Ukraine’s troops took out of action 1,110 Russian soldiers on July 4 alone, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff has claimed.
An estimated 548,580 Russian troops died or were wounded since the beginning of the unlawful invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin in late February 2022.
The report by the Ukrainian army also claimed Russia lost over the past two and a half years 8,142 tanks, 15,611 armoured fighting vehicles, 19,977 vehicles and fuel tanks, 14,831 artillery systems, 1,115 multiple launch rocket systems, 878 air defence systems, 360 aeroplanes, 326 helicopters, 11,751 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
Putin announced a partial mobilisation of his country in September 2022. Despite the huge losses suffered by Russia since, he has refrained from calling more civilians to the frontline, a move deemed hugely unpopular.
The Kremlin has been relying instead on an influx of convicts joining the Russian army.
To widen the pool of possible soldiers available to the Russian military, the country’s MPs voted in March to allow both suspected or convicted criminals to join troops on the frontline.
According to this bill, recruits would have their criminal cases suspended or have the rest of their prison sentence converted to a suspended sentence for the duration of their service if they head to Ukraine to fight.
People accused of treason, espionage, terrorism and sex crimes would not be eligible for this recruitment scheme.
In order to cope with acute battlefield shortages, Ukraine also turned to its prison population for the first time this summer.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late leader of the Wagner Group who died in a plane crash in August, claimed to have recruited some 50,000 prisoners for his mercenary group.
Despite the Ukrainian battlefield turning into a meatgrinder for Russian troops, Moscow has taken control this week of parts of the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar on the eastern front.
This development could pose a major issue for Ukrainian troops, who are trying to defend the area from further advances.
