Russia Loses Over 2,300 Soldiers and 21 Tanks in Three Days, Kyiv Says

Ukrainian soldiers drive a tank on a road in Lyman district, Donetsk region, on January 21, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Kyiv’s estimates, Russia has lost over 2,300 troops over the past three day in fighting.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has cost Moscow over 2,300 troops in the past few days, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

During fighting between Saturday and Monday, Russia’s military suffered 2,340 deaths, according to numbers compiled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces that were posted on Facebook. This brings Moscow’s total number of troops lost since the beginning of the war almost two years ago to 376,860 personnel, by Kyiv’s estimate.

Ukraine also reported that Russia took a hit to its military arsenal, losing 21 tanks, 34 armored vehicles and 28 artillery systems over the past three days.

Newsweek was unable to verify the report and reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

The exact number of Russian troop deaths is uncertain, and the Kremlin does not provide a running estimate of its own or Ukraine’s losses in the war. U.S. intelligence estimated last month that Russia had lost 315,000 troops since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, according to Reuters. That number equates to roughly 90 percent of the total personnel Russia had when it started the war.

Washington officials said Reuters’ report that Moscow’s losses in personnel and weaponry have set back its military modernization by 18 years.

British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey estimated that Russia had lost nearly 302,000 military personnel as of November 2023. Speaking with British lawmakers, Heappey said the number of Russian personnel “killed serving in Russian private military companies” was unclear at the time.

On December 30, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry reported that the average number of Russian losses sustained daily during 2023 had risen by almost 300 troops per day, compared with the same average in 2022. If that number stays consistent, Moscow will have over 500,000 losses in the war by the year 2025, the Defense Ministry said.

“The increase in daily averages, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities, almost certainly reflects the degradation of Russia’s forces,” the U.K. government said at the time of the December report.

Ukraine also has not disclosed the number of its troop losses since the war started. However, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier this month that Kyiv lost upward of 215,000 troops in 2023 alone. He also said Ukraine had lost over 28,000 weapons in 12 months of fighting. Newsweek was unable to substantiate the numbers.

At the time of Shoigu’s comments, the Armed Forces of Ukraine told Newsweek that it “does not comment on reports from Russian sources about the losses of Ukrainian troops.”

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