Arya News - When Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in action, he underscored the brutal arithmetic of a war in which Russia is advancing slowly while paying an extraordinary price in lives.
When Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in action, he underscored the brutal arithmetic of a war in which Russia is advancing slowly while paying an extraordinary price in lives.
The Ukrainian president said roughly 9,000 had died in battle in the past year, translating to about 750 a month.
Ukrainian officials say Russian losses are far higher. Kyiv claimed that 35,000 Russian soldiers were killed last month alone, suggesting that 47 of Vladimir Putin’s men died for every Ukrainian soldier who lost his life.
Mr Zelensky said Kyiv was “perfectly aware of the price that every metre and every kilometre of this land costs the Russian army”.
He added: “They don’t count the people who die. We are forced to. To conquer eastern Ukraine, it would cost them 800,000 more corpses, the corpses of their soldiers. It will take them at least two years, with very slow progress. In my opinion, they won’t last that long.”
Ukraine claimed that 35,000 Russian soldiers were killed last month alone - Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images
Russia continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region , about 20 per cent of which remains under Ukrainian control. Putin has said he would end the war if Kyiv abandoned the territory, but Mr Zelensky has refused.
Rustem Umerov, a senior Ukrainian security adviser, described discussions with the Russians as “meaningful and productive”, but several rounds of talks – set to continue on Thursday – have yet to produce a significant breakthrough.
Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, lay wreaths at Kyiv’s Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine. The photograph was taken on Thursday - PAWEL SUPERNAK/EPA/Shutterstock
On the battlefield, the data points to a grinding campaign defined by attrition rather than extensive battlefield gains. Analysis published last week found that Russia’s army was advancing, despite the scale of its losses, at the slowest pace seen in more than a century of warfare.
Putin’s forces have advanced between 15 and 70 metres per day since early 2024, slower than many offensives during the First World War, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
While Putin has sought to persuade the Trump administration that the fall of eastern Ukraine is inevitable, it is in that region that Russia’s slow progress is most visible.
The offensive on Chasiv Yar, which began in February 2024, has seen Russian troops advance at an average of 15m per day. After two years of fighting, they have moved roughly 10 kilometres and still failed to capture the city in Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces fire BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers toward Russian positions near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region - EPA/Shutterstock
In Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, around 150km away, Russian forces have advanced at about 23m per day since November 2024.
The pace reflects the tactics Russia has adopted across much of the front. Ukrainian officials and Western analysts describe them as “meat-grinder” assaults , in which large numbers of troops are sent in waves to storm entrenched positions.
Russian commanders are aware of the casualties such attacks produce. Poorly trained convicts and mobilised troops are often among those sent forward first. Wave after wave is used to probe and exhaust Ukrainian defences, placing sustained pressure on front-line positions.
Ukrainian volunteers carry the bodies of Russian soldiers recovered from the front line in the Donetsk Oblast - Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images
Once these assaults reach Ukrainian lines, fighting frequently shifts to close quarters. Street-by-street combat, supported by tanks and armoured vehicles, becomes the norm.
Any limited gains are then consolidated with heavy artillery fire aimed at preventing Ukrainian counter-attacks and destabilising defensive positions. Whether advances are made or not, units are ordered to repeat the process.
The objective is to overwhelm Ukrainian forces through attrition, eroding morale and supplies until positions can no longer be held, but the cost to Russia is steep. Ukrainian estimates suggest Moscow often loses more than 1,000 soldiers a day pursuing such tactics.
Nearly four years into the war, despite several rounds of peace talks and Donald Trump’s pledge to end the war , the front lines are inching forward in places – but the human toll continues to mount.
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