The average number of daily casualties for the Russian army reached a new monthly high in September, according to Ukrainian reports.
The stats, shared by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), suggest 1,271 soldiers were killed or wounded per day, which is a record high for the Ukraine-Russia war.
That exceeds the record set in May 2024, when an average of 1,262 Russian troops were killed daily.
According to the MoD, that takes the likely total number of Russian casualties since to war began in Febriary 2022 to 648,000.
The British intelligence officials suggest that this increase over the last six months was “almost certainly due to the extension of the combat zone to include both Kharkiv and Kursk”.
Russia opened up a new front in the war in May this year to try and seize Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv.
However defensive forces have – for the most part – held steady and the city remains under Ukrainian control.
Ukrainian troops then launched a surprise incursion of their own into the Russian region of Kursk in August.
Despite Putin’s promises, Moscow’s troops have been unable to oust them in the last two months, and Ukrainian forces now occupy around 1,000 sq km of Russian land.
The MoD said: “Russian forces highly likely continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by utilising mass to overwhelm defensive positions and achieve tactical gains.
“Russia’s casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day for the rest of 2024, despite the onset of winter.
“To date, winter conditions have not resulted in a reduction of offensive operations or attrition rates due to Russia’s reliance on dismounted tactics and a lack of manoeuvre warfare, which requires better conditions.”
Concerns that president Vladimir Putin is deploying conscripts – with just four months of training – to defend Kursk have been rising across Russia in recent weeks.
The UK intelligence officers have previously warned that Russian troops are being used as “cannon fodder” in the war to “overwhelm strong Ukrainian forces”.