Russians are throwing blame around after deadly Ukrainian missile attack kills and wounds hundreds

It has been 316 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Thursday, the Russian military is still trying to recover from the deadly missile strike that killed hundreds of troops in the Donbas.

Who’s to blame?

The Russians are fighting among themselves, throwing blame left and right following the deadly Ukrainian missile attack against a makeshift barracks that resulted in likely hundreds of killed and wounded.

The Kremlin is blaming the troops who had turned their cell phones on and allowed the Ukrainian military intelligence to pinpoint their location and guide the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) against them.

“The Russian milblogger response to the Russian MoD deflection of blame onto individual servicemen accurately identifies the endemic unwillingness or inability of the Russian military apparatus to address systemic failures,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed in its latest operational update.

Meanwhile, the war continues. In the east, the two sides continue to fight for control of highway P66 and the road to Kreminna. The Russian forces have been conducting limited counteroffensives in the area to push back the Ukrainians but are failing to achieve anything significant.

In the south, the Russian military continues to replenish its forces and bolster its defenses in anticipation of the incoming Ukrainian counteroffensive on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.

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 1,600 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 more than 100,000 casualties (killed and wounded) in the war so far.

In the summer, Sir Tony Radakin, the British Chief of the Defence Staff, had 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.

Russian military destroyed by Ukrainian forces earlier in the war.

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 more than 100,000 troops so far in the war.

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

109,720 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
6,108 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
4,759 vehicles and fuel tanks
3,041 tanks
2,051 artillery pieces
1,844 tactical unmanned aerial systems
284 fighter, attack, and transport jets
426 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
271 attack and transport helicopters
723 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
215 anti-aircraft batteries
182 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
16 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

On Thursday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest in the direction of Bakhmut, which is located in the south of the Donbas, and Lyman, which is located in the northeast of the Donbas.

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 HIMARS in Zaporizhya oblast, June 2022. (Ukrainian Ministry of Defense)

Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou

Greek Army veteran (National service with 575th Marines Battalion and Army HQ). Johns Hopkins University. You will usually find him on the top of a mountain admiring the view and wondering how he got there.

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