Russia lost more than 600 troops in a single day in Avdiivka

Russia lost more than 600 troops in a single day, Kyiv’s military said in an update on Wednesday, amid Ukraine’s grinding counteroffensive.

Moscow’s forces have lost a total of 290,050 fighters since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and 620 military personnel in the past 24 hours, according to figures released by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russia has also lost 4,981 tanks and 6,944 artillery systems in the ongoing war, the update said.

Estimates of casualty figures vary, with Kyiv’s figures usually exceeding those of its Western allies. Russia itself rarely releases figures on troop losses. In September 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu admitted heavy losses of Moscow’s troops in the war.

A joint investigation by the BBC’s Russian Service and independent Russian news outlet Mediazona on October 13 has so far identified the names of 234,412 Russian military personnel who have died in the war in Ukraine. It says that the actual number of losses is higher than the figures stated in the investigation.

Russia’s death toll continues to rise amid Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive to recapture its occupied territories.

An intense battle is going on for the city of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The city has been the target of Russian aggression since 2014, when Putin illegally annexed the southern Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk began clashing with Kyiv’s forces.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said Russian forces likely launched a significant and ongoing offensive effort around Avdiivka on October 10.

The ISW said in its latest update that Moscow’s forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka on Tuesday but did not make any confirmed advances. Ukrainian military officials said that the intensity of Russian attacks near the town has decreased.

Last week, Radu Hossu, a political strategist who posts about the war in Ukraine on X, formerly known as Twitter, said in a summary of the offensive in Avdiivka that hundreds of Russian infantrymen were being “pulverized” by Ukrainian artillery.

“It is absolutely incredible and almost unimaginable how the Russians put zero value on their troops, attacking totally disorganized and senselessly in an attempt to encircle the fortress town on the edge of Donetsk,” wrote Hossu.

On Monday, Putin claimed that Ukraine’s losses during its counteroffensive are eight times higher than those of Russia, inadvertently revealing that Russian losses since June exceed 11,000 military personnel.

Kyiv similarly does not release updated death tolls. In April, a leaked U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment estimated that Kyiv had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 dead.

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