Military expert: July was Russia's toughest month yet on the Ukrainian battlefield

Jānis Slaidiņš, a major in Latvia's National Armed Forces and an officer at the National Guard staff, said on TV24's program "Aktuālais par karadarbību Ukrainā" that July 2026 was the toughest month for Russian forces in Ukraine since the war began, based on figures from Ukraine's General Staff.

The casualty figures

According to Ukrainian estimates, Russian forces' losses in July exceeded 42,000. Slaidiņš noted these are Ukrainian-side calculations and that precise loss figures cannot be verified under wartime conditions. He also referenced data compiled by Russia's own information channels, which list more than 236,000 confirmed deaths of soldiers identified by name. That number continues to rise, he said, and a large number of soldiers remain missing.

Willingness to sacrifice troops

Slaidiņš recalled a past statement by former Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who said one of his mistakes was failing to anticipate that Russia would be willing to accept such massive losses. Slaidiņš argued that Russia has historically never been troubled by casualties in war, tying this attitude to a deeply ingrained national narrative of sacrifice and death in the name of the state, describing it as a society that glorifies death. He predicted that Russian losses will keep rising and questioned what goal could justify such a high death toll.