Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Russia also suffered its highest number of casualties during a single month of the war so far.
For the second month in a row, Russian forces finished a month holding less ground in Ukraine than they held at the start of it, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s monthly accounting.
ISW’s October tally, carried by Ukrainian coverage of the think tank’s assessment, credits Russia with seizing or consolidating 139.85 square kilometers while losing 167.14 square kilometers, for a net loss of 27.29 square kilometers, or about 0.88 square kilometers a day. Factoring in areas Russian units entered but failed to hold, the net loss climbs to 76.38 square kilometers.
ISW notes that Russia booked settlement-level gains only in Sumy and Zaporizhzhia and lost ground in every other sector, including Donetsk Oblast, the stretch of eastern Ukraine Moscow has set as its top strategic objective.
Russian forces captured 10 settlements over the month, while Ukrainian forces took back or cleared 11.
Record personnel losses
The battlefield math is being paid in troops. Russia sustained 54,400 soldiers killed or seriously wounded in October, the heaviest monthly toll since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine’s General Staff reported, as cited by the Kyiv Independent. President Volodymyr Zelensky, quoted in the same report, called the figure “a record for any month of the full-scale war.”
It is the fourth consecutive month that Russian losses have topped 40,000. October 21 alone saw 2,250 Russian troops killed or severely wounded, a single-day record of the war, according to Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces as reported by United24 Media.
From the trenches to the power grid
ISW says Russia’s current recruitment system is not generating enough new soldiers to replace battlefield losses, and that strain is reshaping Kremlin strategy.
The think tank wrote earlier in October that mounting ground-war costs are forcing Putin “to reevaluate his original theory of victory” and shift focus to compelling Ukraine to surrender through the winter 2026-2027 long-range strike campaign.
Russia launched that winter campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in late September, ISW said. The strikes aim to “make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable such that Ukraine will capitulate to Russia’s demands,” according to the assessment.
