Your daily tactical update on Ukraine (June 28)

It has been 125 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Tuesday, the Russian forces are trying to capture Lysychansk and create some momentum after the victory at next-door Severodonetsk.

Fighting in the Donbas

Most of the fighting is taking place in the southwestern outskirts of Lysychansk near a key highway that connects Lysychansk with Bakhmut. The Russian forces have been trying to sever the Ukrainian lines of communications but haven’t succeeded yet.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine has put the Russian forces there on the defense, forcing Russian commanders to reinforce their defensive positions with men and weapon systems. But despite its success in tying down a good chunk of Russian forces, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in and around Kherson is moving slowly and has failed to produce any major tactical or strategic gains.

Farther in the north, in Kharkiv, the two sides are largely fighting positional battles, harassing and trying to dislodge one another with long-range fires.

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 almost 800 Russian tanks; this assessment has been confirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

The situation of the overall battlefield as of June 28. (UK MoD)

The same independent verification exists for most of the other Ukrainian claims. Only 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.

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

35,250 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
3,704 armored personnel carriers destroyed
2,589 vehicles and fuel tanks
1,567 tanks
778 artillery pieces
636 tactical unmanned aerial systems
217 fighter, attack, and transport jets
243 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
185 attack and transport helicopters
139 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
102 anti-aircraft batteries
61 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
14 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

A Ukrainian tank in the Donbas in 2014. (Wikimedia Commons via UTR news)

Over the past weeks, the rate of Russian casualties has slowed down significantly 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 over three 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 the last month, 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 went on, most of the heavy fighting shifted toward the direction of Bakhmut, southeast of Slovyansk, around Severodonetsk, a key Ukrainian town, and Lyman.

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.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces inflicted the heaviest casualties in the vicinity of Bakhmut, where the Russian forces are trying to advance and cut off Severodonetsk from the rear, and Kurakhove, near 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.