Russia’s daily Ukraine casualties likely higher now than at any other time in the war: UK intelligence
- In a report, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russian casualties in November are outpacing those of its March offensive in Bakhmut
- Russia’s military has suffered heavy losses in the region because of its reliance on Soviet-era military tactics, according to military analysts
Russia is losing more soldiers this month in Ukraine than it has at any time over the past 20 months of the war, British intelligence reported on Monday.
An average of 931 Russian soldiers are being injured or killed on a daily basis in November, compared with 776 at the height of Russia’s assault on Bakhmut in March, the previous high, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a daily intelligence update, citing Ukrainian General Staff figures.
“The last six weeks have likely seen some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so far,” the MOD said.
Neither Business Insider nor the UK’s MoD could independently verify the methodology used by the Ukrainian General Staff.
But the MoD said the figures are “plausible”, putting it down to mounting casualty figures from Russia’s attacks on Avdiivka, a small town on the edge of occupied Donetsk.
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Ukraine says Russian strike killed over 50 in one of the deadliest attacks of the war
Russia’s military has suffered heavy losses in the region because of its reliance on Soviet-era military tactics, according to military analysts.
Russian troops are resorting to the “classic military manoeuvre” of encircling the enemy on three sides, which they have used “many times” in Bakhmut, Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic International Studies, told Business Insider last week.
George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, made a similar assessment, telling Business Insider that Russia is launching brutal attacks with an enormous quantity of combat power.
Russia has lost so many soldiers in the city that a Ukrainian drone operator compared it to scenes from a “zombie movie”, Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.
The drone operator, who goes by the call sign “Trauma”, told the news agency that “columns of tanks and armoured personnel carriers” fell one by one into minefields and were hit by drones and anti-tank missiles.
Russian assaults have caused massive losses to armoured vehicles, according to aerial footage shared by General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s Tavriia Operational Strategic Group.
Despite their efforts, Russian forces have made only marginal gains, bringing them about 4 miles away from Avdiivka, the Institute for the Study of War think-tank reported on Sunday, citing geolocated footage.
