Russia Loses 6,630 Troops, 90 Tanks in Week: Kyiv

Russia has been losing nearly 950 troops a day in Ukraine over the last week, according to Kyiv, highlighting the continuing huge cost for Moscow’s forces in the war, even as they make incremental gains.

In its latest update, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday that, over the previous 24 hours, Russian forces had lost 960 troops and 17 tanks, taking the total troop losses since the start of the war just over two years ago to 415,640. The 17 tanks Ukraine said Russia had lost on Friday puts the tally for the vehicles for the whole war at 6,624.

Since the retreat of Ukrainian troops on February 17, Russia has made marginal advances in the Donetsk region in Ivanivske, near Bakhmut, as well as in nearby Stepove and Berdychi, the U.S.-based independent think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Friday. However, Kyiv’s tally suggests that these small gains are coming at a high loss.

Over the last week, the number of Russian losses hit four figures on two occasions, reaching 1,060 on Wednesday and 1,150 on Thursday—the latter tally the highest since February 18. Between February 25 and Saturday, Russia lost 6,630 troops, according to Kyiv, or an average of 947 a day. Ukraine also said Russia had lost a further 17 tanks over the previous 24 hours, making a total of 90 vehicles in the same period.

Casualty counts and tallies of equipment losses are tricky to confirm, with experts suggesting both sides inflate the figures of their adversaries. Ukraine announced its daily tallies included troops who were both injured and killed.

It is not possible to verify Ukraine’s count independently, and Newsweek has approached the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment on the latest figures. Experts broadly say that Ukraine’s counts are likely to be roughly accurate ballpark figures, although intelligence estimates from Western governments tend to come in lower than Kyiv’s tallies. Even with a margin for error, the numbers offer an indication of the huge human and material toll wrought by the conflict since it started in February 2022.

Until August 23, 2023, the adjective “liquidated” was applied to losses, which Ukrainian and other foreign outlets frequently interpreted as killed. The working was changed to “approximate losses of the enemy,” although this still did not specify whether the troops were killed and injured.

However, Andriy Kovalyov, spokesman for Ukraine’s General Staff that Kyiv’s figures were “total combat losses” and included both dead and injured.

On February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 180,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war so far. He revealed for the first time Ukraine’s losses, which he said were around 31,000, although other Western estimates are higher.

U.S. officials told The New York Times in August 2023 that around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, and around 120,000 wounded.

This week, BBC Russian and the Mediazona project said it had established the names of more than 45,000 Russian troops had died, although, because only publicly available information was used, the project says the total is much higher.