Ukraine war: Russia’s ‘low quality, high quantity army’ to lose half a million troops by year’s end, UK intel
- Russia’s forces have become ‘a low quality, high quantity mass army’ the UK Ministry of Defense said
- It is likely to take Russia five to 10 years to rebuild its forces to a high standard, the department said
Russia is on course to have lost a total of 500,000 soldiers by the end of this year if casualties continue at their current rate, the UK Ministry of Defense said.
The average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine has risen by almost 300 during the last year, the department noted, citing data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Neither Business Insider nor the UK’s MOD could independently verify the methodology used by the Ukrainian General Staff.
But the MOD previously 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.
The increased casualty rate reflects how the quality of the Russian military decreased following the partial mobilisation of military reservists in September 2022, the department said.
The mobilisation turned Russian forces into “a low quality, high quantity mass army,” according to the department.