Russia Loses 7,500 Troops in One Week as Military Struggles

Russian deaths have reportedly surpassed 319,000 as the war in Ukraine is about to hit the 21-month mark.

Approximately 690 Russian soldiers died on Sunday, bringing the total number of casualties to 319,210 since the war began on February 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's military said on Monday. That's up from roughly 311,750 deaths reported one week ago.

It is impossible to independently verify battlefield losses, and figures distributed by Kyiv tend to exceed estimates made by its western allies. Newsweek reached out to Ukraine and Russia's Defense Ministries for comment via email.

Other wartime losses mostly remained stagnant since the weekend, aside from Ukrainian officials reporting that they destroyed nine additional Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They also destroyed four more Russian tanks and artillery systems each, increasing the enemy's total losses to 5,439 and 7,748, respectively.

Kherson has become a focal point of the Ukrainian counteroffensive as the country's fighters have homed in on the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnieper River.

The Kherson oblast is one of four territories annexed by Russia in September 2022 following what the West has called a sham referendum, and Ukraine has viewed it as an opportunity to advance deeper into Russian territory and potentially make Crimea a larger strategic play in this stalemate of a conflict.

Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-installed governor of Kherson, said on November 15 that small groups of Ukrainian "militants" were observed in the village of Krynki and were "sending more manpower than our means of destruction were able to destroy."

Ukrainian fighters were met with "fiery hell," Saldo described on his Telegram page, saying that Russia retaliated to the attempted incursion with bombs, missiles, flamethrowers, artillery shells and drones.

Positive advancements have been minimal during the current counteroffensive in regions like Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, two of the other territories along with Luhansk that were annexed by Russia last year.

Ukrainian officials feign public confidence, however. On November 17, the Ukrainian Marines posted on Facebook that Russian forces lost almost 3,500 soldiers, including more than 1,200 killed in addition to dozens of pieces of military hardware, in battles on the Dnieper River.

"As a result of pre-planned actions on the cutting-off of the large-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation, the Defense Forces of Ukraine carried out a series of successful actions on the left bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson direction," they said.

But with winter soon approaching and inclement weather expected to have similar impacts on the Ukraine ground game that plagued its military efforts last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged the expectation that Russia will amp up its military efforts to take advantage of "fatigued" Ukrainian corps.

"As winter approaches, there will be more Russian attempts to make the strikes more powerful," Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday.

"It is crucial for all of us in Ukraine to be 100 percent effective," he added. "Despite all the difficulties. Despite all the fatigue. Despite any attempts to weaken Ukraine."