Russian forces are suffering horrible losses in the east

It has been 356 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Tuesday, the Russian forces continue to suffer catastrophic losses as Moscow’s large-scale offensive is faltering.

Heavy Russian losses

In the Donbas, the Russian forces are suffering horrible losses, especially around Vuhledar, in the south, and Bakhmut, in the north. Last week alone, the Russian forces lost around 5,000 men killed or wounded. The Russians have made some marginal gains in the north of Bakhmut, but they haven’t been able to breach the Ukrainian defenses.

In the east, the fighting continues to take place along the Svatove-Kreminna line of contact. The Russian forces have been conducting counterattacks in an attempt to dislodge the Ukrainians and recapture territory. The Russian military has deployed VDV paratroopers in the area, but they have been largely unable to push the Ukrainian forces back.

In the south, the Russian military launched an unsuccessful attack against Ukrainian positions in the western part of Zaporizhzhia and continued to fortify its defenses across the region in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Institute for the Study of War map. (ISW)

Russian casualties

Every day, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is providing an update on its 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 close to 1,700 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 8,300 weapon systems 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.

In November, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley shared the U.S. military’s assessment that the Russian military has lost way more than 100,000 troops so far in the war. But U.S. officials revised this assessment in February. According to U.S. intelligence, Russia has lost almost 200,000 troops killed or wounded in the conflict so far.

Yet, proper casualty figures are still hard to compute and verify given the fog and friction of war.

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

139,080 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
6,500 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
5,155 vehicles and fuel tanks
3,286 tanks
2,299 artillery pieces
2,011 tactical unmanned aerial systems
857 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
466 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
296 fighter, attack, and transport jets
286 attack and transport helicopters
234 anti-aircraft batteries
218 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
18 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest in the direction of Bakhmut, which is located in the south of the Donbas, and along the Kreminna-Svatove line in the east.

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: Destroyed and abandoned Russian tanks following an unsuccessful assault at Vulhedar. (Twitter)