Russian Troop Losses Could Hit 100K Before Christmas: Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin's army is poised to reach 100,000 troop losses just shy of Christmas and the Ukraine war's 10-month anniversary, according to calculations based on Ukrainian estimates.

The Defense Ministry of Ukraine and General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine provide daily estimates of how many Russian personnel have been lost since the day before, as well as the total number of Russian losses since the war began.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported that Russia had lost about 98,800 troops as of Monday. With 520 new estimated Russian losses on Monday included, a Newsweek calculation based on the Ukrainian death counts show that Russia has lost an average of 577 soldiers per day over the past week. If this or a similar average is maintained over the next few days, Russia will surpass the 100,000 mark on Thursday.

Newsweek was not able to independently verify the number and pace of Russian troop losses and reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry for confirmation and comment.

Such a death toll, if true, would be one of the newest signs that Putin's war in Ukraine is not going to plan. In a rare admission, a Russian official acknowledged recently on state television that the military was "playing catch-up" and forced to go on the defensive against Ukraine as the war-torn country continues to receive impactful Western weapons and aid.

Though the war will have stretched on for 10 months come December 24, the exact death and casualty toll for both sides remains unclear.

While Ukraine provides the daily estimates on Russian losses, they are not verified by Russia. And Ukraine does not provide such estimates for its own troop losses.

Additionally, Russia has rarely provided updates on its death toll. The most recent of such updates appears to have come in September, when Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the war began, according to Reuters.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while speaking at The Economic Club of New York in November that the total number of Russia's dead and wounded soldiers had topped 100,000. The exact ratio of killed as opposed to wounded in that figure was not immediately clear.

Milley also said that Ukraine's army had likely seen a similar number of casualties.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Defense Department for an updated estimate on Russian casualties.