According to Kiev, Russian forces continue to suffer heavy losses of troops and equipment in their invasion of Ukraine.
In an update Thursday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said 1,040 Russian soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours. This brought his estimate of the total number of Russian troop losses since the beginning of the war to 162,560.
The update also said that Russia had lost 12 tanks and 11 armored vehicles the day before. This brought the total number of tank losses over the course of the war to 3,504 and the number of losses to armored vehicles to 6,810, according to Kiev.
Kiev first reported more than 1,000 daily deaths in Russia in February, a figure that has been surpassed several times. However, the number of Russian personnel lost in Ukraine is higher than Western estimates. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in February that there were about 70,000 Russian casualties in the first year of the war.
The think-tank’s record included the deaths of troops from various strands of the Russian armed forces, including regular soldiers, soldiers from the Rosgwardiya National Guard, the Federal Security Service and the Federal Guard Service.
Troops fighting for pro-Russian militias such as the Donetsk People’s Militia and the Lugansk People’s Militia, and private military companies such as the Wagner Group were also included in the number. Moscow has not updated its official estimate since September, when nearly 6,000 of its troops were killed.
The latest figures of Ukraine, about which news week contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense via email have not been independently verified. But they come amid reports of significant Russian losses in personnel and equipment as months of bitter fighting for the Donetsk town of Bakhmut rages on.
Ian Stubbs, a senior military adviser within Britain’s delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE), told Ukraine’s Ukrinform news agency on Wednesday that as many as 30,000 Wagner and regular forces have been killed and wounded around Bakhmut alone since May 2022 .
He described this as “an enormous loss of life in a total territorial advance of only about 25 kilometers.” [15.5 miles].”
Separately, the United States released footage on Thursday showing the moment two days earlier when a Russian Su-27 fighter jet collided with a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea. The US said damage to the large drone meant it had to be launched near Crimea. Russia has denied its jet cut the drone’s propeller.
