Russia lost more than 400 tanks, 533 artillery systems and nearly 30,000 soldiers in December, according to new figures from Ukraine's military, as the grueling war nears the 2-year mark.
Moscow's troops have lost 359,230 soldiers since launching its full-scale invasion of the country on February 24, 2022, Ukraine's armed forces said on Sunday. At the beginning of December, this figure stood at 330,040 soldiers, meaning Russia's military lost 29,190 fighters this month.
Russia has also 413 tanks and 533 artillery systems throughout December, according to Kyiv. Newsweek has approached the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
The Kremlin does not provide a running total of reported Ukrainian losses, but said on Saturday that 660 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken out in the past day.
Newsweek could not independently verify either count, but the figures are the latest indicator of the toll nearly two years of war has taken on Russia's land-based military, as well as at sea and in the air.
"It is very difficult to determine casualties in an ongoing conflict since both sides will try to keep the data secret and inflate the number of adversary casualties," Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, U.K., told Newsweek back in May.
Ukraine is trying to make "life unlivable for Russian soldiers," ensuring there are "no safe places" for Moscow's troops, Daniel Rice, former special adviser to Ukraine's lead commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, told Newsweek.
Ukraine's wielding of cluster munitions and the targeting of Russian vessels with long-range Western weapons is racking up the Russian casualty count, he said. "Whole Russian units are being wiped out."
On Saturday, the British Defense Ministry said the average number of daily Russian casualties had increased by nearly 300 per day in 2023 compared to the first year of the all-out war.
"The increase in daily averages, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities, almost certainly reflects the degradation of Russia's forces," the U.K. government said.
Alongside the reported death toll, Russia's military has lost huge chunks of its pre-war armored vehicle and tank fleets in its war effort. 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.
Significant Russian vehicle losses are unlikely to slow as Moscow pushes on with its onslaught around the Donetsk Oblast industrial town of Avdiivka. Russia has thrown resources into encircling the town since early October, inching around Avdiivka but at a steep human cost.
Ukraine said on Sunday that it was "inflicting major losses" on Russian troops and had fought off 18 Russian attacks around Avdiivka over the previous 24 hours. Moscow did not mention the town in its Saturday operational report.
On Saturday, Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for Ukraine's Tavria group of forces covering Avdiivka, said Russia was launching fewer artillery strikes, but was using around 100 strike drones each day.
On Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had targeted "decision-making centers and military facilities" in Kharkiv, Ukraine's northeastern region that borders Russia. Moscow said its missiles killed members of Kyiv's intelligence services and its military who "were directly involved" in a Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Belgorod.
On Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of an "indiscriminate combined strike" on the city of Belgorod using missiles equipped with cluster munitions and Czech-made rockets fired by multiple launch systems. Belgorod's regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Sunday that 24 people had been killed, with 108 people injured.
A Ukrainian security source told the BBC that more than 70 drones were launched in "response to Russia's terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians," and that Kyiv had only targeted military infrastructure. The source said that the "incompetent work of Russian air defense" and falling fragments were to blame for civilian casualties.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the Kremlin had launched its most intensive strikes of the more than 22-month-old war. Close to 160 missiles and strike drones were launched at Ukraine in the barrage, he said. Zelensky announced on Saturday that 39 people had died and 159 people had been injured in the hit on "almost 120 cities and villages."
Russia then launched several waves of attacks from Saturday evening into the early hours of Sunday, said Kharkiv's regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
Moscow fired "at least six rockets" at Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, between 7 p.m. and 7:20 p.m. local time on Saturday, Syniehubov said. The attacks damaged several residential and medical buildings, injuring 28 civilians, he added.
Russia then attacked Kharkiv with Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones and targeted more than 15 settlements in the Kharkiv region with artillery and mortars, Syniehubov said.
Ukraine's air force said Russia had launched 49 Shahed kamikaze drones across the country, with six S-300 anti-aircraft missiles fired on Kharkiv. Ukraine's air defenses intercepted 21 of the strike drones, Kyiv said.
"On the eve of the New Year, the Russians want to intimidate our city, but we are not scared," said Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
Update 12/31/2023 at 8:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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
