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Russian forces lost 23 artillery systems and more than 1,000 fighters in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Kyiv's military said.
Moscow's army sustained 1,010 casualties in the past day, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Tuesday. That brings Kyiv's tally of Russian casualties to 221,460 since February 24, 2022.
The Kremlin's fighters have lost a total of 3,888 artillery systems in the same time period, the General Staff claimed. Newsweek wasn't able to independently verify figures put out by either side.
On Monday, Russia said Ukraine had lost at least 630 soldiers over the previous day, and that Moscow had eliminated a total of 5,163 field artillery cannons and mortars since February last year.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.
Artillery has played a key role in the ongoing war, and has been high up on Ukraine's wish list for military aid from its international backers.
"The war in Ukraine has become an artillery war," the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies said in January this year.
This remains true in the early stages of Kyiv's long-anticipated counteroffensive, which got underway earlier this month, according to Frederik Mertens, an analyst with the Hague Center for Strategic Studies.
As Ukraine probes and tests Russia's defenses, both Kyiv and Moscow are looking for where the other's artillery, as well as high value assets such as command posts, are located, he told Newsweek.
Both sides are "trying to reach deep behind each other's lines with long range firepower and trying to get the upper hand in this artillery duel," he added.
It is difficult to gain an accurate picture of casualty counts. Neither side keeps a running tally of its own losses.
On Monday, Ukraine's deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russia had "suffered significant losses" over the past seven days as Kyiv ramped up its counteroffensive efforts in the south and east of the country. More than 4,600 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in previous week, she added.
On Sunday, the British defense ministry said both sides had racked up high casualties, but that Russian losses "were likely the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March." The contested city of Bakhmut, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, was labeled a meat-grinder, and fighting continues to secure control of the destroyed settlement.
Ukraine continues to make territorial gains in its counteroffensive efforts, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Monday. But the think tank indicated on Sunday that Kyiv's fighters could be "temporarily pausing" their operations to take stock and re-evaluate strategies ahead of a new phase.
This is a "common feature of major offensive undertakings, and this pause doesn't signify the end of Ukraine's counteroffensive," it said in its daily assessment.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more