Jul 03, 2024
ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Russian casualties in Ukraine are nearing 550,000, according to figures published by Ukraine’s military, with reported artillery, vehicles and other equipment losses closing in on new milestones.
Ukraine’s armed forces said on Wednesday that Russia had sustained around 546,270 casualties in Ukraine since February 2022, including 1,180 fighters killed or injured in the past day. Publishing updated figures, Kyiv also said Russia had lost 57 artillery systems in the previous 24 hours, bringing Ukraine’s tally of Russia’s total artillery losses close to 15,000.
According to Ukraine’s numbers, Moscow has lost a combined total of nearly 20,000 vehicles, including fuel tanks. This does not include tanks and armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles, which are counted separately. Russian troops have also lost close to 2,500 items of what Ukraine’s armed forces dub “special equipment,” the updated count from Kyiv’s military indicates. A broad term, “special equipment” covers losses of assets such as electronic warfare systems, radars and maintenance vehicles.
Newsweek could not independently verify Ukraine’s numbers and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. Casualty counts and battlefield losses are murky during active conflicts, and experts urge caution when dealing with tallies offered up by either party in a war.
The British government estimated in late May that Russia’s total casualties had likely reached 500,000. Throughout May 2024, Moscow’s average daily casualty count stood at more than 1,200, the U.K. Defense Ministry said, marking the highest monthly average number of daily losses for Russia of the full-scale war.
Kyiv’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that Moscow had sustained more than 35,000 casualties throughout June, marking the second-highest number of casualties in a single month since February 2022.
Ukraine has also suffered heavy losses, and rarely offers updates on the toll of fending off Russian assaults. In late February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 31,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed in two years of war. Russia has said Ukraine’s death toll is much higher, saying Kyiv lost 215,000 soldiers in 2023 alone.
Russia has made slow but steady gains, particularly in the heart of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, in recent months, but at a huge cost to its personnel. Western intelligence and experts suggest many of the Russian soldiers currently on the front lines have limited training—often volunteers or convicts—and cannot carry out complex operations.
Ukraine has said Russia is able to pull up to 30,000 new soldiers each month into its ranks, propping up the bloody and casualty-heavy tactics Moscow has used against Kyiv’s forces to make slow but consistent territorial gains.
In a separate statement, Ukraine’s government said earlier this week that Russia had lost a “record” number of artillery systems in the last month, adding in a post to social media that “1,415 [R]ussian artillery systems were destroyed in June.”
The more massive the losses are for the cockroach army, the better it is for this planet. No one needs mafia land. Its existence is a waste of earth’s resources.
Related :
People are reacting to a post yesterday by Jens Jensen on LinkedIn:
“If you want to know how bad things are going for russia, then look at the meeting between Zelensky and victor orban in Kyiv today. putin did send his most trusted partner in Europe, the Hungarian PM, to Kyiv to beg for peace.”
“No matter if you support peacetalks now or a Ukrainian victory, then you should support arming Ukraine. If the battlefield will decide the outcome, Ukraine needs the weapons to stop and to destroy the russian military. If you support a deal/peace talks arming Ukraine will force russia to the table sooner, and it will make the point of negotiation for the Ukrainians much better if russia knows that Ukraine will continue to be supported/armed.”
“Arm Ukraine today – or fight russia tomorrow!”
It’s only an opinion of course. Wishful thinking?
Then there are more and more stories coming out about Trumpkov’s “people” meeting a putler emissary at Dulles airport; allegedly to carve up Ukraine.
I guess we will see.
Of course, every person with at least a bit of intelligence and the heart in the right place wishes for a Ukrainian victory. It is easy to succumb to wishful thinking after witnessing such brutality for almost two and a half years. But, the facts are on the battlefield and not in the smelly mouths of cockroaches and their useful idiots. If the roaches still gain only a field or two with eye bulging losses, and seeing who they are forcing to fight and what sort of equipment and vehicles they have left over or are cobbling together, maybe we can trust those comments you posted.
Of course, it’s never wise to underestimate your enemy. He can still lash out even in his last death throes. And, even the Ukrainians can make mistakes, some of which could cause victory to slip from their fingers.
All in all, we can be positive right now, but it must remain a careful positiveness.
For once I’m agreeing with you Scragel,
Russia should not be allowed to claim peace and parts of Ukraine. Russia needs to retreat back to its border and pull out of Crimea all together. Destroy The Kerch bridge and tell Russia to … well you get the idea.