November 2023, by estimates of GS UAF, should mark the all-time high in Russian human casualties. It should be noted, however (despite some Ukrainian officials claiming otherwise), that the number is an estimate of the “irretrievable” losses in the Soviet jargon (dead, wounded permanently out of combat, prisoners) and not just KIAs, which makes it much, much more credible. Mediazona has written that in the last weeks each day they discover/receive 100/110 reports of Russian soldiers fallen in Ukraine (which should be the maximum since March 2023, almost at the height of the battle of Bakhmut), and obviously only a part of the KIAs finds confirmation in Mediazona’s datas. At the same time, it should be emphasized that for the last estimate of the Ukrainian military intelligence (on November 19), a record-high amount in terms of personell of the Russian grouping deployed in Ukraine had been reached (454k men of the Armed Forces + 28k of the Rosgvardia): an evidence that, according to these estimates, Russia’s ability to replenish losses is judged to be very high.

It should be noted that generally the KIAs notice may have a delay of several months (especially when they discover them through the work of those who take pictures of the fallen soldiers in cemeteries, as for the Moscow and Krasnodar Oblasts), and the proportion of KIAs that have a date of death is just over 70%. Especially the early part of the summer was affected by the Bakhmut backlog (even now, obituaries of former Wagner Group members who died in the winter/spring continue to arrive, from time to time).