New macabre record for Russia. According to British intelligence, which regularly publishes estimates of Russian combat losses in Ukraine, the month of November would have been the bloodiest since the start of the war for Moscow, with an average of 1,523 soldiers killed or wounded per day. According to London, Russian losses even exceeded for the first time, on November 28, the symbolic figure of 2,000 daily losses.
This unprecedented level of losses is a consequence of the intensification of assaults by Moscow's troops. Russia intends to take advantage of kyiv's military difficulties to establish a position of strength between now and the inauguration, on January 20, 2025, of the new American President Donald Trump, who has promised to bring the belligerents to the negotiating table. .
Yemeni, Nepalese, Indian and North Korean proxies
Such a high number of killed and wounded, however, raises questions about Russia's ability to maintain this effort over time. President Vladimir Putin is refusing for the moment to lead a new mobilization, the one launched in September 2022 having proved very unpopular.
Instead, Moscow prefers to resort to recruiting volunteers, who are promised high pay and significant financial bonuses upon signing the recruitment contract. The Russian authorities would thus have managed to attract on average around 30,000 men per month to the flag during the first half of 2024.
But since the start of the conflict, Russia has also employed fighters from abroad. The latest arrivals, a few hundred Yemeni mercenaries have recently joined, willy-nilly, the Russian forces, according to information from the British daily The Financial Times published on November 24. They were allegedly lured to Russia by the promise of a well-paid job and a Russian passport, but found themselves forced to join the Russian army, according to testimonies collected by the British business daily. Before them, Nepalese and Indians had also joined the ranks of Russian troops on similar promises.
If these few hundred fighters are just a drop in the bucket compared to the half a million Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, the arrival of a North Korean contingent this fall is of a different nature. The United States and South Korea accuse Pyongyang of sending more than 10,000 troops to Russia, where some of them are already fighting the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region.
While the defense agreement between North Korea and Russia entered into force on Wednesday December 4, according to the official North Korean agency KCNA, Westerners fear seeing this assistance increase in the coming months, and extend to Ukrainian territory itself.
“The Russians are the champions of the expedient”
Does this use of foreign fighters reflect a weakness of the Russian army in human resources? The number of national volunteers recruited has shown a significant drop in recent months, according to an article published on December 4 by the independent Russian media Meduza, which studied fluctuations in the budget devoted to bonuses paid to new recruits. And even if a significant portion of the wounded returns to the front after convalescence, this level of recruitment would be insufficient to replace current losses, according to this information site.
The question is, however, debated among experts, who point out that the war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is first and foremost a race of endurance for each of the two belligerents. “The Russians have shown since the start of the war that they are the world champions of expedientsays Stéphane Audrand, international risk consultant. They go after shells in North Korea, drones in Iran, and people wherever they can. It's not very glorious, but it works. In the end, Russia wears out less quickly than its opponent.»
Despite the winter, British intelligence expected Russian casualties (killed and wounded) to continue to exceed 1,000 per day in December.
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