Ukraine Successfully Eliminates 850 Russian Soldiers In One Day; Total Death Toll At 127,500

Russia lost 850 military personnel in its invasion of Ukraine between Monday and Tuesday, data provided by the Ukrainian military showed.

About 127,500 Russian combat losses have been recorded nearly a year into the conflict, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its most recent casualty report released Tuesday.

The number was up from the 126,650 casualties the military staff reported the previous day.

In addition to personnel, Russia has also lost 3,201 tanks, 6,378 armored fighting vehicles and 2,197 artillery systems, among other pieces of military equipment, according to the latest data provided by the Ukrainian military.

Russia has been accused of sending its troops, particularly its newly mobilized conscripts, to the front line in Ukraine poorly trained and ill-equipped.

Military leaders also treat fighters of the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization that has seen increased participation in the war, "like cattle" and send them to the front "like cannon fodder," a former commander of the group who fled claimed.

Russia, which supposedly completed its mobilization of 300,000 reservists in October 2022, may announce a second wave of recruitment in the future.

The country is also poised to raise the upper age limit for mandatory military service from 27 to 30.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu previously proposed that Russia boost its total number of combat personnel from 1.15 million to 1.5 million, a plan that received the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin in December.

This and other reforms will be implemented between this year and 2026 "likely in preparation for a protracted war in Ukraine and also to set conditions to build a significantly stronger Russian military quickly," according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

However, the American think tank noted that "reform and expansion on the scale Shoigu outlined will not happen in time to affect the war in Ukraine materially for many months."

"[I]t could change the correlation of forces going into 2024, and it could establish conditions for a much more formidable Russian military threat to its neighbors, including NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), in the coming years," the ISW said in an assessment released on Jan. 17.

Russia is expected to carry out a new offensive in the partially occupied Ukrainian province of Luhansk within the next month.

Following pledges of tanks from several nations, both Ukraine and its allies are now trying to establish a new tank force in time for the attack.

Analysts fear that the Western tanks may not prove to be the game changer that many Ukrainians and their supporters imagined.

"The question is whether 100, 150 [tanks] is enough. Well, it's enough to make a big difference," former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said.