Russia's casualty rates in Ukraine are comparable to those of the First World War, according to a military analyst who says Moscow is struggling to sustain its losses. Former British Army officer Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said Russia is paying a heavy price for minimal territorial gains.
His comments follow leaked data from Russia's state statistics agency, Rosstat, suggesting more than 450,000 Russians have been killed in the war. Ukraine also claimed a single-day record of 2,980 Russians killed or wounded on Monday.
Analyst: Figures 'we would normally associate with the First World War'
Speaking to the Frontline podcast, de Bretton-Gordon said: "If you extrapolate that over a month's period, that's nearly 40,000 soldiers killed and injured. These are figures that we would normally associate with the First World War. We know that Russia is having real difficulty sustaining those numbers."
He added that the fatality figures from the Rosstat data leak were about 90% higher than what the Kremlin has publicly admitted. "When you put all that together you can see where the divergence is," the retired colonel said.
Kremlin's response and military tactics
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly attempted to avoid acknowledging the true scale of Russian fatalities in Ukraine. A senior British Army commander recently said Russian forces are paying a "heavy price for incremental territorial gains" in what has become a "grinding war of attrition and sustained bombardment."
Russia's devastating losses have often been attributed to its so-called meat grinder tactics. Experts believe Putin is planning a new mass mobilisation to bolster his frontline forces.
Peace talks and recent attacks
Renewed peace talks between Ukrainian, Russian and American officials took place in Abu Dhabi this week but failed to achieve a breakthrough. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have pledged to include European Union delegates in the next round of peace talks.
On Friday, the bloc's foreign policy chief warned Moscow is setting "traps" by trying to start a discussion about wider European security arrangements. Overnight, Ukraine fired almost 1,200 drones at Russian targets in one of its biggest aerial attacks since Moscow's full-scale invasion nearly five years ago.
