Key Points and Summary – According to a captured Russian soldier, Russia’s elite GRU military intelligence units have suffered catastrophic losses in Ukraine, with over 90% reportedly wiped out.
-This aligns with earlier reports documenting thousands of casualties among Russia’s best troops.
Tim Murry, a foreign threats compound contractor, drives a T-72 battle tank into position to serve as adversary targets for a joint service exercise, Emerald Flag, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 30. Emerald Flag is a multi-service exercise aimed to unify information sharing across joint domain platforms. (U.S. Air Force photo/1st Lt Karissa Rodriguez)
-The prisoner attributed the decimation to abysmal training (far less than Ukrainian counterparts receive), insufficient equipment, and low morale, stating many joined purely for financial reasons.
-These elite GRU forces took heavy losses early in the full-scale invasion and were often replaced by poorly trained mobilized personnel and prisoners, severely degrading Russia’s intelligence and special operations capabilities.
‘90% Lost’: Shock Claim About Russia’s Elite GRU Forces
WARSAW, POLAND – According to new reports, a captured Russian soldier claimed that more than 90 percent of the Russian military’s elite GRU units have been lost in Ukraine.
The GRU, or “Main Intelligence Directorate,”is attached to the Russian General Staff. It has long been the armed forces’ main intelligence-gathering and covert-action agency.
Defense attaches assigned to Russian embassies abroad, as well as other military representatives in foreign postings, either work directly for this organization or at least send required regular reports to the Directorate’s headquarters in Moscow.
The GRU complex in Moscow has always been known by its nickname, “The Aquarium.” It is located at the Khodinka aerodrome near the Aeroport Metro station. This section of Moscow is sometimes called the “aviation ghetto,” due to all of the aerospace industrial facilities in the area.
Khodinka has not been a working airfield for decades, but the nearby GRU complex underwent a major renovation in the early 2000s that included the construction of a nine-story glass tower to house the Directorate’s main offices.
Reports from this year indicate that a new, secret unit was formed within the GRU called the Department of Special Tasks—it is also based at the headquarters.
Deteriorating Conditions
The captured 17-year-old Russian soldier shared with interrogators an unsurprising list of ills long associated with Moscow’s military.
He pointed to limited training being provided to the soldiers who go into the field, increasingly insufficient supplies of needed equipment, and little ideological motivation among his fellow soldiers
According to him, many Russian military recruits decided to join primarily for financial reasons.
The training deficiency is the chief cause of the mounting losses for Russian troops. In a podcast earlier this year by the London Daily Telegraph, one specialist recounted the low quality of training.
The average Ukrainian soldier receives about 5 weeks of training before being assigned any duties, he reported. But that is far more than a Russian soldier receives, echoed another specialist familiar with the situation on the battlefield.
To put the issue into perspective, when Allied troops hit the beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, not a single soldier who waded ashore had less than 22 weeks of training—and much of that occurred over a period of a year or more.
While Russian training is limited, it is also outdated.
Their equipment is not only insufficient, but what they do have is described as degraded. These insufficiencies are all exacerbated by an over-centralized command structure.
Despite some level of battlefield adaptation, there are, according to one recent analysis, “deep structural, economic and demographic constraints that limit reform, reinforcing reliance on mass, firepower and nuclear deterrence.”
Decimation of Elite Units
GRU troops are elite formations. They are supposed to be above the abysmal level of preparedness Russian units are increasingly known for. Ukrainian forces defending against Russian attacks have captured numerous Russian personnel in eastern Ukraine.
What they learn while questioning these prisoners is calling into question the current ability of Russian military intelligence to function effectively and provide accurate information about the situation in the field.
A report earlier this year calculates that after nearly three years of its full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has lost at least 6,083 elite soldiers in combat.
The training of those troops took years and millions of dollars, according to the report, which was broadcast by the BBC Russian service.
Subsequent investigation of the losses among elite forces included those Russian GRU special forces that were the key to most of the successes at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
During that time, they suffered the heaviest losses, forcing them to retreat to rear areas for reorganization.
They were often replaced on the front lines by mobilized personnel and by prisoners who were not professional soldiers, but rather individuals who agreed to fight in exchange for release.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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