It's Friday the third of July. Welcome to the P.D.B. Afternoon

afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, a new

report paints a sobering picture of the war in Ukraine, estimating Russia has now suffered

1.4 million battlefield casualties. I'll break down those new casualty estimates and what they

reveal about the changing character of the war. Later in the show,

German prosecutors say they've solved one of the biggest mysteries of the Ukraine war,

alleging that the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage was carried out on orders from Ukrainian

state authorities. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. New battlefield data released

this week paints a sobering picture of the war in Ukraine. Russia continues to fight and continues

to attack, but according to a new assessment from the Center for Strategic and International

Studies, it's now paying a higher price for every mile of ground than at any point since the invasion began.

The report estimates Russia has suffered roughly 1.4 million battlefield casualties, including

as many as 450,000 killed, while total casualties on both sides of the conflict have now surpassed

two million. Those figures, of course,

are staggering, but they aren't the report's most important finding. The real story is what those

losses reveal about the changing character of the war, and why Moscow may be paying an increasingly

steep price for increasingly smaller gains. According to the report,

Russia is now suffering between 30,000 and 34,000 battlefield casualties every month. That's a rate

that likely exceeds its current recruitment efforts. If those estimates are correct,

Moscow has reached a troubling milestone. It's losing soldiers faster than it can replace them.

Even more striking is how the casualty ratio has shifted. For much of the war, Russia suffered

roughly two to three casualties for every Ukrainian casualty, but CSIS now estimates that

...