Russian defenses in the south collapse

It has been 224 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian forces are pushing hard in the south liberating hundreds of miles of territory in just a few hours.

The situation in Kherson

On Tuesday, the Russian defenses in the north of the western bank of the Dnipro River collapsed. In a matter of just a few hours, the Ukrainian forces managed to push the Russians back and liberate almost 800 square miles. Weeks of constant battering of the Russian defensive positions brought results as the Russian defenses collapsed soon after the Ukrainian forces launched a mechanized offensive.

“Ukrainian forces continued to make substantial gains in northern Kherson Oblast on October 4, beginning to collapse the sparsely-manned Russian lines in that area,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed in its latest operational update on the war.

The Russian forces on the western bank of the Dnipro River are now in dire straits as the only two bridges that link them to Kherson city and their logistical bases on the eastern bank are either completely or partially destroyed.

Russian casualties

Every day, the Ukrainian military is providing an update on their claimed Russian casualties. These numbers are official figures and haven’t been separately verified.

However, Western intelligence assessments and independent reporting corroborate, to a certain extent, the Ukrainian casualty claims. For example, the Oryx open-source intelligence research page has visually verified the destruction or capture of more than 1,200 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 5,300 military vehicles of all types; this assessment has been confirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

The same independent verification exists for most of the other Ukrainian claims. Recently, the Pentagon acknowledged that the Russian military has lost thousands of combat vehicles of all types, including over 1,000 tanks, and dozens of fighter jets and helicopters.

Furthermore, more recent reports that are citing Western intelligence officials indicate that the Russian military has suffered up to 50,000 casualties (killed and wounded) in the war so far.

In the summer, Sir Tony Radakin, the British Chief of the Defence Staff, recently told the BBC that the West understands that more than 50,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the conflict thus far. If we were to take the Ukrainian figures as accurate, the number mentioned by Sir Radakin is on the low side of the spectrum.

A captured Russian T-62M tank near Kherson — An old T-62M Russian tank captured by the Ukrainian military near Kherson. As Russia is facing armor shortages it has begun deploying older tank models from its inventory. (Ukraine Weapons Tracker via Twitter)

Yet, it is very hard to verify the actual numbers unless one is on the ground. However, after adjusting for the fog of war and other factors, the Western official numbers are fairly close to the Ukrainian claims.

As of Wednesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming the following Russian casualties:

61,000 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
5,038 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
3,841 vehicles and fuel tanks
2,435 tanks
1,414 artillery pieces
1,032 tactical unmanned aerial systems
266 fighter, attack, and transport jets
341 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
232 attack and transport helicopters
246 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
177 anti-aircraft batteries
132 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
15 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

For most of May, the Russian military suffered the greatest casualties around the Slovyansk, Kryvyi Rih, and Zaporizhzhia areas, reflecting the heavy fighting that was going on there. As the days and weeks went on, most of the heavy fighting shifted toward the direction of Bakhmut, southeast of Slovyansk, around Severodonetsk, Lyman, and Lysychansk.

A captured Russian T-62 tank — Another T-62 Russian tank captured by Ukrainian forces in Kherson Oblast. A cope cage had been installed on the tank’s roof to increase its protection from overhead threats. (Ukraine Weapons Tracker via Twitter)

Then the location of the heaviest casualties shifted again westwards toward the area of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — where one of Europe’s largest nuclear plants is located — as a result of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in and around the area.

Then, the concentration of casualties once more shifted back to the Donbas, especially in and around Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the two urban centers the Russians managed to capture in July. For most of August, the heaviest fighting took place in the Donbas, where the Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to breach the Ukrainian defenses and capture the Donetsk province. But lately, most of the fighting has shifted to the south where the Ukrainian military is mounting a major counteroffensive to recapture Kherson. It is now there, on the southern front, that the Russian military is suffering the heaviest casualties.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest in the direction of Kramatorsk, which is located in the central Donbas, and in the vicinity of Bakhmut, in the south of the Donbas, which the Russian forces have been trying to capture for the past several months, and close to Kryvyi Rih.

The stated goal of the Russian military for the renewed offensive in the east is to establish full control over the pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and create and maintain a land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

Feature Image: Ukrainian troops outside the village of Hrekivka in Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. (BlueSauron via Twitter)