- According to the UK Ministry of Defense, Russian casualties in Ukraine averaged nearly 1,000 per day in February.
- This high rate likely reflects “Russia's involvement in a war of attrition on a large scale,” the Defense Ministry said.
- Russia's tactics, while costly, increase pressure on Ukrainian positions.
The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that Russian forces suffered an average of 983 casualties a day in Ukraine in February, the highest number since the war began. Intelligence updates on sunday.
The UK ministry said the increase in casualties, including deaths of soldiers, was likely due to “Russia's involvement in a large-scale war of attrition”.
In February, Russia finally captured the fiercely fought Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, just north of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
War analysts say Russian tactics to capture Avdiivka often included “human sea” attacks, in which large numbers of Russian soldiers tried to overwhelm Ukrainian positions on foot. .
One Ukrainian military commander said in January that he could kill 40 to 70 Russian soldiers a day, only to send in a new attack the next day.
“It was assault after assault, nonstop,” he said.
The UK ministry said Russia's tactics were “costly in terms of human lives” but added to the pressure on frontline Ukrainian positions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has previously suggested that Russian commanders do not value the lives of their subordinates and are “recruiting corpses.”
Russia suffered perhaps 355,000 casualties during the war, the Ministry of Defense noted.
As Ukraine suffers from a manpower shortage, Russia is employing a number of tactics to replenish its military, including raising the conscription age for one-year military service to 30.