While repelling the offensive of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, 71 Russian servicemen have been killed and 210 wounded, as per Russia’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, quoted by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
According to the military chief, “during three days of combat in all directions, Ukraine’s Armed Forces lost up to 3,715 personnel, 52 tanks, 207 armoured vehicles, 134 cars, five aircraft, and two helicopters”.
The head of the Defence Ministry has also accused Kyiv of blowing up the Kakhovka HPP facilities which led to “the flooding of significant territories”. According to Shoigu, Ukraine’s goal was to weaken the positions of Russian troops in the Kherson direction.
“Kyiv has also started working on building defensive positions on the right bank of the Dnipro River, which means they intend to go on the defensive [there],” he claimed.
The last time the Russian Defence Ministry reported on its losses in Ukraine was on 21 September 2022. Back then, the ministry claimed that 5,937 Russian servicemen had been killed since the start of the war.
At the end of May 2023, journalists for BBC Russians News and Mediazona confirmed the deaths of over 24,000 Russian servicemen in the Ukraine war, using open source data. They noted that the list compiled by them did not include many names, saying that the real number of those killed in the war in Ukraine could be twice as high, or higher.
