Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
According to the stimates, the total Russian losses of 2026 now stands at 360,000+.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff may have spent part of Wednesday in St. Petersburg in a push to find a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine, but the fighting still continues.
Russian strikes battered Kyiv during the night leading to Thursday, and Ukrainian commanders used Thursday morning to publish a battlefield figure meant to show how badly Moscow is paying at the front.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russian forces lost 2,250 personnel killed and wounded on Wednesday, October 21, the highest single-day toll Ukraine has recorded since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
The previous mark was 2,200, set on December 19, 2024, and had stood for nearly two years. Three of the five bloodiest days since 2022 have now been logged in September and October 2026, including October 18 and September 27 of this year.
A steeper curve this autumn
The monthly trajectory points the same way. In February 2026, Ukraine’s military recorded 26,090 Russian casualties. By September, the figure had climbed to 46,230, the highest monthly count this year. In less than three weeks of October, the running total had already reached about 37,000.
Ukraine says it has inflicted roughly 1,572,790 Russian military casualties in total since February 24, 2022. The General Staff compiles the figures from front-line reports, and neither Russia nor independent monitors have confirmed them.
Overnight assault on the capital
The record came as Russia launched a mass overnight attack on Ukraine using Iskander-M, S-400, Zircon and Onyx missiles together with 210 drones, according to the Kyiv Independent. At least nine people were killed and 57 injured, with casualties reported in Kyiv as well as Kharkiv, Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Chernihiv oblasts. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 181 of the drones.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin at Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, presenting an updated proposal to end the war. The Kremlin said afterward it was willing “in principle” to restart US-mediated talks with Ukraine but warned Ukrainian and European proposals lacked “substance.”
No new date for the next round of talks has been announced.
