prisoners are used as cannon fodder," the statement from "I Want to Live" said, describing the losses a "catastrophic."
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify these claims.
Russian losses in Ukraine hit a massive, and grim milestone on June 12 — 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded during the 39-month-long full-scale war, according to figures from Kyiv.
Although hugely symbolic, the number is unlikely to prompt a change in tactics from Moscow as it gears up for more offensives this summer, and escalates drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
But behind the figure lies an economic time bomb that the Kremlin will find impossible to ignore.
"(Russian President) Vladimir Putin made a fundamental strategic mistake in deciding how to resource this war," George Barros, Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told the Kyiv Independent.
"What Vladimir Putin has done is he has created a system in which he doesn't use the monopoly of violence of the Russian state to coerce Russians to go fight and die in Ukraine, as the Soviet Union might have. What Putin has done is he's created an alternative social contract where he pays you to go fight in Ukraine.
"That strategy can work if you're planning on running a short war. It does not work if you are running a multi-year protracted war."
