Russia’s battlefield losses surge in recent weeks due to Ukrainian drones – Bloomberg
The number of Russian soldiers killed in action in the war against Ukraine has risen sharply over the past several weeks due to Ukrainian drone operations.
As reported by Ukrinform, Bloomberg said this citing assessments by several European governments.
It is noted that if this trend continues, it could make it hard for the Kremlin to replace troops without some form of mobilization.
According to European sources, the higher lethality among Russian soldiers is the result of more effective operations by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.
Bloomberg data indicate that when comparing recent numbers of killed and wounded Russian soldiers, the proportion of those killed is significantly higher.
Based on European assessments showing that the number of fatalities has reached the level of recruitment in Russia, several of the people said the trajectory would make it difficult to replace losses without a mobilization drive.
Sources also said that this dynamic in Russian losses could weaken Putin’s hand at the negotiating table in coming months.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Russia’s killed-in-action, or KIA, statistic “increased considerably” in 2025.
“The ratio of KIA to seriously injured was much closer to 1:1,” he wrote earlier on the social media platform X.
As Ukrinform previously reported, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said there are two stages to building an effective system that will stop the enemy in the air and on the ground: restructuring effective management in the defense sector and eliminating 50,000 Russian troops per month on the battlefield.