Russia's average number of killed and wounded in action has fallen to 913 per day, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry reported in its intelligence update on April 7.
The decrease in losses corresponds with fewer reported attacks over the past month, according to the report.
“The reduction in Russian offensive operations highly likely reflects a series of factors: a period of rest and refit following the capture of Avdiivka, and intent to reduce death notifications during the Russian election,” the ministry said on X.
The Avdiivka offensive was costly for the Russian army. The capture of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold just outside occupied Donetsk, killed or mangled estimated tens of thousands of Russian soldiers.
Russian forces in Ukraine have sustained 658 losses a day on average since February 2022 with daily losses increasing each year, the ministry said.
“Each year has seen a rise in a daily average loss rate from 400 in 2022 to 693 in 2023, to 913 through the first quarter of 2024. The increase reflects Russia’s ongoing reliance on mass to sustain pressure on the Ukrainian front lines,” the ministry said.
Russia has lost 447,510 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on April 7. This number includes 820 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day, according to the General Staff.
The General Staff's number could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in late February for the first time that 180,000 Russians had been killed in the war, as opposed to 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Zelensky added that the exact amount is unknown, and it would only be possible to find out once the territories were liberated.
Meanwhile, Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet, together with BBC Russia, confirmed through open-source research the names of 49,281 Russian soldiers who had been killed since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Since Mediazona's last update in mid-March, the names of 1,580 Russian soldiers have been added to the list of casualties.
The journalists specify that the actual figures are likely considerably higher since the information they have verified so far comes from public sources, including obituaries, posts by relatives, regional media news, and local authorities' reports.
Since Russia began its all-out war against Ukraine, over 3,300 officers, with 386 holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or higher, have been killed in combat in Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg estimated on March 14 that Russia had lost over 350,000 troops in Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Stoltenberg's estimates refer to the total number of killed and injured Russian soldiers and are seemingly in line with estimates made by U.S. officials last month that claim that over 315,000 Russian troops had either been killed or injured so far in the war.
Igor Kossov
(Updated: )
