Rubio Says Russia Is Losing Over 5,000 Troops a Week in Ukraine

Russia is losing more than 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers every week in its war against Ukraine, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

According to RBC-Ukraine on Wednesday, citing The Guardian, Rubio said Washington had received new information about battlefield losses in the war, which has continued for more than four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“That’s how bloody this war is,” Rubio said. “The Russians, I believe, are losing more than 5,000-6,000 soldiers a week. That is a shocking amount.”

Rubio did not explain how the estimate was calculated or specify whether the weekly figure referred exclusively to soldiers killed or to overall battlefield losses.

“We saw the death of civilians, shelling in Kyiv. We have seen a certain increase in such cases. Of course, this war did not benefit Ukraine,” Rubio said.

Rubio argued that the scale of the losses should give both sides an incentive to end the fighting. He also said the US would continue trying to facilitate an end to the war, despite the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused more than 2 million military casualties, with Moscow’s forces bearing the brunt of the losses.

“Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties have exceeded 2 million,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

Other Topics of Interest

Russia Warns US Against Ukraine Arms Sales as Top Diplomats Meet in Manila

The first sit-down between Lavrov and Rubio since September 2025 comes as Washington’s focus has switched from mediating in Ukraine to dealing with war in the Middle East.

It estimated that between 400,000 and 450,000 Russians have been killed since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, out of a total of 1.4 million casualties – killed, wounded and missing – among Russian troops.

Ukrainian forces have meanwhile suffered between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties and between 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities during the same period, the CSIS said.

“Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US fatalities in all wars combined since World War II,” while the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian casualties has likely risen to around 8 to 1 in the first half of 2026, it added.