Russia Relying on 'Mass Over Quality' As Moscow Faces Rising Losses: UK

This illustrative image from April 15, 2024 shows Ukrainian officers of the special police force “White Angel” during the evacuation of local residents from the village of Ocheretyne not far from Avdiivka town in the Donetsk region, on April 15, 2024, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Russia’s military has adapted to the high losses of troops on the battlefield in Ukraine and it is likely to continue its tactic of throwing troops forward during offensives until the end of the war, according to British military officials.

The term “meat grinder” is used to describe Russia’s tactic of sending waves of often ill-trained and ill-equipped soldiers to wear down Ukrainian forces and expose their locations to Russian artillery. Using this method, Russia’s gains have been incremental but its forces have built on momentum following the capture of Avdiivka in the Donetsk oblast, albeit at a huge cost.

According to Ukraine’s latest figures released on Saturday, Russian forces suffered losses of more than 1,000 for the seventh day in a row, with the 1,260 casualties of both killed and wounded taking the war’s total to 473,400.

While an accurate count of Russian personnel losses is tricky to calculate, it is not far off the 465,000 estimate given on Saturday by the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD) which said casualties will increase again in May and June amid renewed offensive operations in the east of Ukraine. This follows “a slight decrease in the pace of operations” over the last two months, it added.

“It is likely that despite the extreme cost in life, Russia has fully adapted its military to attritional warfare which relies on mass over quality,” the British officials said.

“This reliance on mass will almost certainly continue for the duration of the Ukraine war and have long-lasting effects on Russia’s future army.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment on the latest British daily assessment which tends to highlight Moscow’s losses and Ukraine’s gains.

Ukraine and the U.K.’s estimates of Russian casualties roughly chime with those given by France, whose foreign minister Stéphane Séjourne told independent outlet Novaya Gazyeta had reached 500,000, 150,000 of whom had been killed.

Russia has not given any update to its tally of losses since it said in September 2022 that just under 6,000 troops had been killed.

Ukraine has not given an update of its losses since President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that 31,000 of his troops had been killed. However, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that Kyiv’s troop losses had surpassed 111,000.

Meanwhile, independent outlet Mediazona has been working with BBC News Russian service to compile the number of deaths of Russia’s soldiers, drawing on publicly available information such as obituaries and online notices. Their latest figures revealed on April 26 that at least 51,679 Russian troops had been killed, although they emphasize the actual number of deaths was likely a lot higher.

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