September Was Deadly Month for Russian Troops in Ukraine, U.S. Says

September was the bloodiest month of the war for Russian forces in Ukraine, U.S. officials said, with the costly offensive in the east bringing the number of Russia’s dead and wounded to more than 600,000 troops since the war started.

U.S. officials attribute the high number of Russian casualties to what they describe as a grinding war of attrition, with each side trying to exhaust the other by inflicting maximum losses, hoping to break the enemy’s capacity and will to continue. Russian troops have made steady but incremental gains in recent months in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, U.S. officials said.

It is a style of warfare that Russians have likened to being put into a meat grinder, with commanding officers seemingly willing to send many thousands of infantry soldiers to die.

“It’s kind of the Russian way of war in that they continue to throw mass into the problem,” a senior U.S. military official said this week, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments, in announcing the Pentagon’s latest Russian casualty estimate. “And I think we’ll continue to see high losses on the Ukrainian side.”

According to U.S. assessments, Russian casualties in the war so far number to as many as 615,000 — 115,000 Russians killed and 500,000 wounded. Ukrainian officials have zealously guarded their casualty figures, even from the Americans, but a U.S. official estimated that Ukraine had suffered a bit more than half of Russia’s casualties, or more than 57,500 killed and 250,000 wounded.

The official did not specify the number of Russian casualties last month beyond calling it the costliest month for Moscow’s forces. U.S. and British military analysts put Russian casualties at an average of more than 1,200 a day, slightly surpassing the previous highest daily rate of the war that was set in May.

Despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month — roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said. That has allowed its army to keep sending wave after wave of troops at Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through the trench lines.

U.S. officials said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was trying to avoid a mass mobilization, which would be deeply unpopular domestically. Russia has offered sizable bonuses and other increased pay for voluntary soldiers to avoid a major mobilization, U.S. officials said.

“We’re just watching very closely how long that stance can actually be one that he can maintain,” a senior Pentagon official said.

Russian casualties have surged at other times, especially during the assaults on Avdiivka this year and Bakhmut in 2023. But the assaults on those cities were spread over many months.

The push in September involved trying to advance along the front in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, as well as defending against the Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk region of southern Russia. It has involved intense periods of Russian attacks, with small infantry units pouring into relatively small areas that created what one senior Pentagon official called “a target-rich environment” for Ukrainian forces.

Russia’s use of infantry in waves of small unit attacks reflects one of its advantages in the war: Its population, roughly 146 million, is three times as large as Ukraine’s, giving it a larger pool of potential recruits.

But the casualties have forced Russia to ship new recruits to Ukraine relatively quickly, U.S. officials said, meaning that those sent to the front are often poorly trained.

Read the rest of the story here: Russian Casualties in Ukraine Surpass 600,000, U.S. Says - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Health insurance costs up 7% for employers: Survey

The average annual cost of employer-provided health insurance for an entire family rose by 7% this year to an average of $25,572, according to a new survey. Of that, workers contribute an average of $6,296, or about a quarter of the total cost.

The 2024 Employer Health Benefits Survey, conducted by the health policy organization KFF, shows that employers are paying more for employees’ health insurance while workers’ contributions have remained fairly flat over the past five years.

“Employers are shelling out the equivalent of buying an economy car for every worker every year to pay for family coverage,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said in a news release.

“In the tight labor market in recent years, they have not been able to continue offloading costs onto workers who are already struggling with health care bills,” he added.

One major sign of the times in this new survey: Just 18% of the large employers (at least 200 workers) surveyed offer coverage for weight-loss drugs. Fifty-two percent say they don’t cover medications like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Of the companies that do cover weight-loss drugs, 53% attach conditions to the coverage, such as consulting with a dietician or other health care professional or taking part in a formal weight-loss program either before or while taking the drugs.

Among the survey’s other findings:

27% say they offer IVF and artificial insemination

37% say they cover fertility medications

8% say their health plans don’t cover legal abortions under any circumstances

18% say they cover abortions in limited circumstances

48% say they have added mental health resources

READ MORE: Health care premiums up for employer-provided policies: Survey (newsnationnow.com)