Russia Rapidly Approaching Four Grisly Milestones: Kyiv
This illustrative image from June 16, 2023 shows a destroyed tank remains in a vegetable garden of a private household on June 16, 2023 in Velyka Dymerka, Kyiv Oblast. Ukraine’s latest figures on May 4, 2024 show continuing high Russian losses of troops and equipment.
Russia’s tally of personnel and equipment losses is closing in on four significant markers, showing the extent of the cost of Moscow’s full invasion of Ukraine on its own forces, according to Kyiv’s latest figures.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Saturday that over the previous day, Russia had lost 12 tanks, which takes the total over the course of the war to 7,366, only 134 shy of 7,500. Ukraine also said it had taken out 31 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) putting the total number of destroyed drones at 9,611, only 389 short of the 10,000 mark.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces also lost another 27 armored fighting vehicles on Friday for a total of 14,156—less than 900 away from the 15,000 mark.
But Russian troop losses continue to mount up, with Kyiv’s estimate of 1,260 casualties for Friday being the seventh consecutive day this figure had topped 1,000. That includes both those who are killed and injured and Kyiv says its estimate of both personnel and equipment losses are “very approximate, and do not claim to be particularly accurate.”
Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
Getting an accurate figure of Russian troop losses is difficult but French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourne said in an interview released on Friday that Paris estimates Russian casualties were 500,000, 150,000 of whom had been killed.
“What is all this for?” he told independent Russian outlet, Novaya Gazeta Europa. “In short, there is no need.”
Russia has not updated its tally of losses since September 2022 when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said was just under 6,000.
Kyiv is often tight-lipped about its losses, although in a rare admission, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that 31,000 of his troops had been killed.
However, Shoigu said on Friday that Ukraine’s troop losses had surpassed 111,000, as he claimed that Russian forces “continue breaking the enemy’s system of strongholds along the entire line of contact.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it has recently captured settlements around the town of Avdiivka, in the Donetsk oblast, which was seized in February.
Shoigu announced the capture of 211 square miles of territory so far this year. This was higher than the figure of 155 square miles he had announced in April.
The Institute for the Study of War estimates Russia controls around one fifth of Ukrainian territory, or more than 38,000 square miles.
The think tank has predicted that Russia will conduct a major offensive in the coming weeks as it seeks to capitalize on Ukraine’s lack of ammunition as it eagerly awaits the delivery of U.S. military aid following a $61 billion package passed by U.S. Congress
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