MOSCOW, June 7 -- The accounting arrived, as it does every Sunday morning, in the form of a ministry statement: more than 450 Ukrainian soldiers eliminated in a single day by Russia's Vostok battlegroup alone, the third consecutive reporting cycle in which that eastern sector has led all six Russian fronts in declared kills. The figure was not a departure from recent form. It was, in a grimly statistical sense, exactly on trend.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its Vostok - or East - battlegroup, operating primarily across the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia axes, inflicted the sharpest daily toll among six active command zones: over 450 Ukrainian personnel, along with an armored personnel carrier, two armored combat vehicles, seve...