Kallas: Russia lost record 54,000 troops in October, nearly a stadium

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Warsaw that the Russian army suffered a record 54,000 killed and wounded in October, comparing the figure with the capacity of the Polish capital’s National Stadium. The figure matches data from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, while Moscow does not disclose its own losses.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said Russia was suffering battlefield losses it would not be able to sustain for long. “A record 54,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded in October alone. That is a staggering figure — roughly the capacity of Warsaw’s National Stadium,” she said at a news conference in the Polish capital on Friday, November 6.

Kallas appeared alongside Polish and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers Radosław Sikorski and Andrii Sybiha after an informal meeting of the foreign ministers of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, which included Ukraine. The National Stadium, to which she compared the losses, is Warsaw’s largest arena and can accommodate approximately 58,000 spectators.

In the video, Kallas gives the Russian army’s October losses and concludes: “Russia cannot sustain losses on this scale indefinitely.” Kallas acknowledged that “clearly more” effort was needed on the battlefield, but said that “Russia is stuck.”

Where the figure of 54,000 comes from

Kallas’s figure matches data from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. According to the ministry’s calculations, the Russian army suffered 54,400 killed and seriously wounded in October — the highest figure for any month of the full-scale war. The same data put the losses at 42,020 in August and 46,230 in September. Kyiv claims that Russia lost more than 1,750 troops a day on average in October, with October 21 the deadliest day at 2,250 casualties.

Since the beginning of 2026, the Ukrainian side has counted 381,300 Russian service members put out of action. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says the damage inflicted by drones is recorded on video in the DELTA system and verified by the Brave1 defense innovation cluster. These figures have not been independently confirmed.

At the same news conference, Sybiha also cited “more than 54,000” Russian troops killed and seriously wounded in October. “Our positions on the front are the strongest they have been in the past three years,” the minister said, adding that Ukraine had liberated more territory during the month than Russia had managed to seize.

Kaja Kallas, Radosław Sikorski and Andrii Sybiha at a news conference in Warsaw on November 6, 2026

What other estimates show

Western military officials have also issued their own estimates. In September, British Chief of the Defence Staff Richard Knighton, citing British intelligence, said that around 500,000 Russian troops had been killed since February 2022, while total losses including the wounded stood at approximately 1.5 million. He said most of those losses had occurred since January 2023.

Moscow does not disclose its own losses. The last overall figure was given on September 21, 2022, by then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who put the number of dead at 5,937. In its reports, Russia’s Defense Ministry gives figures for Ukrainian losses: according to the ministry, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered more than 7,920 personnel losses in the week from October 31 to November 6 alone. The Kremlin and Russia’s Defense Ministry had not responded to Kallas’s remarks about record losses by the time of publication.

“Pressure must be put on the aggressor”

Kallas linked the casualty figures to the negotiation process. In her view, concessions are currently being demanded from the wrong side: “In short, the aggressor should make concessions, not the victim.”

“So far, all the pressure has been placed on Ukraine, and that is wrong because there is one aggressor and one victim. To stop the war, pressure must be put on the aggressor,” Kallas says in the clip.

She noted that at least 45 civilians had been killed in Ukraine by Russian strikes during that week alone, and that the country faced “another very difficult winter.” Kallas said Russia would again target power plants. The EU transferred another €4.36 billion to Ukraine this week under a support loan and is preparing its 22nd package of sanctions against Russia. Trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the United States and Russia are scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi on November 10–11.

Video: Clash Report / X. Photo: Claudio Centonze / European Union, 2026 (CC BY 4.0); European Commission

Have a story, event or announcement of your own?Send us your news on WhatsApp

Spotted an error in this story?Report it on WhatsApp

Share on all social platforms