The war of attrition in Ukraine continues

It has been 170 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Friday, the Russian military persisted with its ground offensive in the Donbas, achieving, however, little.

Different day, same outcomes

The Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the directions of Siversk (in the northeast of the Donbas), Bakhmut (in the south of the Donbas), and Donetsk City (in the south of the Donbas). However, the Russian military failed to achieve anything significant, only losing men and materiel in the process.

This is becoming a familiar pattern. Each day passing day, the Russian forces will attack Ukrainian defenses after massive artillery barrages only to be repelled by the entrenched Ukrainians — who are, too, suffering heavy casualties in the process. This war of attrition favors the Ukrainian military for the time being.

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 900 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 4,700 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.

A destroyed Russian Mi-35 attack helicopter in Ukraine. (Army Inform Ukraine)

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.

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

43,200 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
4,108 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
3,021 vehicles and fuel tanks
1,889 tanks
975 artillery pieces
778 tactical unmanned aerial systems
233 fighter, attack, and transport jets
261 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
193 attack and transport helicopters
185 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
136 anti-aircraft batteries
90 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
15 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

Destroyed Russian tanks during the Battle of Mariupol. (Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs)

Over the past weeks, the rate of Russian casualties has slowed down despite continuous pressure and offensive operations in the Donbas. This suggests two things: First, the Russian commanders are taking a more cautious approach to their offensive operations, fully utilizing combined arms warfare to achieve their goals; and second, the Ukrainian forces are running out of combat power or ammunition — and this is expected after nearly six months of war against the Russian military. Recent reports from the ground suggest that both of these factors are true, and that the fatigue of warfare is catching up on both sides.

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.

Then, the concentration of casualties once more shifted back to the Donbas, and especially in and around Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the two urban centers the Russians managed to capture lately.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest casualties in the direction of Bakhmut and Donetsk.

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 T-64 tanks during Ukraine’s Independence Day parade in 2008. (Wikimedia Commons)

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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