UK Intelligence: Russia Suffers More Than 400,000 Casualties Over Past Two Years
British intelligence assessments indicate that Russia has suffered persistently high casualty with more than 400,000 soldiers likely killed or wounded across 2024–2025 alone.
The Gaze reports this, referring to the latest intelligence update on social media.
The UK Ministry of Defence said the Kremlin has increasingly relied on recruitment from economically disadvantaged and remote regions, many of which are predominantly populated by ethnic minorities.
By contrast, residents of Russia’s major cities, particularly ethnic Russians from political and economic centers, continue to represent a disproportionately small share of battlefield losses.
According to the assessment, this recruitment strategy enables the Russian state to use financial incentives to replenish its forces while shielding urban populations with greater political influence from the direct costs of the war.
“By focusing recruitment efforts disproportionately on impoverished regions, often predominantly populated by ethnic minorities, Russia’s state apparatus better leverages financial inducements while limiting the impact on urban-dwelling parts of the population with greater political agency,” the intelligence update noted.
The report added that Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior leadership are “almost certainly prepared to tolerate continuously high casualty rates”, provided those losses do not erode public or elite support and can be replaced through ongoing mobilization and recruitment.
British intelligence also referenced a large-scale investigation by independent Russian outlet Proekt, which found that fewer than one percent of Russian state officials have relatives who have fought in the war. The finding highlights the unequal distribution of the war’s human cost, with fatalities and injuries concentrated far from Russia’s centers of power.
As The Gaze previously reported, Russia has likely suffered more than 236,000 military casualties, killed and wounded, in its war against Ukraine since the beginning of 2025.
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