Bloodbath! The Russians May Be Losing 20,000 More Troops Than They Recruit Every Month.

The battle for Pokrovsk has spiked Russian casualties.

Russian dead near Pokrovsk. Ukrainian defense ministry capture

Ukrainian troops are killing Russian troops faster than the Kremlin can replace them.

A lot faster.

That wasn’t always the case. As recently as early 2025, Russia was managing to recruit—through voluntary enlistment as well as more coercive measures—slightly more troops than it lost every month.

The soldier surplus helped to sustain Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. But now Russian field armies are running a soldier deficit. It’s the inevitable result of the Kremlin’s decision to double down on the already costly offensive around the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

“On the Pokrovsk direction, Russian troops activated attacks across the entire direction, suffering 18-to-20% greater losses over the last week,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported Wednesday.