Russia has lost 44 tanks and 60 armored personnel vehicles in a single day, Kyiv’s military has said, the latest sign of steep Russian armored vehicle losses as Moscow plows on with its offensive around the embattled town of Avdiivka.
The Kremlin’s fighters lost 44 tanks in 24 hours, the Ukrainian military said on Monday, bringing Kyiv’s tally of Russian tank losses to 5,783 since the outbreak of all-out war in the country in February 2022.
Russia also lost 60 armored personnel vehicles (APVs) in the past day, Kyiv’s armed forces said. According to Ukraine’s updated statistics, Moscow has lost a total of 10,752 APVs in the almost 22 months of warfare. Russia also lost 38 artillery systems on the battlefield over the past day, Ukraine said.
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Newsweek could not independently verify the Ukrainian military’s figures, and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. In an update on Sunday, Moscow said Ukraine had lost a total of 14,135 tanks and armored vehicles, as well as 7,369 field artillery guns and mortars since the start of the conflict.
The Ukrainian General Staff has been approached for comment via email.
In nearly two years of grueling warfare, Russia’s has lost huge chunks of its pre-war armored vehicle and tank fleets. It is very difficult to gain an accurate picture of just how many armored vehicles and tanks have been damaged, destroyed, captured or abandoned, but Western analysts suggest Ukraine’s numbers are not far from the true count.
In early November, Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, told U.K. lawmakers that Russia had lost more than 7,117 armored vehicles, including nearly 2,475 main battle tanks, as well as over 1,300 artillery systems.
Significant Russian vehicle losses are unlikely to slow as Moscow pushes on with its onslaught around the Donetsk industrial town of Avdiivka. Between Russia launching its offensive on the town on October 10 and November 28, Moscow lost more than 211 vehicles around Avdiivka, according to satellite imagery analysis by the Frontelligence Insight project.
A column of Russian armored vehicles had advanced on Avdiivka over the weekend, and Ukraine destroyed around half of them, Dmytro Lazutkin, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s 47th Brigade, told Ukrainian media on Sunday. Russia was using BMP infantry fighting vehicles to back up its troops around the town, Lazutkin said.
“Our brigade is holding back the Russian offensive on the northern flank of Avdiivka,” Lazutkin told Newsweek last week. “Defending the city is worthwhile as long as we exhaust the Russians.”
“We will continue to hold the city. Of course, they can try to surround Avdiivka, but it will cost them dearly,” he added.
Russian forces have switched to infantry-led attacks around Avdiivka to “conserve armored vehicles following the first two waves of assaults on the settlement,” the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Saturday.
Russia has made gains near the village of Stepove, just under two miles northwest of Avdiivka, the ISW said in an updated analysis on Sunday. Ukrainian forces also advanced east of the village of Nevelske, southwest of the industrial town, the ISW evaluated.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not mention Avdiivka in its Sunday operational report, but Ukraine said on Monday that its troops repelled 27 attacks along the front line close to the town.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.