Something Is WIPING Out Russian Troops Like Never Before in Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has to go down as
the most catastrophic failed attempt to take over another country in modern military memory.And that failure is only getting worse.

Something is wiping out Russian troops like never before in
Ukraine, as they have experienced a hellish three months that have wiped out tens of thousands of
soldiers.

A staggering 89,000 Russian soldiers are gone, just like that, during the first quarter of
2026, and Russia is now grappling with the largest troop losses in modern history at a time when its
recruitment network is crumbling.

Let’s start with that headline figure: 89,000 Russian casualties
in three months.

That figure was reported by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during
a press conference at the end of March, and it shows us everything that is wrong with Russia’s
military.

It means that Putin has sacrificed an average of 29,666 of Russian people every month
since the beginning of 2026.

And bear in mind that January and February were still cold months.

Russia’s offensive actions would have slowed down during these months, only to ramp up in March as
the vaunted spring offensive began.

Therefore, it seems likely that the last of the three months
is also the month when Russia experienced its highest number of confirmed casualties.

What does
that tell us? It’s only going to get worse from here.

The most insane thing about this statistic
is that it looks like it should be a record for the number of confirmed losses that Russia has
suffered over a three-month period.

But somehow, it isn’t.

Between November 2025 and January 2026,
Russia’s losses reached almost 100,000 as Putin’s forces attempted to complete their push against
Pokrovsk and were left increasingly isolated in the freezing cold conditions in Ukraine, which
made them easier targets for Ukraine’s drones and its search-and-destroy squads that were
formed to tackle Russia’s infiltration strategy.

As crazy as it sounds, this means that 89,000
confirmed losses during the first three months of 2026 are actually an improvement for Russia.

We mean…it’s not much of an improvement.

And the scale of these losses is being combined
with another major issue for Russia, which is a war-ender behind the statistics we’re
sharing.

We’ll come back to that soon.

First, there’s a word that we’ve been using that is
worth paying attention to.

We’ve said “confirmed” several times when talking about Russia’s losses
in 2026 so far, and that’s a big clue that 89,000 casualties is likely the best-case scenario for
Russia’s first quarter of 2026.

United24 Media points that out, as it reports that the head of
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, has already pointed out that 20% of the strikes
that Ukraine carried out against Russia during the first three months of 2026 can’t be verified.

This doesn’t mean that Ukraine can’t verify that the strikes were successful.

It can.

The drones
it’s using to make those strikes, as well as the army of reconnaissance drones that it has flying
in its skies, offer all of the proof needed that the hits are landing.

What Ukraine can’t quite
verify is just how many of Russia’s soldiers are being killed in these strikes.

When Ukraine
hits a concentration of troops with drones, it can’t record all of the soldiers who get killed
indirectly by shrapnel and explosions.

Ukraine’s figure also doesn’t include casualties that are
being caused by its mid-range drone strikes, artillery attacks, and things like the number of
Russian soldiers who are dying under rubble or being killed in ways that Ukraine can’t confirm
through direct video evidence.

And here’s where this gets really bad for Russia.

The amount
of territory that Russia has been capturing in return for this ridiculous casualty rate is
declining rapidly.

And it’s not like Russia was doing well before on that front.

If we rewind to
2025, United24 Media reports that Putin churned through around 400,000 of Russia’s soldiers
in return for just 4,336 square kilometers, or just 1,674 square miles, of Ukraine.

That’s a
return of just 0.

72% of the territory of a country in which Russia still has to find a way to take
the remaining 80% of free land.

At this rate, it would take Russia a century to finally topple
Ukraine, meaning Putin and whichever warmonger who succeeds him would be long gone before
the aims of the so-called “special military operation” are fulfilled.

But even that century of
war is starting to look ambitious on Russia’s end, as its rate of advance has been slowing
drastically since the end of 2025.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW,
the period between October 2025 and March 2026 saw Russia seize almost 1,930 square kilometers,
or about 745 square miles, of Ukraine.

It’s bad enough that this is drastically slower than the
same period between 2024 and 2025, when Russia captured about 2,716.

6 square kilometers, or
1,048 square miles.

That alone showcases the massive slowdown.

But now, we have an approximate
figure for the number of casualties that Russia has sustained to make those paltry gains.

We’ve
shared the 89,000 and 100,000 figures already.

There’s some crossover here, as January 2026 is
included in both.

If we subtract about 30,000, which is Russia’s rough monthly casualty
rate in 2026, from the 189,000 total we have, thus eliminating the double January issue,
we get 159,000 casualties.

But there’s more.

The ISW’s figures include October 2025.

United24
Media reports that Ukraine confirmed 25,000 kills of Russian soldiers in October.

That figure
doesn’t include casualties or unconfirmed kills, but it’s the best we have, and we can add it
to 159,000 casualties to make 184,000 for the six-month period that the ISW covers.

Divide
184,000 casualties by 745 square miles gained, and Putin gets slapped in the face with
a reality that he can’t comprehend: Russia is losing just under 247 soldiers for every
square mile of Ukraine that it gains.

This is generational atrophy of an entire population
for the sake of fractions of a percentage of Ukrainian territory, and it is starting to weigh
very heavily on Russia’s military.

And somehow, there is even more on the Russian casualty front.

Any hope that Putin might have that the casualty rate will slow down later in 2026 is ridiculous.

Russia has already launched its spring offensive, which means that more assaults are happening now
than at any other point in the year.

And with more assaults comes even more casualties.

We’ve seen
that already in March.

On March 17, Russia broke its record for most casualties suffered in 2026
so far when a staggering 1,710 of its soldiers were taken out in just 24 hours.

Adding to that
was the loss of 230 vehicles and fuel tankers, along with 29 artillery systems, and that figure
alone shows a sharp increase over the 700 to 900 daily losses that Russia was incurring earlier
in the year.

If you want a little more context, then Russia is now losing more soldiers every two
days than the U.

S.

lost during its entire war in Afghanistan.

Russia has its own Afghanistan war on
its record, during which it lost 15,000 soldiers over the course of a decade.

So, it’s losing about
that much every half a month in Ukraine.

This is a preposterous figure that shows how Putin, for all
of his love of the Soviet era of old, can’t even wage a failing war as well as the Soviet leaders
who came before him, never mind a war that Russia could actually win.

So, Russia has 89,000 soldiers
gone.

Eliminated.

Wiped off the face of the map in just the first three months of 2026.

And the
territorial gains it has been making for those massive losses are so tiny that they are barely
worth talking about.

Throw the start of the spring offensive into the mix, and you get a powder keg
of future casualties that is ready to blow up in Putin’s face.

But earlier, we mentioned another
problem that is combining with these issues to make things so much worse for Russia.

This is
an issue that takes things from catastrophic to war-ending for Putin, as it will change everything
about the future of the Ukraine war.

Before we dig deeper into that issue, this is a quick
reminder that you’re watching The Military Show.

If you’re getting value from the insight we
deliver on this channel, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss a video.

So, the bigger issue
that lurks behind Russia’s casualty rate… What is it? Russia’s major problem isn’t just that it’s
losing thousands upon thousands of soldiers.

That’s backbreaking for the Russian military, but
it’s also something that has been happening for years.

The real issue for Russia right now is that
the scale of its losses is such that it’s failing to recruit enough soldiers to account for them for
the first time since Putin launched his invasion.

United24 Media reports that Russia’s
“arrivals-to-departures” balance has been in the negative for four consecutive months between
December 2025 and March 2026.

What this means is that Russia has experienced four months where it’s
losing more soldiers than it is recruiting.

spark The first is the 22% of the target hit when it
should be 25%.

That tells us that Russia isn’t hitting its recruitment quotas, so 409,000 for
2026 is starting to look a little ambitious.

We’ll be getting back to that in a moment.

The second
problem is one that we’ve mentioned before – it’s 89,000 confirmed casualties, not 89,000 total.

That means Russia’s casualty count is likely a few thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands, higher
than what it can verify, which suddenly means that even the target of 409,000 isn’t enough.

And third, Ukraine is just getting started.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has set a
target of 50,000 Russian casualties per month by the end of 2026.

Ambitious, yes.

Ukraine is about
20,000 away from hitting that target based on its confirmed casualties.

But as Russia ramps up its
spring offensive, the casualty count will rise.

What we’re seeing now is the best that Russia can
hope for in 2026.

And it’s still so devastating that Russia can’t keep up with it via recruitment.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the method that Russia has used to recruit volunteer
soldiers up to this point isn’t working as well as it used to.

That method was simple – throw
more cash at potential recruits than they’ve seen in their entire lives to convince them to fight
and die in Ukraine.

But as Russia falls behind its targets as that method fails, it’s turning
to more desperate approaches.

Business Insider highlighted one of those approaches in an April
1 article that must have felt like a bad April Fool’s joke for any Russians who somehow made
it through Putin’s net restrictions to read it.

One governor in the Ryazan region of Russia is
telling businesses that they need to help out with recruitment as the numbers plummet.

Now, any
firm in that region that has between 150 and 500 workers has until September to submit the names
of employees that they think should be sent to the front lines in Ukraine.

Companies with between
150 and 300 employees must submit two candidates, while those with between 300 and 500 must send
five names.

Any businesses that refuse to follow these rules will face a one-million-ruble fine,
which works out to a little over $12,000.

Russia is also taking aim at its young students as
potential recruits for its military.

Also in an April 1 report, The Times says that Valery Falkov,
who is Russia’s Education and Science Minister, has ordered Russia’s universities to convince 2%
of their students to sign up for the military.

If the orders are carried out successfully, this
would lead to an influx of 44,000 new soldiers, or 76,000 if Russia includes colleges alongside
universities.

This is stealth conscription at its most desperate, and it’s not exactly very smart,
is it, Putin? Russia is a country that is already dealing with a massive labor crisis brought on, in
part, by the demands that the Kremlin has placed on Russian people since Putin invaded Ukraine.

On
March 30, United24 Media reported that over 20 of Russia’s factories in the Leningrad region
alone are shifting to three-day workweeks, and this isn’t a coincidence.

Work is drying up,
and those companies can’t maintain the number of employees that they otherwise would.

Putin has
created a vicious cycle inside Russia where the available labor gets sucked up by the war machine,
which ruins every other industry and places much of Russia’s declining population in a position
where it can’t contribute to the economy in any other way other than submitting to Putin’s
war effort.

And now, Russia is trying to pull employed people out of work when it doesn’t have
anybody to replace them, along with sacrificing the students who should be preparing to become the
foundation of Russia’s post-war economy.

Putin is ruining Russia’s future in exchange for short-term
fixes to a manpower problem that is only going to get worse.

And what he’s gearing up to do next is
going to catch everybody in Russia off guard.

Not satisfied with the workers and the students, Putin
is edging closer to higher levels of conscription, which in turn will lead to mobilization inside
Russia.

The Kremlin started preparing for all of this in 2025, when Putin signed a new law that
transformed Russia’s previous conscription system, which had two annual drafts, to a year-round
system that means Russia can call up anyone aged between 18 and 30 at any time for a year-long
period of military service.

Russia claims that it won’t be bulking up its number of conscripts, but
you can never take that type of claim seriously.

And, of course, every conscript, assuming they’re
not just sent to the front lines even though Russia says that conscripts don’t go to Ukraine,
will become a reserve.

And that leads into the second part of the Kremlin’s plan to deal with
its manpower deficiencies.

In a March 30 report, United24 says that the poor results of the
Ministry of Defense’s latest recruitment campaigns are leading Putin down the path of
turning voluntary recruitment into involuntary mobilization.

A limited and rolling reserve
call-up scheme is reportedly being prepared, which is the type of move that Putin has spent
most of his war avoiding after a September 2022 partial mobilization proved extremely unpopular
in Russia.

The groundwork has already been laid.

Putin is preparing to do something so stupid
that it amounts to an admission that what he has been calling the “special military operation”
for so many years is actually a war that Russia isn’t winning.

He doesn’t want to do it.

Not
because he cares about the Russian people, but because Putin knows that the uproar that
mobilization will cause could be a threat to the seat of power that he’s spent a quarter of
a century defending.

But if Putin wants to keep his invasion going, especially as Ukraine tears
through Russian soldiers faster than ever before, then he has no choice.

He’s already exhausting
Russia’s stockpile of criminals that he can send to the front.

And when it comes to volunteers, the
percentages are too low, and Russia is running low on the cash that it was using to incentivize them
to sign up in the first place.

The regions being forced to bankroll that approach, of which the
previously mentioned Ryazan is one, are starting to run out of money.

Financial incentives, which
once ran as high as $40,000 for sign-up bonuses in some Russian regions, are also running dry.

Bonuses are now being reduced in many regions, The Kyiv Post reports, and it’s because those
regions, shockingly enough, kind of need some money to spend on things other than sending
more cannon fodder Putin’s way.

So, we see a confluence of issues.

Ukraine has become a more
effective Russian military-destroying machine than it has ever been before.

The drone-infested
kill zones that cause so many problems for Russia are tripling in size due to the introduction of
middle-range strike drones.

And by the end of 2025, Ukraine was building four million drones per
year to fill those kill zones, so it isn’t going to run out anytime soon.

Inside Russia, long-range
Ukrainian strikes are ruining oil refineries, export terminals, and military nodes, which
places more pressure on Russia’s cash flow, in addition to weakening the Russian military
inside Ukraine.

There is degradation in the rear and death on the front.

As its spring offensive
ramps up, all of this is only going to get worse for Russia.

We see that in the increased number of
assaults that Russia started launching in March.

For instance, the four days leading to March
23 saw Russia attempt over 600 assaults against Ukraine, which cost it 6,090 soldiers, The Kyiv
Independent reports.

That’s a little over 1,522 Russian casualties per day, and it’s a sign of
what’s to come.

Multiply that number by 30 days, and Russia’s monthly losses veer close to 46,000.

That’s only a few thousand away from the rate of attrition that Ukraine says will be high enough
to force Putin to end his war.

Russia’s leader is steaming toward 50,000 casualties per month, and
he’s doing it at a time when Russian recruitment is in shambles.

None of this is sustainable.

89,000 soldiers confirmed as casualties in three months should show Putin that, but, as always,
he’s so blinded by his invasion that he can’t see the wood for the trees.

Putin is leading his
military into oblivion, and Ukraine is more than happy to hold his hand to guide him further down
the path that he is following.

Oh, and don’t think for a second that Ukraine isn’t constantly coming
up with new and even better ways to turn the war around against Russia.

Even Russia’s long-range
drone strategy, which is one of the few bright spots for the Kremlin, is being countered.

How?
A Star Wars-like weapon is Ukraine’s answer, and you can find out all about it by checking out our
video.

And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to The Military Show to see more
analysis of the numbers behind Putin’s invasion.