Russia’s ‘huge’ losses in Ukraine are pushing it to breaking point, top NATO official says

• The Secretary General of NATO has said that 25,000 Russian soldiers are killed every month in Ukraine.

• Mark Rutte described the massacre as “destabilizing” for Moscow.

• This suggests that a breaking point is coming, although when it remains unclear.

Russia’s military is suffering heavy losses in fighting in Ukraine, with 25,000 soldiers killed in a month, NATO’s top civilian official said this week, calling the carnage “destabilizing” for Moscow.

“The Russians are now losing a large number of their soldiers because of the Ukrainian defense,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told European lawmakers at a forum in Brussels on Tuesday. He said 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers were dying every month as the war raged.

“I’m not talking seriously injured. Killed.” Root made it clear. He compared the incredibly high casualties to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which killed an estimated 15,000 of its soldiers over nine years.

“Now they lose this amount or more a month,” he said of the number of Russian soldiers killed each month. “So it’s temporary on their part as well.”

Russia has not released official casualty figures, but Ukrainian and Western estimates paint a grim picture for Moscow.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update on Wednesday that Russia has suffered more than 1.2 million battlefield casualties since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, killing and injuring 1,100 soldiers every day last month.

Russia’s average daily casualty rate rose steadily from August to December 2025, although it was still lower than the same month in 2024, the ministry said. The recent recovery comes after Moscow made small territorial gains and is expected to suffer heavy losses in 2026 “with continued dismounted infantry offensives on multiple axes.”

The Russian army has occupied the war-torn city of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine for more than a year. It has been the site of some of the most intense fighting of the war.

Ukrainian officials say attack drones are the biggest battlefield killer of people and equipment, responsible for destroying 90% of all targets. Military units regularly publish footage of their fighters being killed on social media.

The casualty assessment underscores the significant downside for Russia. It has a much larger population pool from which to draw new soldiers and fill deficits than Ukraine. However, Moscow has tried to avoid large-scale involuntary mobilization during the war, and conflict analysts believe it is unlikely to do so anytime soon.

Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia research fellow with the U.S. think tank’s Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider that Moscow has increasingly relied on covert and informal recruitment networks to avoid full mobilization, which could come at great political cost.

Russian military efforts to bring new troops into the war against Ukraine include providing financial benefits to some informal recruiters, sourcing combat personnel from abroad, and playing with the law on the use of active and inactive reserves, among other informal methods, Stepanenko said.

“Before, the Kremlin just appointed your military recruitment centers, some paramilitary organizations and regional authorities to recruit,” she said. Now, Moscow must think: “Where can we squeeze recruits from?”

U.S. and Ukrainian assessments last year suggested that Russia was drawing an average of 30,000 to 36,000 new soldiers a month into the war, a figure similar to the casualty rate. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that thousands more are volunteering.

“Replacing personnel and replacing casualties is definitely a challenge for the Russian military,” Stepanenko said, adding that Russia will eventually “hit a wall” if it doesn’t change its personnel and recruitment system.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, which does not release official casualty figures similar to Russia’s, estimated an estimated 400,000 soldiers killed and wounded. Those losses hit hard as Ukraine faces an ongoing struggle for manpower.

The proliferation of drones on the battlefield has made it more difficult to remove casualties from the wider kill zone that stretches in both directions of the front line, contributing to greater casualties.

Ukrainian and Western soldiers and officials say the “golden hour” — the first 60 minutes after a serious injury when medical treatment determines whether a soldier will live or die — has long passed in this war.

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