What else is killing Russian soldiers except for Ukrainian troops? Drugs, suicide, and military food

The Russian army is becoming a degraded structure that is collapsing from within. During 2024–2025, due to service negligence, alcohol and drug overdoses, fights, and unsanitary conditions, more than 600 soldiers of the Russian Central Military District died, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence says in a new report.

This district is one of the five operating within the occupation army.

Drugs and chaos instead of discipline and strength

It is noted that in 2024, at least 71 soldiers committed suicide, and in the first half of 2025, 86 soldiers and officers took their own lives.

“Meanwhile, the low quality of food in the military units of the district led to the death of 32 occupiers from food poisoning,” the agency says.

Drugs are also killing the Russian Army. In less than 2025, 112 cases of death from drug poisoning were recorded, almost reaching the 2024 number, when 143 people died from the intake of substances. 

"The rise in suicides, crime, and drug abuse among Russian military personnel is a sign of deep demoralization of the occupation contingent," the Defense Intelligence added. 

Earlier, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office reported that Ukraine has registered over 190,000 war crimes since the start of Russia’s all-out war in 2022.

The prosecutors believe the scale and pattern of these crimes show a state-directed campaign to wipe out the Ukrainian nation. Deputy Prosecutor General Andrii Leshchenko called it "a deliberate genocidal policy" of Russia.