Your tactical update on Ukraine (June 8)

It has been 105 days since the Russian invasion began. On Wednesday, the Russian military is counterattacking in and around Severodonetsk and has managed to capture most of the city. However, the Ukrainian military hasn’t abandoned the strategic city and is still fighting.

Tales of Severodonetsk

The fighting in Severodonetsk is gearing up to be one of the fiercest in the whole war. For around two weeks now, the Ukrainian and Russian military are engaged in a brutal wrestle for control of the city and its surroundings.

The situation on the ground according to the British Ministry of Defense. (UK MoD)

Severodonetsk is the last major urban center in the Luhansk province. Should the Russian forces manage to capture and hold it, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be able to claim a political victory: Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province have been in the Kremlin’s iron sights since the initial invasion of Ukraine began in 2014.

The Russian military is attacking Severodonetsk from three directions (north, east, and south) and has regained much of the city blocks it lost to a Ukrainian counterattack earlier in the week. But now there is a slight stalemate as both sides are trying to achieve a breakthrough in the city.

In its latest estimate of the war, the Institute for the Study of War stated that “Russian forces continued offensive operations in several locations in eastern Ukraine but did not secure any confirmed gains in ground assaults on June 7. Russian forces have likely captured most of Severodonetsk.”

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in and around Kherson is edging forward, pushing back the Russian forces.

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 600 Russian tanks, a statement that has been reaffirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

Same independent verification exists for much of the rest of the 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.

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

31,500 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
3,429 armored personnel carriers destroyed
2,406 vehicles and fuel tanks
1,393 tanks
703 artillery pieces
559 tactical unmanned aerial systems
212 fighter, attack, and transport jets
213 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
178 attack and transport helicopters
125 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
96 anti-aircraft batteries
53 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
13 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

Over the past few days, 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.

The Ukrainian military is also more focused on withdrawing from unattainable positions around Severodonetsk, which also might be the reason why the Russian casualty rates have slowed down.

For most of the last weeks, 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.

In recent days, the location of the heaviest casualties shifted again westwards toward the area of Zaporizhzhia — where there is one of Europe’s largest nuclear plants — as a result of a Ukrainian counteroffensive there. On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces inflicted the heaviest casualties in the vicinity of Severodonetsk, reflecting their heavy fighting in the region.

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.