July 2026 proved to be Russia’s deadliest month of the war so far, with a staggering 42,860 casualties. Despite these massive human losses, Russian forces managed to fully claim just 37.85 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. As commanders feed false reports to an isolated and delusional Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s lethal attrition strategy continues to grind down the Russian military toward a breaking point.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russian Casualties Reach Record High in July 2026
01:25 - July Record 42,860 Casualties Shatter Russian Summer Offensive
02:45 - Month by Month Escalation of Russian Army Losses
04:00 - Ukraine Targets 50,000 Monthly Russian Casualties Target
05:15 - Russian Army Advances Only 37 Square Kilometers in July
06:30 - Mediazona Confirms Over 236,000 Russian Soldier Deaths
07:50 - Putin Claims Ukraine War Progress in Unhinged Navy Speech
09:05 - General Command Lies to Putin About Donbas Infiltration
10:20 - Ukrainian Attrition Strategy Breaks Russian Military System
11:35 - Will Record July Losses Force a Russian Mobilization Crisis?
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/A68wr3Ka
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russian Casualties Reach Record High in July 2026
01:25 - July Record 42,860 Casualties Shatter Russian Summer Offensive
02:45 - Month by Month Escalation of Russian Army Losses
04:00 - Ukraine Targets 50,000 Monthly Russian Casualties Target
05:15 - Russian Army Advances Only 37 Square Kilometers in July
06:30 - Mediazona Confirms Over 236,000 Russian Soldier Deaths
07:50 - Putin Claims Ukraine War Progress in Unhinged Navy Speech
09:05 - General Command Lies to Putin About Donbas Infiltration
10:20 - Ukrainian Attrition Strategy Breaks Russian Military System
11:35 - Will Record July Losses Force a Russian Mobilization Crisis?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/A68wr3Ka
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NewsTranscript
00:00Russia thought June was hell. The worst month of 2026 so far and one of Russia's worst since
00:06Putin launched his invasion left the entire nation battered and bruised. Taking the Donbass
00:13seemed further away than ever. Russian troops were dying left and right and the summer offensive had
00:18become a failure before it ever really got off the ground. Then July came and Russia found out
00:25that it could get much, much worse. The month that will break Putin has just concluded and yet utterly
00:31lost in his delusion, Putin still tries to claim that everything is going to plan. His fantasy world
00:38has come crashing down and he is the last to know. June 2026 was an absolute nightmare for Russia and
00:44the numbers from the month backed that up. Nothing went to plan for Putin's patsies. By the end of the
00:49month, Russia's obsessed leader had churned through another 39,490 of his people, representing a high
00:57watermark in the first half of 2026 when Russia had already been averaging over 30,000 losses per month.
01:03Recruitment wasn't keeping up. Volunteers were signing up at a rate of as little as 24,000 per month,
01:09marking the first time since the war began that Ukraine was eliminating more soldiers than Russia
01:14could bring to the field. And the Donbass, which Putin has demanded be claimed by the end of 2026,
01:20Russia's progress was so glacial that Al Jazeera reported that it would take another 14 years
01:25for Russia to claim Donetsk if it continued at its current rate. 39,490 soldiers at a rate of advance
01:33of just 1.03 square kilometers per day would have been a catastrophe in anyone's book. And it was.
01:39But one bright spot, Russia must have thought, is that it surely couldn't get much worse.
01:44Ukraine's meat grinder would have to break down at some point. Maybe it will, but that point sure
01:49as hell didn't come in July. Off the back of experiencing a month so bad that it should
01:54have left Putin red-faced, Russia has only gone and topped itself with more casualties in July.
01:59On August 1st, Ukraine's general staff took to Telegram to deliver the big number.
02:0442,860 casualties suffered by Russia in July. That isn't just a record breaker for 2026 so far,
02:12it's an embarrassment to Putin at the height of a summer offensive that is supposed to collapse
02:17the Donetsk fortress belt. That isn't going to happen. Russia won't even come close. What Putin
02:23has just seen here is yet another example of the fact that the running cost of his invasion is so
02:27high
02:28that Russia simply can no longer sustain it. 42,860 casualties in July breaks down to about 1,382
02:36soldiers killed, injured or captured every single day in Ukraine. It also adds to a 2026 running total
02:43that has now reached 238,650. We also can't ignore the fact that July's casualty figure is over 3,000
02:51more than we saw in June. This can't be explained by July having an extra day than June. Something deeper
02:58is going on here. Month by month, Ukraine is becoming more lethal and the sacrifices that
03:03Russian forces have to make are growing higher. The numbers prove it. Let's head back to January.
03:08That month saw Ukraine kick off its 2026 campaign with a bang. By the end of the month, 31,700
03:15Russians have been killed or otherwise eliminated from the fight. A good start to the year, but by the
03:21end of February, Putin might have thought that he had a reason to cheer. The casualty rate went down
03:26dramatically. Russia only lost around 26,100 soldiers in February. Sure, that's still over
03:33one and a half times more than it lost in its entire decade-long war with Afghanistan back in
03:38the 1980s, but it was a start. The number was coming down. However, raw numbers can be deceiving.
03:45February has three fewer days than January, which played a role. At a February casualty rate of 932
03:51soldiers per day, those extra three days would have added almost 2,800 more Russians to the
03:56monthly figure. That would mean the month would wind up 100 shy of 29,000 casualties,
04:01still less than January. But not by so wide a margin that Putin could start celebrating.
04:05By spring, Putin felt pretty confident. Russia had its massive spring and summer offensive lined up.
04:11The harsh Ukrainian winter was finally over, and that meant that Russia could spend the next six
04:16months or more launching stronger attacks against Ukraine's fortifications. Ukraine was going to
04:21break. Putin just knew it. But Russia's leader was wrong. In March, Russia's casualties rocketed
04:27back up to 31,960, far more than February and just a touch above the already ridiculous January figure.
04:34And from there, the numbers kept rising. 32,980 in April, 33,760 in May, June added almost 6,000
04:44to the
04:44monthly casualties, and July has added another 3,000 and change. We are not seeing any one-offs here.
04:51This is a pattern. A month-by-month demonstration of how Ukraine is becoming more lethal.
04:56What Putin faces now is a 2026 that could very easily result in Russia losing 500,000 of its soldiers
05:03by the end of December. If Ukraine maintains the same rate of attrition that we saw in July for the
05:08next five months, Russia loses another 214,300 soldiers. That would be almost 453,000 lives
05:16flushed down the drain for Putin's Ukraine obsession, and over 1.66 million in total since the invasion
05:23began. But remember the pattern. Every month bar one in 2026 has seen Ukraine eliminate more Russian
05:29soldiers than it did the month before. Russia has lost over 11,000 more soldiers in July than it lost
05:35in January. If Ukraine keeps up this pattern, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Russia
05:40will be at 50,000 losses per month by the end of the year. That wouldn't be a coincidence. 50
05:45,000
05:46per month has been Ukraine's plan all along. Back in January, then newly installed and now former
05:52Defense Minister of Ukraine, Mikhailo Fedorov, declared that 50,000 soldiers was the magic number.
05:57If Ukraine could reach that monthly target, Russia wouldn't be able to replenish its losses anymore
06:02without a damaging round of mobilization that makes Putin vulnerable socially and politically
06:07on his own turf. They view people as a resource and shortages are already evident, Fedorov said at
06:12the time. July has just proven that and Putin's big problem now is that he's running out of the
06:17one resource he needs to stand a chance against Ukraine. Okay, Russia's military command might think,
06:23we'll just not mention the massive casualty figures to Putin. He doesn't need to know and we don't need to
06:28have accidental falls out of windows. What we'll do instead is showcase the amazing advances that
06:33Russia made in July in return for these sacrifices. Yeah, about that. Russia coupled its worst month of
06:392026 so far with a rate of advance so pathetic that you could barely call it an advance at all.
06:45The very best that Russia can claim is that it at least managed to steal more territory in July than
06:50it did in June. And it did by just 0.19 square kilometers per day. That's according to the
06:56Institute for the Study of War or ISW, which reports that Russia managed to claim, not infiltrate,
07:02actually claim just 37.85 square kilometers of Ukraine in July. Context, that means Russia burned
07:09through around 1,132 soldiers for every square kilometer that it managed to fully occupy in Ukraine
07:15in July. That's low. Not the lowest Russia has achieved in 2026, but very low. In July 2025,
07:22Russian forces managed to capture 455.74 square kilometers. A year later, it hasn't managed a
07:28tenth of that figure, despite being in the midst of the summer offensive that was supposed to bring
07:33about the collapse of Donetsk and the fall of the Donbass. And that's another point, this big offensive
07:38that we keep talking about. According to ISW, it's managed to achieve the sum total of
07:43zero operationally significant gains. Russia hasn't managed to capture anything of consequence.
07:49It certainly hasn't put the massive dents into the fortress belt that Putin anticipated.
07:54The best it has managed is to send infiltrators into Konstantinivka, while actually only claiming
07:59a very small portion of the city. Konstantinivka still stands, and three even more fortified cities
08:05in the belt will have to fall if Russia does manage to break through. Keep that city in mind,
08:09by the way, we'll be coming back to it. A change in Ukrainian strategy has played a huge role in
08:14Russia's woes, not just in July, but throughout 2026. Targeted counterattacks have led to Ukraine
08:20reclaiming territory, especially in the south. That forces Russia to divert soldiers that would
08:25otherwise have been destined for Donetsk. Ukraine's drone dominance, both in the kill zones that stretch
08:30for kilometers beyond the front and in the middle strike range, where drones are destroying Russian
08:35logistics, is also massive for Ukraine and devastating for Russia. Russia's big problem
08:40now is that its entire campaign is optimized around positional warfare, in a conflict where
08:45maneuver warfare is more important than ever, the ISW says. And there's one more little insult to
08:51Russia's July injuries to add before we get to Putin and his delusions. On August 3rd, the Kiev
08:56Independent reported on findings by the Russian outlet Mediazona. Working alongside the BBC's Russian
09:01service, Mediazona has been able to confirm the identities of 236,066 Russians who have been killed
09:09in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Those figures break down into 86,600 volunteers,
09:1626,200 prisoners recruited into the fight, and 19,000 mobilized soldiers. You can also add close to
09:237,500 Russian military officers to the list. Now you might have just heard these numbers and thought
09:29they sound a little strange. Almost like they don't gel with the casualty figures we've already
09:33shared. You'd be right, and there's a reason why. The 236,066 dead are just those that Mediazona can
09:40confirm. The outlet says that the real number is significantly higher, as its information comes
09:45from obituaries, regional media reports, local authorities, and social media posts by relatives.
09:51If families, press, and authorities aren't talking about a soldier's death, which is more likely than not
09:56in Russia, then it isn't getting recorded, and it can't be verified. Ukraine's President Volodymyr
10:01Zelensky himself says the real number is much higher, 700,000 Russians dead, at a time when
10:08Ukraine has achieved a ratio of one of its soldiers killed in action for every 14 Russians. Add injuries
10:14and captures to that figure, and it's easy to see how Ukraine is breaking records for monthly casualties
10:18in 2026. And still, Putin doesn't seem to see any of it. Quite the opposite. He's claiming that
10:24everything in Ukraine is going according to plan. It isn't. And you're about to find out why Putin is
10:29so insane that he thinks Russia is winning. But before you do, this is a reminder that you're
10:33watching the military show. There's a lot more where this comes from, so make sure you're subscribed
10:37to the channel and have notifications enabled so you don't miss what's coming next. We take you to a
10:43July 26th meeting that involved Putin and Russian Navy personnel. Putin officially lost the plot during
10:49this meeting. Beyond claiming that there is no aggression whatsoever on Russia's part in Ukraine,
10:54and that Russia had been forced to start its so-called special military operation due to the
10:59Western side and the Kiev regime, Putin ranted and raved about how Ukraine would fall, and that was
11:04just the start. I'm certain, by the way, that sooner or later, Ukraine will lose these Western lands,
11:10and what used to belong to Poland, Hungary, Romania, will sooner or later, maybe not tomorrow,
11:14not the day after, in a year or two, 10 or 15 years, but everything will historically fall back
11:19into place, Russia's leader declared. Putin, please. You'll be lucky to have Donetsk in 10
11:25or 15 years, never mind Poland or Romania. Putin is suggesting that everything is going according to
11:30plan in Ukraine, even though it isn't happening because there's no actual aggression. Except there
11:34is, and it's all the West's fault, and the Kiev regime, and... Hold on a second, our heads are spinning.
11:39What we see from Putin here is outright delusion. Nothing is going according to plan,
11:45but Putin acts like it is, and there's more to come. The only question we can ask at this point
11:50is how Putin can make these types of claims four and a half years into a war that has cost
11:54Russia
11:55so much, and on the back of the country's worst month in 2026. The answer is simple. Putin may
12:01genuinely think that Russia is winning because his generals lie through their teeth to hide the truth
12:06away from him. That's according to the ISW, and we'll let the think tank do the talking here.
12:10The Russian northern grouping of forces and high military command are likely lying to the Kremlin
12:15about the extent of Russian gains in northern Ukraine in order to further the narrative that
12:19Russian forces are actively advancing across the entire theater, including a part of the front line
12:24that has been largely stagnant for nearly two years, the ISW declared in its July 31st assessment of
12:30Russia's offensive campaign. What we're seeing there is likely a microcosm of something that's been
12:35happening from the moment that Putin launched his invasion. This is a man who surrounds himself
12:39with toadies and sycophants. He shouldn't be surprised that none of them will tell him the truth,
12:43and will instead use artificially generated footage and other fake informational tools to
12:48make it seem like Russia is doing much better than it is. The ISW points to Russia's northern
12:53commanders as culprits, but we have seen this lying being used to influence Putin in the Donbass.
12:58In mid-July, Russia claimed that it had captured Konstantinivka. You may remember that city.
13:03If Russia is to be believed, Konstantinivka has been occupied, and it can move on to the rest of
13:09the fortress belt. It's all lies. The city is still a battleground and looks likely to remain
13:13that way for the rest of the year at least. The best that Russia has managed is infiltration,
13:18where it sends tiny units of two or three soldiers to go and hide away from Ukraine.
13:23Those infiltrators are present in almost all of Konstantinivka, that much appears to be true.
13:27But infiltration isn't occupation, not by a long shot. Scattered and isolated units of
13:33infiltrators can't do much once they reach their hidey holes, they exist to wait for support or get
13:37killed by Ukrainian search and destroy squads, usually the latter. If this is all according to
13:43plan, as Putin is claiming, then the plan is ridiculous. The reason why Russia's advance is so
13:49slow and bloody is that the infiltration strategy makes Russian soldiers vulnerable, both as they trek
13:54through the drone-infested kill zones and when they've reached their destinations. Putin accepts
13:58the casualties, either because he doesn't actually know about them, or he believes the sacrifices are
14:03worth it because Russia is making rapid progress. Only the progress is fake. Russia's leader, isolated
14:09from those who might tell him the truth, is now unhinged, lost in a delusion that makes him impossible
14:14to negotiate with, and is leading him closer to mobilizing 500,000 soldiers because he thinks they
14:20will give Russia the final push it needs to win the war, despite Donetsk still being nowhere close
14:25to falling. Putin has lost his mind, and to paraphrase Stanley from the office, boy, will Ukraine help
14:31him find it. The reality that drowns out Putin's delusion is that July has broken Russia. Putin isn't
14:37a strong leader. He's a man who has never been more trapped than he is right now, stuck between his
14:42imperial obsession and the reckless escalation that has led Russia into this casualty-riddled dead-end
14:47in the first place. Le Monde says that Russia is now being held hostage by Putinism, and it's bang
14:53on the money. The only thing that Putin has achieved since February 2022 are the complete isolation of
14:59Russia from the Western world, the destruction of his own nation's economy, and the loss of
15:03geopolitical influence as the special military operation proves to those who once relied on Russia
15:08for protection that Russia isn't anywhere near as strong as it claims. Putin is a man obsessed.
15:13Unable to comprehend a version of Russia that must exist within the borders drawn up in 1991
15:18upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, so he has created a fantasy world where Putin is king,
15:24and he leads Russia to the reclamation of all the lands that were taken from it.
15:27Only none of it is real. What is real are 42,860 Russians dead, injured, or captured in July.
15:35Reality is the 1.4 million plus and counting who have had their lives destroyed by Putin,
15:41all for a war that grinds on with seemingly no end in sight. Putin is a man obsessed with ideology
15:46and his own twisted version of history. Perhaps he looks at what happened in July as an opportunity
15:51for his legacy to be celebrated. These sacrifices will go down in history, much like the Soviet
15:57sacrifices during World War II, and will become part of the Russian mythos. Again, it's all in Putin's
16:02fantasy. And Russia's leader prefers these delusions because the reality is that Ukraine is strong and
16:08getting stronger. Our teams understand that right now we have a window of opportunity.
16:12Ukraine has become stronger both on the battlefield and in the air, and everyone sees the corresponding
16:17results, Zelensky declared on July 9th. It's hard to argue with him, and as Ukraine grows stronger
16:23still, the genius of its strategy will shine through. Ukraine doesn't need to win against Russia.
16:29It doesn't need to push Putin's forces back so far that they end up on the other side of the
16:33border.
16:33Ukraine's approach is all about attrition. Make the cost of the war so heavy that nobody inside
16:38Russia, not even the delusional Putin, will be able to ignore it. The $50,000 per month goal that
16:44Fedorov set for Ukraine in January now seems more attainable than ever. Russia is losing hundreds,
16:50even thousands of soldiers for every square kilometer that it gains. This is how Ukraine wins.
16:55Inflict so much death that Russia can't go on any longer.
16:58July was a catastrophe for Russia, and though Putin will continue to live in his own little bubble,
17:03babbling about how everything is going according to plan on the few occasions when he emerges from
17:07his bunker, the Russian people can see the collapse of their country coming. Now we wait until the end of
17:13August. It's almost inevitable that we'll be telling you about another record broken. And if Putin thought
17:19that high-level military shake-ups in Ukraine might have given Russia some reprieve, he has another thing
17:24coming. Oleksandr Siersky may be out as the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces,
17:28but Mikhailo Drapachi is in, and he has a nightmare so massive that he might just be able to pop
17:34the
17:34fantasy dream bubble that Putin has created for himself. Find out why by watching our video.
17:39But before you do, don't forget to subscribe to the military show to see more of our insights into
17:43the latest developments in the Ukraine war. And thank you, as always, for watching.
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