Ukraine Continues to Eliminate More Russian Troops Than Russia Can Recruit—89,000 in 3 Months

The Russian army is unable to replenish manpower as quickly as it is losing it. Over the past five months, Ukrainian forces have inflicted significant losses on the Russian military, with Ukrainian drones serving as the main strike force. Alongside record Russian personnel losses, Ukraine has also managed to expand its middle- and deep-strike drone capabilities, allowing it to take out air defenses, disrupt logistics, and destroy Russian military facilities.

89,000 casualties in a quarter

In the first three months of 2026 alone, the Russian army lost 89,000 troops killed or seriously wounded, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported at a press conference at the end of March. This is not even a record: in November and December 2025 and January 2026, losses totaled nearly 100,000.

 But it is not just the number of losses that matters—it is also the Russian army’s ability to replace them. According to Zelenskyy, Moscow’s recruitment target for 2026 is 409,000 troops. Ukrainian intelligence says that in the first quarter of the year, Russia managed to recruit up to 22% of that total — about 80,000 people.

The math shows that Russia is not recruiting troops nearly as fast as it is losing them. And this trend has held for several months in a row.

Russia’s potential losses may be even higher, says Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi. Up to 20% of strikes cannot be verified, he says. This refers to attacks on concentrations of troops, where it is difficult to determine the exact toll, as well as deep strikes, long-range artillery strikes, and troops killed under rubble, among other cases.

For the fourth consecutive month—from December 2025 through March 2026—the “arrivals-to-departures” balance has remained firmly negative: Russia’s losses have exceeded the number of soldiers actually mobilized.

The Kremlin is failing to replenish its forces

Despite statements by Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his officials about victories on the front line, the situation for the Russian army is far from favorable—it is not winning, while Ukraine is not losing.

To put this into perspective, from 2023 to today, Moscow has managed to occupy only 1% of Ukrainian territory, even if its advances may at times appear significant. For example, Russia continues to exert heavy pressure on Pokrovsk, but it has still achieved no success there, Zelenskyy reports. Meanwhile, Russian military losses have surpassed 1 million troops killed and wounded.

In December 2025 alone, Russia lost more troops than the Soviet Union did during ten years of war in Afghanistan, and in some sectors of the front, the loss ratio reached 1 to 27. The winter campaign brought Moscow more than 90,000 black body bags.

Throughout 2025, the Russian army lost more than 400,000 troops while capturing only 0.72% of Ukrainian territory. It failed to seize Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, or other key cities, while in Kupiansk, the Ukrainian army prevented Russia from taking the city and nearly completely drove Russian forces out of the area.

Ukraine’s goal is to eliminate more than 50,000 Russian troops per month, a pace that could shift the course of combat on the battlefield. The main strike component is drones. The second factor is Russia's economic exhaustion, when it will simply no longer be able to pay such large bonuses to its troops and will lose the resources needed to replenish its forces.

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