By Galina Korol | 2025-12-08

The Russian military won't publish the numbers, but its dead keep surfacing anyway -- in morgues, in barracks and in grim videos online.

One clip on Telegram shows a soldier with "a bullet, under the throat," a death that reveals the chaos hollowing out the ranks from within.

Such noncombat losses have surged across Russia's Central Military District, where more than 600 service members died in 2024–2025 from neglect, poisoning, drugs, violence and unsanitary conditions -- figures the Kremlin now keeps classified.

Ukrainian military intelligence reported November 10 that 86 soldiers and officers died by suicide in the first half of this year, up from at least 71 last year. Officials also documented 112 deaths from narcotic intoxication, nearly matching the 143 reported in all of 2024. Another 32 soldiers died from food poisoning linked to substandard rations.

One reason for these losses lies in commanders' treatment of troops. Ukrainian journalist and YouTuber Volodymyr Zolkin, known for interviewing Russian prisoners of war (POWs), told Kontur that soldiers had long been viewed as "expendable material." He said captives described being sent on "one-way trips" with almost no food or water.

“They practically don't feed them," he said. Sometimes troops received a single liter can of stewed meat to last a week. Water was even scarcer: "[Russian service members] find it in swamps and collect rainwater because no water is provided to them at all," he added.

The case of 30-year-old Andrei Galkin of Altai Region proves that disregard.

Fresh out of prison, he was pressured by police to sign a contract despite intellectual disabilities. In a video posted November 18 by the I Want to Live program, he recalled warning officers about his condition, only to be told "everything was nonsense."

After a cursory medical exam labeled him "fit for service," he was sent straight into an assault unit. On his first mission, he spent more than a week in position without food or water.

"We were so far gone that we were ready to eat the corpses of our own, before the fresh ones started to stink, because we were starving," he said, admitting that he had begun thinking about suicide.

Corruption's toll on the front

Combat deaths have mounted at an even more staggering pace. Ukraine's General Staff estimated that by November 25, Russia had lost around 1,167,579 service members in Ukraine.

Experts said corruption sits at the root of the military's failures.

Alexei Tabalov, a rights activist and director of the NGO Shkola Prizyvnika (Conscript School), told Kontur that graft hollowed out logistics and directly endangered troops.

"They steal money that's supposed to go to logistical support," he said. Soldiers frequently bought their own protective gear, uniforms and food.

Tabalov said commanders also ran a pervasive extortion system built on siphoning off military pay, often with intimidation or worse.

"The money they pay [soldiers] is big money," he said, and officers misappropriated it aggressively.

Poor training compounded these losses.

Alexander Kovalenko, an analyst for the website InfoResist, told Kontur that some recruits reached the front just one or two weeks after signing contracts. Outdated equipment and slow modernization intensified the toll.

"There are actually several levels to the issue, and that makes them sustain losses because of corruption, not bullets," he said.

Kovalenko cited another practice: administering psychedelic narcotics during assaults to blunt fear and heighten euphoria. Russian gains, he argued, often relied on mass rather than tactics.

"For the most part the main element they're using now is quantity. . . . Russia scorns human life," he said.

An endless supply of recruits

Despite rampant dysfunction, analysts see little chance of a sudden collapse of Russia's front lines. Daily casualties are quickly replaced by fresh recruits and prisoners.

Tabalov said he did not foresee the system breaking. The army, he argued, has long operated under harsh conditions. Many impoverished Russians enlist even when they expect not to survive.

"Even now there are some naive people who believe they can trick [the system] . . . and earn money and stay alive," he said.

A year-round draft provides a second manpower stream.

Tabalov said the Defense Ministry could always supply whatever "meat" commanders demanded. Russia planned to draft 295,000 people this year, its highest figure in a decade.

This vast pool of recruits allows the Kremlin to hold its lines despite staggering losses. But analysts said the model has limits. Without ammunition or weapons, manpower alone cannot sustain the fight.

"If there's nothing to shoot with, there won't be any successes," Tabalov said, adding that only far-reaching sanctions on Russia's defense industry could undermine the system that keeps the war going.