The success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive

It has been 201 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Monday, the Ukrainian forces have routed the Russian military in the east, liberating most of the Kharkiv province.

The Ukrainian push in the east

Ukraine has recaptured most of the Kharkiv province after six days of lightning advance that liberated more than 3,000 square miles of territory. The Russian military continues to occupy parts of the Kharkiv province but east of the Oskil River, which has acted as a natural stop to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The amount of Russian casualties after the recent developments is still emerging. There has been widespread evidence of abandoned tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers falling into Ukrainian hands. In many places, the Russian forces simply abandoned their posts and equipment and made a run for it.

The aftermath of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east. (ISW)

The Russian military continues to struggle with force generation issues and lacks sufficient manpower to effectively replenish its units on the frontlines or to rotate those units for rest and recuperation.

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 1,000 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 20,000 fatalities in the war so far. 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.

Three captured Russian tanks in Slabunivka, Kharkiv Oblast. (Ukrainian Ministry of Defense)

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

52,950 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
4,640 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
3,463 vehicles and fuel tanks
2,168 tanks
1,269 artillery pieces
903 tactical unmanned aerial systems
243 fighter, attack, and transport jets
311 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
213 attack and transport helicopters
216 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
162 anti-aircraft batteries
117 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.

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.

A destroyed a Russian BMP-2 IFV and MT-LB armored vehicle in the vicinity of Sviatohirsk. (Twitter via Ukraine Weapons Tracker)

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 Monday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest casualties in the direction of Donetsk City and Kharkiv.

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: Territorial Defence Forces of Ukraine soldiers near the freshly repainted (from Russian flag colors into Ukrainian ones) entrance mark in Shevchenkove (Kharkiv region) liberated from the Russian army. (Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine)

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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