As Ukraine War Reaches Violent New Heights, US Boosts Weapons Production

The death toll in Russia’s war on Ukraine is reaching alarming new heights. Roughly 1 million soldiers and civilians on both sides have been killed or wounded, a recent in-depth review of available data published by the Wall Street Journal found. As Russia attempts to secure key towns and cities in the Donbas region, the war of attrition along the front line has become extremely violent as the United States boosts weapons production to arm Ukraine.

Despite months of brutal trench warfare and a Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory in August, there is no end to the conflict in sight more than two and a half years after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a blitzkrieg invasion in a failed attempt to topple Kyiv. The United States Army is now building new manufacturing facilities to expand production of 155-millimeter artillery ammunition in order to meet demand on the Ukrainian side without depleting its own stockpiles.

Recent months were particularly deadly for Ukrainian civilians as Russia pushed to expand its control of eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces deployed drones to strike targets deep inside Russia. At least 3,200 Ukrainian civilians were killed or injured between June and August 2024, a nearly 34 percent increase over the same time last year, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

“We are seeing an expansion of the conflict, both geographically and in terms of the frequency and intensity of the attacks,” said Joachim Giaminardi, the NRC’s advocacy manager in Ukraine, recently told Al Jazeera. “The people who are paying the price are civilians.”

Meanwhile, U.S. officials told the New York Times that September was the most violent month of the war thus far for Russia’s military. Reflecting Russia’s “meatgrinder” tactics in the trenches, casualties remain highest among Russian soldiers, many of them compulsory draftees and new recruits. Both the U.S. and Ukraine claim the Russian military has suffered 600,000 casualties as of early October, including 115,000 killed and 500,000 wounded in action. On Monday, Ukrainian officials released new data claiming a total of more than 680,000 Russian casualties.

U.S. officials estimate that 57,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 250,000 wounded since the war began. Citing a confidential source in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported last month that 80,000 were killed and 400,000 wounded, but a Ukrainian lawmaker called the data “exaggerated.”

White House national security spokesman Admiral John Kirby told reporters on Monday that 1,200 Russian soldiers are killed and wounded each day in the trenches and killing fields of Donbas region, calling the losses suffered by Putin’s military “truly historic.” September was the deadliest month for Russian soldiers so far, according to U.S. and British estimates.

Kirby was responding to South Korean intelligence reports indicating that Russian ally North Korea is sending an unknown number of solders to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that the U.S. had “evidence” of North Korean troops on the ground.

Despite the large number of Russian casualties, the war is largely fought on Ukrainian soil. Russia regularly terrorizes civilians and Ukraine’s energy grid with strikes on key infrastructure and populated areas far behind the front lines, including apartment buildings, as well as striking a children’s hospital this summer. In June, Ukrainian leaders said that the “Russian occupiers” had claimed the lives of 12,000 civilians, including 551 children.

The Wall Street Journal found that three times as many people died in Ukraine as were born in the first six months of 2024. Observers have long warned that Ukraine faces a demographic crisis due to casualties of war and the large number of refugees who fled to other countries.

As the death toll climbs, so does the animus as the war inches closer to its 1,000th day. Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed on Tuesday that a senior Russian air force officer was bludgeoned to death with a hammer inside Russia, the apparent work of Ukrainian spies. The officer, Col. Dmitry Golenkov, is blamed for a 2022 airstrike on a Ukrainian shopping center that left 22 people dead and dozens injured. Golenkov was “eliminated” by the “hammer of justice,” intelligence officials said.

Meanwhile, three people including a child were killed on Tuesday by a Russian drone strike on a civilian area of the northeastern Ukrainian town of Sumy.

In the Donbas region, the grinding trench warfare along the front lines requires a huge amount of artillery and ammunition. The Pentagon is currently spending billions of dollars to expand production facilities for making 155mm artillery shells in a race to replenish Ukraine’s stockpiles while ensuring the U.S. has enough ammo in case its military gets pulled into a conflict, such as Israel’s intensely violent multifront war that is spreading across the Middle East. The goal is to scale up manufacturing and produce 100,000 artillery shells per month, Defense News reported earlier this month.

“Part of what’s enabling that are things like the brand new plant that we opened up in Mesquite, Texas, a couple of months ago,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth during a press conference last month. “We’ve got a new load, assembly, pack plant in Camden, Arkansas, that’s going to be opening up pretty soon.”

The artillery shells are only one element of Ukraine’s arsenal. Ukrainians develop their own weapons such as advanced drones, but faced with the sheer size of the Russian military, Ukraine’s defenders are largely dependent on weapons transferred from the U.S. and western Europe. Between a visit to the U.S. last month and other appeals, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is constantly pushing the U.S. and NATO allies such as Britain and Germany for more advanced weaponry as Russia gains ground in the east.

After much back and forth with Zelenskyy, in April the Biden administration secretly sent Ukraine long-range missile systems known as ATACMS that are capable of striking targets up to 200 miles away. Ukraine used the weapons to strike behind enemy lines and into Crimea, the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russian in 2014. Ukraine wants to use the missiles against targets deep inside Russia, but allies in Europe are divided, as some worry that such a strike on Russia with Western-made weapons risks what could be a disastrous escalation.

While President Biden appears open to the idea of giving Ukraine the green light to strike inside Russia with ATACMS, he said that “no consensus” on the issue could be reached after a meeting his German counterpart in Berlin last week. Germany, which has closer ties to Russia than the U.S. does, has so far refrained from sending its own long-range missile systems to Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday to announce the latest U.S. military aid package approved for Ukraine: $400 million worth of 155-millimeter artillery shells and ammunition for tanks, Javelin anti-tank missiles and HIMARS rocket launchers. The White House approved a similar $425 million package just last week.

The Biden administration has committed more than $60 billion in “security assistance” to Ukraine since taking office, according to the Defense Department.