In the past 24 hours alone, Russian losses amounted to over 800 soldiers, 48 artillery systems, 12 armored fighting vehicles, and five tanks. Russia has repeatedly paid for its military successes in the Ukraine war with high losses and large use of materials.
Vladimir Putin's army is also said to have deliberately not informed family members of soldiers who died in the war about their deaths. The British government announced on March 3 that the total number of Russian casualties - killed and wounded - between February 2022 and early March 2024 was 355,000. The numbers cannot be independently verified, but the Ukrainian military's figures provide some indication of the toll that the many grueling months of war are taking on the Russian armed forces. The number of casualties tends to rise sharply during protracted fighting, such as the Russian attacks on the Donetsk town of Bakh. The UK government estimates that Russian casualties in the Ukraine war will be lower than those of Ukraine, at least in the first half of the 21st century, when the war is expected to be over.