Russia lost more troops in the first week of November than in any other week of its full-scale war, Ukraine’s General Staff said on 8 November. The new high follows two daily records, and Ukraine’s drone force commander sees Russia feeding even more men into the fight. Germany’s defense minister says the losses are buying Moscow nothing on the ground.

Russia keeps throwing infantry at Ukraine’s defenses in Donbas and the south, day after day. Moscow shows no sign of easing off: its 2027 budget sets aside two rubles for the army for every one spent on welfare, schools, and hospitals. Diplomacy is moving at the same time. The first three-way talks between the US, Ukraine, and Russia since February are due in Abu Dhabi next week. Until Russia agrees to stop, the price of its war is counted in soldiers, week after week.

A Russian regiment a day, by Ukraine’s count

Russian forces lost 16,130 troops killed and wounded from 1 to 7 November, the General Staff wrote. That averages more than 2,300 a day, or nearly a hundred an hour. Each day’s toll equals an average Russian motorized rifle regiment, it added. The figures are Ukraine’s estimates and cannot be independently verified.

The General Staff put the blame on Russia’s commanders. They keep sending soldiers into “senseless ‘meat’ assaults,” it said, while Ukraine’s Defense Forces defend the country “methodically and effectively.”

The weekly record caps a run of daily ones. On 1 November alone, Ukraine’s forces took out 2,500 Russian troops, the most in a single day of the full-scale war, the General Staff reported. That beat the 2,250 of 21 October, the costliest day of a record month in which Russia lost 54,400 troops.

The heaviest fighting comes near Kostiantynivka

On 7 November, Ukraine’s troops recorded 199 clashes along the front, the General Staff’s morning update showed. The heaviest pressure came near Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast, with 23 Russian assaults. Russian troops also pushed toward Dobropillia and on the Huliaipole direction in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. That day, Russia fired 7,557 kamikaze drones and dropped 235 guided aerial bombs. In one recent week, Russian forces launched nearly 8,000 Molniya and Lancet drones at the front alone.

The day cost Russia another 2,290 troops. Its total since February 2022 now stands at about 1,606,400 killed and wounded, the General Staff’s tally shows.

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Ukraine’s drone commander sees more Russians at the front, not fewer

Robert Brovdi, callsign Madyar, commands Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. His drone pilots killed or wounded 751 Russian troops on 5 November, a new daily high for the force, he wrote on Telegram. The previous peak, 708, came on 1 November.

Brovdi tied the climbing count to Russia’s manpower. “This points to an unprecedented buildup of enemy manpower at the front,” he wrote, blaming Russia’s poorly hidden mobilization. Of his pilots’ tally, 71% came on the Dobropillia and Huliaipole directions. On the Huliaipole direction, a Russian division praised for taking Mala Tokmachka a year ago is still trying to capture it.

In Moscow, meanwhile, police detained young people in the central Kitay-gorod area on 7 November and handed adults draft notices, Russian Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported. “They bring in 10 people at a time, hand out draft notices, and take them away,” released detainees told the channel.

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Germany’s defense minister sees no Russian progress on the ground

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius gave a lower estimate than Kyiv’s, but described the same battlefield. “On the ground, the Russian armed forces are making no progress, the losses are enormous, 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers a month,” he told the Berliner Morgenpost, Focus Online reported.

The same interview brought bad news for Ukraine’s air defense. Pistorius ruled out more German Patriot systems for now, saying Berlin would not get replacements for what it gives. Other countries now have to do more, he said.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) detained two men suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes on Sloviansk and Dnipro, the agency reported on 14 October. Catching both early let it secure Ukrainian reserve command posts and the gas stations the alleged agents had been hunting, the agency added.

Sloviansk anchors the northern end of the Fortress Belt, the chain of fortified cities that has held Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast since 2014. Russia is pushing to seize them, and its aircraft bombed a residential area of Sloviansk on 11 October. Where Ukrainian convoys stop and troops gather is exactly what Russian handlers allegedly asked these suspects to supply.

A gas station worker suspected of filming convoys

The first suspect worked at a gas station complex in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast. Russian intelligence allegedly reached him through a former classmate who left for Russia after the full-scale invasion and now works for its special services, the SBU said. He then allegedly used his phone to secretly film Ukrainian army convoys at or near gas stations. He was allegedly supposed to send the photos and videos to Russia to help it prepare a targeted strike. He also allegedly drove his own car around other gas stations and bridges that the Defense Forces use for logistics.

Spotted through Telegram comments

The second suspect, a former Pokrovsk resident, moved to Dnipro in 2024 and settled in a dormitory. Russian intelligence noticed him through pro-Kremlin comments he posted in Telegram chats, investigators say. A female handler in Russia allegedly tasked him with guiding missile and drone attacks on places in the city where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated. He allegedly scouted on foot or took public transport to reach outlying districts.

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Officers seized computers and smartphones containing evidence of the men’s alleged work for Russia. Both are suspected of treason under martial law and of unauthorized dissemination of information on Ukrainian troop movements or deployment, under Articles 111(2) and 114-2(2) of the Criminal Code. They remain in custody without bail and face up to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. The SBU’s office for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts ran the operation under the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.