The casualty rate for Russian soldiers in Ukraine increased to a new monthly high in March, according to Ukraine’s armed forces. They say drone production enabled a record number of strikes. Ukraine tallied Russian casualties at 35,351 last month, with drones causing 96 per cent of them while artillery and small arms fire accounted for the rest.
That casualty rate was a 29 per cent increase on February, said Ukraine’s commander in chief. The losses are slightly above a previous record set in December, and appear to confirm Ukraine’s claim that Russian casualty rates are rising inexorably this year. Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Colonel Pavlo Palisa told RBC-Ukraine that Russia had suffered 316 casualties for every square kilometre it captured in the first three months of 2026, compared with 120 casualties per square kilometre last year.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Russia has been unable to replace all of the losses since December. Russia aimed to recruit 409,000 contract soldiers this year, Ukraine’s armed forces said in January. That means a daily average recruitment rate of 1,120.
But Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative, which provides communication channels for Russian soldiers wishing to surrender, said Russia recruited 940 troops a day in the first quarter. If sustained, that meant Russian recruitment was on track for a 65,000-man shortfall this year. Ukraine now sees manpower shortages as a Russian strategic weakness it can exploit.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, set a goal of 50,000 Russian casualties a month in January, which he called the “optimal level” to ensure Russian forces weaken irrecoverably. The territory Russia is capturing for its mounting losses is also in long-term decline, according to estimates by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Russian forces captured an average of 5.5sq km a day this year, compared to 10.66sq km a day in the middle of last year and 14.9sq km a day at the end of 2024, said the ISW.
Zelenskyy said the stark reality of manpower weakness lay behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire demand that Ukraine hand over the heavily fortified quarter of the eastern Donetsk region it held last August. Ukrainian officials credit drone production and training for their armed forces’ growing lethality. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said the armed forces struck 151,207 targets in March using drones, a 50 per cent increase on February.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
