Russia suffers ‘record 2,000 casualties in day’ as Ukraine military chief vows to reinforce eastern front

Intense clashes reported along front line in Ukraine as Moscow ramps up efforts to seize territory ahead of Donald Trump’s return to White House

Russia has suffered more than 2,000 casualties in a single day, Ukraine’s military has claimed, in what would mark one of the heaviest toll of losses inflicted on Vladimir Putin’s forces at any point in the war so far.

Russia appears to be ramping up its push for territory with the Kremlin potentially anticipating that Donald Trump could seek to follow through on his presidential election campaign claim that he would rapidly end Moscow’s invasion with a peace deal once he re-enters the White House in January.

As Moscow focuses its efforts in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas – made up of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk – and in trying to push Ukraine’s forces from Russia’s Kursk region, war analysts say that Russia is seizing more territory than at any point since the early days of its February 2022 invasion.

But Russian losses have for weeks been consistently among the highest of the war so far, with around 1,500 casualties each day, Ukrainian and Western military chiefs have said.

In their daily update, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed on Friday morning that more than 200 combat clashes had taken place in the past 24 hours, in which Russia had suffered 2,030 losses. Ukraine does not distinguish between those killed and wounded. That figure appears to be broadly in line with Western intelligence estimates, which also put the war’s overall casualty toll at more than 1 million.

Russian military leaders claimed in July to have inflicted 700,000 “irrecoverable losses” on Ukraine. However, the Wall Street Journal has since carried claims that a confidential Ukrainian estimate put the number of Ukrainian fatalities at 80,000, with 400,000 wounded.

Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donetsk region have struggled against the sheer power of Russian forces in recent months (Reuters)

While the exact toll may never be known, Russia’s relative willingness to expend its troops’ lives in a costly war of attrition for the sake of incremental gains – witnessed repeatedly over the past 33 months – means its losses are indeed likely greater than those of Ukraine.

As clashes were reported across frontline areas of Ukraine on Friday, Kyiv’s military said Russian attackers had launched 93 airstrikes using nearly 180 missiles, as well as firing more than 4,800 artillery shells in the past 24 hours.

The heaviest fighting came in Donetsk, near Povrovsk, where Ukraine claimed to repel more than 60 attacks, and close to Kurakhove, where Russia tried 43 times to breach Ukraine’s defences, the general staff said.

Following visits to units stationed close to both Povrovsk and Kurakhove, Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi vowed on Friday that he would strengthen troops deployed on the eastern front with reserves, ammunition and equipment.

Donald Trump claims he can end the war in a single day in remarks that have alarmed some in Kyiv (AFP)

“Based on the results of the work, all necessary decisions have been made to strengthen the units with reserves, additional ammunition, weapons, and military equipment,” he said on Telegram. “We continue to restrain the enemy and inflict heavy losses in terms of their manpower and equipment.”

Away from the frontlines, Mr Putin’s crackdown on domestic criticism of its war continued apace, as jailed critic Alexei Gorinov was handed a further three-year sentence over accusations of “justifying terrorism” in conversations with cellmates about Ukraine’s Azov battalion and the 2022 explosion on Crimea’s Kerch bridge.

Mr Gorinov, 63, a former councillor, who denies the allegations, is reported to have been the first person convicted under new censorship laws ushered in days after Russia’s invasion, after allegedly saying that “every day children are dying” in Ukraine during a city council meeting.

Photos from the courtroom, published by independent outlet Mediazona, showed a weary Mr Gorinov in the defendant’s cage, with a hand-drawn peace symbol on a piece of paper covering his prison badge. He held a hand-written placard saying: “Stop killing. Let’s stop the war.”

Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov was further convicted on Friday (AP)

He had part of a lung removed before prison and struggles with respiratory illnesses behind bars. In his closing statement in court on Friday, Mr Gorinov remained defiant and once again condemned the Russian authorities for the war in Ukraine.

“My guilt is that I, as a citizen of my country, allowed this war to happen and could not stop it,” Mediazona quoted him as saying. “But I would like my guilt and responsibility to be shared with me by the organisers, participants, supporters of the war, as well as the persecutors of those who advocate peace.

“I continue to live with the hope that this will happen someday. In the meantime, I ask those who live in Ukraine and my fellow citizens who suffered from the war to forgive me.”

According to OVD-Info, a prominent rights group that tracks political arrests, some 1,100 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance since February 2022. A total of 340 are currently behind bars or have been involuntarily committed to medical institutions.

Additional reporting by agencies