May was a particularly deadly month for the Russian military in Ukraine, with an average of more than 1,000 of its soldiers wounded or killed each day, according to the United States. British and other Western intelligence agencies.
But despite its losses, Russia is recruiting between 25,000 and 30,000 new troops a month, about the same number as those leaving the battlefield, according to U.S. officials. That has allowed his army to continue sending waves of troops into Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through trench lines.
It is a style of warfare that Russian soldiers have likened to being put into a meat grinder, in which commanding officers seem oblivious to the fact that they are sending foot soldiers to die.
This approach has proven effective at times, giving the Russian military victories at Avdiivka and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. But Ukrainian and Western officials say the tactics were less successful this spring, when Russia tried to seize land near the city of Kharkiv.
U.S. officials said Russia achieved a critical goal of President Vladimir V. Putin: creating a buffer zone along the border to make it harder for Ukrainians to attack the country.
But the advance did not threaten Kharkiv and was eventually stopped by Ukrainian defenses, according to Western officials.
“President Putin and Moscow have really tried to make breakthroughs, to push their way onto the front lines this spring,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with The New York Times editorial board. “They tried and failed. “They made very little progress and are paying a very high price.”
Russian casualties have increased on other occasions, especially during the attacks on Avdiivka and Bakhmut. But the attacks on those cities spread over several months. The May offensive, both outside Kharkiv and along the Eastern Front, involved more intense periods of waves of Russian attacks. British military intelligence analysts said Russian casualties in May, which they estimated at an average of 1,200 a dayThey were the highest of the war.
Last month’s fighting decimated the city of Vovchansk, about 40 miles from Kharkiv, where Ukrainians and Russians are locked in a grueling battle for control.
Russian soldiers have said on Telegram, the social network and messaging platform, that their units are suffering high numbers of casualties. Some say their ranks are being thinned by drones, machine guns and artillery bombardments.
Russia’s use of infantry in surge attacks reflects one of its advantages in warfare: its population is much larger than Ukraine’s, giving it a larger pool of potential recruits.
But the casualties have forced Russia to send new recruits to Ukraine relatively quickly, meaning soldiers sent to the front are poorly trained.
The lack of structured training and the need to commit new recruits to combat operations has limited Russia’s ability to produce more capable units. It also increases casualties.
But it’s more complicated than that. The changing nature of modern warfare has also increased the body count in recent months.
Ubiquitous drones have made it easier for both sides to detect and target enemy forces. And mines and cluster munitions make movement across open terrain a near-suicidal task.
Since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, at least 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said recently. British estimates put the number of Russians killed or wounded at more than 500,000.
American estimates of war casualties are based on satellite images, intercepted communications, social media and journalists’ dispatches in the media, as well as official reports from Russia and Ukraine. But those estimates vary, even within the US government.
Reliable estimates of Ukraine’s casualties are more difficult to come by. Ukrainian officials guard those figures carefully. Several US officials insist they do not have an exact account. Zelensky has said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the first two years of the war, but U.S. officials say that figure appears to understate Ukraine’s losses.
Russia carried out a partial mobilization in September 2022, prompting tens of thousands of young people to flee the country. But Western intelligence analysts say Russia will not need to carry out another similar mobilization or recruitment this year.
Russia appears to be able to sustain its current campaign by offering financial incentives to recruits, turning to convicts, and bringing in some Russian mercenaries from Africa.
But the main question for this year will be whether Russia’s current strategy can overcome the Ukrainian armed forces, which are finding their defensive footing. Weapons and ammunition from a new $60 billion US aid package are finally reaching the front lines, and Ukrainian commanders no longer have to ration ammunition. Russia still surpasses Ukraine, but not by that much.
Ukraine has changed its stance, building fortifications and laying minefields to slow the Russian advance. War favors the defender and Ukraine is concentrating on holding its lines, U.S. officials said.
“What I see is a slowing of the Russian advance and a stabilization of that particular part of the front,” Austin told reporters in Brussels this month. “A couple of weeks ago, there was concern that we would see a significant advance by the Russians. I don’t think we’ll see that going forward.”
And Russia’s new buffer zone on the border near Kharkiv may be an empty achievement.
Ukraine has still been able to use longer-range U.S. weapons to attack Russia because of a Biden administration policy change that allows the Ukrainian military to use U.S. missiles to attack military targets just across the border.
U.S. officials said the change is starting to have an impact, eliminating Russian artillery and making it harder for Moscow to attack Kharkiv.
The result, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this month, was that the Kharkiv offensive had turned out to be “yet another mistake by Russia.”
“The destruction of positions and launchers of Russian terrorists by our forces, our warriors, near the border really matters,” he said. “It’s working. Exactly as we expected.”
But despite Ukraine’s success around Kharkiv, more challenges lie ahead. In the coming weeks, American and Western officials expect fighting to shift again to the east and south, as Russia continues to appear willing to expend forces to make incremental gains.