Big Spike In Russian Losses As Counteroffensive Begins—Ukraine

As Ukraine's counteroffensive kicks off, Russia's forces have suffered a huge spike in troop losses in the full-scale invasion launched by President Vladimir Putin, according to figures released by Kyiv's military.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces posts figures on Russia's troop and equipment losses as part of its daily update. Over the past week, Moscow lost 4,860 soldiers, including 1,010 over the past 24 hours, according to the military's Friday casualty toll of Russian troops, bringing the total to 213,770.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said Thursday that Ukraine's long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian troops had begun. Ukraine has conducted counteroffensive operations with differential outcomes in at least three sectors of the front as part of wider counteroffensive efforts that have been unfolding since June 4, it said.

Ukraine has urged operational silence on its counteroffensive to recapture its occupied territories, and Ukrainian Defense Deputy Minister Hanna Maliar said on her social media channels Monday that "there will be no start announcement."

Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Russian paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group, said on Tuesday that a Ukrainian offensive has "broken through" Russian defensive lines around the war-torn city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

He added that the situation was a "catastrophe."

The ISW noted Ukrainian officials have signaled that its forces have transitioned from "defensive to offensive" operations in the Bakhmut area and are making gains of between 200 meters and nearly two kilometers on the flanks of the city.

"Ukrainian forces have made tactical gains during limited localized counterattacks in western Donetsk Oblast near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border since June 4," the ISW said.

"Ukrainian forces additionally conducted an attack in western Zaporizhia Oblast on the night of June 7 to 8 but do not appear to have made gains as part of this attack as of the time of this publication."

Osint Defender, an online open-source intelligence group, said it had geolocated images showing Ukraine using newly-received Western tanks in the conflict.

Russia itself rarely releases figures on troop losses, but when it does its estimates are far lower than those of Ukraine. In September 2022, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 5,937 Russian troops had been killed in the conflict in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. This marked only the second time Russia released casualty figures in the war.

Estimates from Ukraine's Western allies also tend to be more conservative than Ukraine's, though far higher than those released by Russia. At the start of May, the U.S. National Security Council said that Russia had suffered 100,000 casualties, including 20,000 dead, since December alone. This followed an estimate in November 2022 from General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of 100,000 casualties during the first eight months of the invasion.

The casualty figures have not been independently verified by Newsweek. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.

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