Putin’s war of attrition exacts a high price: 5,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle for a city district.

• Wladimir Putin trying to win in Ukraine.

• However, this act demands enormous sacrifices.

• A Ukrainian officer said Russia had lost 5,000 soldiers in fighting over a district.

The Russian-led war of attrition in Ukraine is exacting a high price in terms of soldiers killed and wounded. A Ukrainian government official claimed that Russia suffered 5,000 deaths in the fighting over one city district alone.

Ukrainian defense official Lieutenant General Ivan Havrylyuk discussed the possibility of a new Ukrainian counteroffensive to push back Russian forces occupying territories in southern and eastern Ukraine in an essay published on July 9 in the Ukrainian media NV.

In the article, Havrylyuk claimed that Russia would likely have difficulty maintaining the initiative in the conflict given its human and technical advantages.

Havrylyuk pointed to the enormous losses he said the Russian military had suffered. He claimed that 5,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded in fighting for control of a single district in the strategically important city of Khasiv Yar in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

The hilltop town has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks; last week Russian forces managed to bring a district under their control.

Havrylyuk did not name the district, but the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said he was probably referring to the Kanal Microraion neighborhood.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the casualty figures cited by Havrylyuk, but other reports and statements from officials indicate that Russia is also suffering heavy losses in its operation in the Chariki region of northern Ukraine.

Russia is conducting frontal “flesh attacks” on Ukrainian positions with waves of troops. British intelligence claims that Russia’s losses reached their highest level of the war in May, with the Russian military losing around 1,200 men a day.

Havrylyuk said people were expendable for Putin in his mission to conquer Ukraine, but economic problems and difficulties in supplying his troops with ammunition and equipment could soon become the undoing of his campaign.

According to ISW, the high losses are part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy to achieve victory in Ukraine through a war of attrition.

“The recent increase in reports of entire Russian units being incapacitated due to casualties underscores the tactics the Russian armed forces are using to implement Putin’s theory of a slow, gradual and laborious victory in Ukraine,” it said.

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