Russia’s ‘massive’ losses in Ukraine have it heading toward a breaking point, NATO’s top official says

• NATO secretary-general says up to 25,000 Russian soldiers are killed in Ukraine every month.

• Mark Rutte called the carnage “unsustainable” for Moscow.

• This suggests that a breakthrough point is imminent, but the exact timing is unclear.

Russia’s military is suffering heavy losses in fighting in Ukraine, with up to 25,000 soldiers killed each month, NATO’s top civilian official said this week, calling the carnage “unsustainable” for Moscow.

“Right now, Russia is losing a lot of soldiers because of the defense of Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told European lawmakers at a forum in Brussels on Tuesday. He said 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers were dying each month as the war dragged on.

“I’m not talking about serious injuries. I’m talking about being killed.” Rutte clarified. He compared the incredibly high losses to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, in which an estimated 15,000 Soviet troops were killed over nine years.

“Now they’re losing that number or more in a month,” he said of the number of Russian soldiers killed each month. “So it’s not sustainable for them either.”

Russia has not disclosed official casualty figures, but Ukrainian and Western estimates paint a grim picture for Moscow.

Russia may have caused more than 1.2 million battlefield casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, with an average of 1,100 soldiers killed or injured every day last month, the British Ministry of Defense said in the latest intelligence on Wednesday.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that between August and December 2025, Russia’s average daily casualty rate increased steadily, but was still lower than the same period in 2024. The report said the recent rise was due to Moscow’s small territorial gains and that significant losses were expected to continue into 2026 “as infantry continues to attack on multiple axes.”

For more than a year, Russian forces have been working to capture the war-torn city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. It was the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Ukrainian officials say attack drones are the biggest killer of people and equipment on the battlefield, and are believed to be able to eliminate about 90 percent of targets. Military units regularly post footage of combat kills on social media.

Casualty assessments highlight significant Russian attrition. It has a much larger population pool than Ukraine from which to recruit new soldiers and replace losses. However, Moscow has sought to avoid large-scale involuntary mobilization during the war, and conflict analysts believe it is unlikely to do so anytime soon.

Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia researcher at the Institute for War Studies think tank, told Business Insider that Moscow is increasingly relying on clandestine and informal recruitment networks to avoid full-scale mobilization, which could come at a huge political cost.

Stepanenko said the measures taken by the Russian military to send new recruits to fight in the war against Ukraine include providing financial benefits to some informal recruiters, procuring combat personnel from abroad, and taking advantage of legislation on the use of active and inactive reserve forces.

“Previously, the Kremlin only assigned your recruitment centers, some paramilitary groups and regional authorities to conduct recruitment,” she said. Now, Moscow must wonder: “Where else can we extract new recruits?”

U.S. and Ukrainian assessments last year showed Russia was sending an average of 30,000 to 36,000 new troops to the war each month, with figures similar to its casualty rate. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the number of people volunteering was in the thousands.

“It is definitely a challenge for the Russian army to replace personnel and replace casualties,” Stepanenko said, adding that Russia would eventually “hit a wall” if it did not ultimately change its personnel and recruitment system.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has not disclosed official casualty figures like Russia, but an estimated 400,000 soldiers are believed to have been killed or wounded. The losses hit hard as Ukraine faces an ongoing scramble for manpower.

The proliferation of drones over the battlefield has made it increasingly difficult to evacuate casualties from the ever-expanding kill zones that extend in both directions from the front lines, largely resulting in heavy losses.

Ukrainian and Western soldiers and officers say the “golden moment” – the first 60 minutes after a serious injury when treatment can make the difference between life and death for a soldier – is long gone in this war.

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