Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The tally only includes confirmed kills, meaning the real number could be higher.
When talking about Russian losses in the war in Ukraine, the focus is usually on the troop casualties, which stand at 1,586,500 wounded and killed as of October 30, according to the latest figures from Ukraine’s General Staff.
Those numbers have not been independently verified, but according to Ukraine’s military, they only include confirmed hits in the tally.
But one thing is the sheer number of troops, another thing is the men telling the Russian troops what to do – and according to a new update from an open-source monitoring project, the number of commanders lost by Russia has now reached a grim milestone.
9,000 and counting
According to findings published on October 29 by the open-source monitoring project KIU, Russia has lost at least 9,000 military officers since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With 1,708 days of war so far, this equals roughly five commanders per day.
Researchers compile their database by tracking funeral notices, regional obituaries, Russian local news reports, and newly erected memorial plaques across hundreds of towns.
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That staggering total represents only a documented baseline. Analysts record a death only after finding public records that verify both the individual’s identity and their confirmed officer rank. Because Moscow treats wartime casualties as a tightly held state secret, independent monitors point out that the true death count is almost certainly far higher.
The constant bleeding of commanders robs battalions of essential battlefield experience, leaving frontline troops under the command of junior officers who were thrown into the fire with little preparation.
Hunted behind lines
Ukrainian forces are actively hunting these command posts across the front line. Earlier this week, Ukraine’s 33rd Separate Mechanized Brigade reported that its scouts spent months tracking the command post of Russia’s 26th Tank Regiment. Once the location was confirmed, Ukrainian forces destroyed the bunker with two precision HIMARS rocket strikes.
Disaster has struck far from the trenches. In late September, a Tu-95MS strategic bomber crashed during a flight in Russia’s Amur region, killing at least three aviation officers with some sources claiming eight kills. Ukrainian officials confirmed that all three had direct links to coordinated missile strikes against Ukrainian cities.
Replacing those specialized veterans is a massive hurdle for Moscow. A strategic bomber pilot or a tank regiment commander takes more than a decade of rigorous training to produce. Without seasoned hands at the top, managing modern combined warfare becomes a chaotic and costly mess.
