Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Munich Security Conference last week the price Russia is paying “for one kilometre [of territory] is 156 soldiers”.
Days earlier, Kyiv’s defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov claimed that 35,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded throughout December and “at least” 50,000 enemy troops were now being targeted a month.
Those figures have not been independently verified.
But with such casualties on the frontline, one reader questions whether Moscow will begin to cede some occupied territory in Ukraine.
Michael Clarke says Russia is recruiting from as many different countries as it can, and adds that “a lot” of troops have joined from the Caribbean and African nations.
“Poor workers are signing up for, what are for them, huge amounts of money, and finding themselves on the frontline,” he says.
The Ukrainians claim there were around 65,000 Russian casualties in December and January – figures Clarke says have been verified by Western sources.
Ukraine’s military is aiming to kill 50,000 Russian soldiers a month, Clarke adds.
Around 80% of casualties on both sides are being killed by drones, he says.
In an interesting development, Russia has lost access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service in the past couple of weeks, Clarke says, which has “had the effect of blinding” Moscow’s troops along the front.
“The Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back more in the last two weeks than the Russians have taken in the last two months.”
Ukraine has found “gaps in the drone coverage” as “so many Russian drones effectively are grounded through lack of communication”, says Clarke.
For context: In the past week, Ukraine has reportedly recaptured around 78 square miles of territory from Russia.
If true, that is more territory than Russia was able to gain in the whole of December.
But are the territorial gains sustainable? Sky’s Sean Bell explains…
