Kinda goes against the “Russia is actually winning” alternative facts narrative. 
My immediate thought was “HA! Hard to win a war of attrition with numbers like those.” Then my follow-on thoughts were:
What percentage has Ukraine lost?
This far into WWII, how was The Soviet Union doing against the Germans? (Probably not a fair comparison with the troops but the tanks and replacement production capacity might be a relevant comparison…?)
I know it says it’s from "a declassified U.S. source" (meaning formerly classified) which makes it sound real official and not anecdotal, but really, how good is this information?
Just my thoughts
Ballpark reasonable numbers. The bigger expense Russia can not afford is the wounded. The initial troops saw others come into the theater. Many are in Russian rehabs. Russia has to print to take care of them.
Probably good enough for a general idea of losses.
What is missing is that Russia’s army wasn’t all that big to begin with. And this is just the land forces, not their navy. And they’ve been recruiting and drafting replacements.
So yes, their losses are significant, but might not be as debilitating as they look at first glance.
—Peter
Those are the lines I was thinking along. Perhaps a bit of creative writing. Judicious use of numbers. None of it lying. All of it corroborated, but not exaaactly what it might make people think. Having only 13% of an army left fighting is either a "come out with your hands up. You don’t stand a chance" situation, some kind of pyrrhic victory, but there’s no victory, or something else…?
I didn’t read it that way. The article said Russia lost 87% of the total number (360,000) of troops it had committed to Ukraine at the start of the war. It went onto say that Russia had 900,000 active duty ground troops, not including reserves, and that Russia had been recruiting to make up losses.
Good enough to get a headline, and curious timing with funding for Ukraine stalled and one of the parties being recalcitrant about moving forward.
Not trying to start a conspiracy theory or anything, just noting the timing.
News outlets play baseball.