Putin puts Ukraine's monthly losses at 40,000: the math of the crisis

Pilingui airs Ukraine's hemorrhage: 40,000 casualties a month against 16,000 recruits

The Russian president dropped the bomb in St Petersburg: Ukrainian forces are losing 40,000 soldiers every month, while barely managing to recruit 16,000. If the figure is true – and nobody expects Pilingui to be impartial – the military demographic hole is unsustainable. But the analyses circulating in open-source intelligence circles break down an even more brutal arithmetic.

The monthly balance nobody in Kyiv wants to publish

According to the figures used in independent analyses, of every 12,000 people seized for forced mobilization, 80% desert before reaching the front. Barely 2,500 enter combat. To them are added 3,000 women recruited on a semi-compulsory basis – who rarely flee –, some 15,000 wounded who return to the front, and another 3,000 military women who had never set foot on the line of fire. Total inflows: 24,000 troops per month.

On the other side, the outflows are devastating: 10,000 dead or missing, 20,000 wounded and 10,000 deserters. Total: 40,000 casualties. The net monthly shortfall is around 16,000 soldiers. To cover it, Ukraine would be drawing on a reserve of 200,000 military women who until now had not been sent to the front. But that reserve is running out.

Women at the front: from the rear to the trench

One of the least discussed consequences of the shortfall is the forced feminization of assault units. Women who held logistics, medical or rear-echelon posts are being reassigned to infantry. Where there used to be a nurse, there is now a rifle. And whoever used to evacuate the wounded simply no longer exists. According to the analyses, the Ukrainian army has emptied its rear units to plug holes at the front.

The million-dollar question: how long can it last?

With a negative balance of 16,000 troops a month and a reserve of 200,000 women being sent in dribs and drabs, the clock is not endless. Even if the West keeps the flow of weapons going, weapons without soldiers are scrap metal. The question hanging over any analysis is whether Ukraine can sustain the defense over the coming months without a general mobilization that Kyiv's government avoids for political reasons. Or whether, as some suggest, the Russian strategy of attrition is closer to achieving its goal than official statements admit.