Military & Defense
Ukraine: Kyiv says October brought record Russian losses of 54,400 and that it regained 96.2 square kilometres
Ukraine’s General Staff said on November 1 that October was the month of the heaviest Russian losses since the full-scale invasion began, and that Ukrainian forces regained more territory than Russia captured.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday, November 1 that October was the month of the heaviest Russian losses since the start of the full-scale invasion. In the same summary Kyiv claims that over the month its forces regained more ground than the Russian army captured.
According to the General Staff’s monthly summary, Russia lost 54,400 troops killed and seriously wounded in October, a number Kyiv calls a record for all months of the war. A single-day record is also claimed: on October 21 the Russian army, according to the General Staff, lost 2,250 men. These are Ukrainian figures that have not been independently verified.
Territory: 96.2 against 85.8 square kilometres
The General Staff places particular emphasis on Ukrainian forces continuing to regain land that belongs to them. In October, it says, Ukrainian forces liberated 96.2 square kilometres, 10.4 more than Russian forces captured in the same period. In other words, Russian gains for the month, by the same calculations, come to 85.8 square kilometres. The loss figure corresponds on average to about 1,755 men a day, while the daily record of October 21 exceeds the average by nearly 500.
In its post the General Staff thanks every fighter, every brigade and every unit for a result it calls significant for the country. “Russia is suffering losses. We hold our positions, liberate territory and make sure every day of the war costs the aggressor as dearly as possible,” it writes, adding that for these “absurd losses” to stop, Russia need only choose a ceasefire and diplomacy. The General Staff’s accompanying infographic likens the 54,400 losses to “about nine military parades on Red Square”.
The war shows no sign of slowing
The summary was published after a new Russian attack with 433 drones against Ukraine, which overnight into Sunday hit energy infrastructure in four regions. On Saturday evening a Russian air strike destroyed Kramatorsk’s city hall. Residents of occupied Oleshky in the south who asked to leave crossed into Ukrainian territory on Saturday, with the humanitarian mission completed under a local ceasefire.
