“By my reckoning”
Putin speaks of huge losses on the part of Ukraine
06/13/2023, 06:16 p.m
According to Western experts, the Ukrainian troops have not yet reached the main line of defense of the Russian armed forces in their counter-offensive. According to Kremlin chief Putin, the losses are said to be horrendous. His statements partially contradict the statements of his own people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken of catastrophic losses for Ukraine in its counter-offensive. “By my calculations, Ukraine has lost 25 to 30 percent of foreign-supplied technology,” he said in a meeting with Russian military correspondents. In addition, the losses of the Ukrainians are ten times higher than on the Russian side. “The enemy was not successful in one sector of the front,” Putin said. Kiev had previously reported the recapture of several settlements in the south of the country. International experts and Russian military bloggers recently gave different assessments than the Russian President and spoke of minor successes by the Ukrainian armed forces. The field commander Alexander Chodakowski, who was fighting on the Russian side, had recently contradicted Moscow.
According to the Kremlin boss, half of the Ukrainian losses are dead and seriously injured, who could not be made operational again. He didn’t want to give numbers. Instead, he referred to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. After all, Putin was “specific” when it came to battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. During its offensive, Ukraine lost over 160 main battle tanks and more than 360 armored vehicles, he claimed. The Russian President put his own losses at 54 tanks, some of which could be repaired. The information cannot be independently verified.
“If this continues, Russia will soon be fighting aliens”
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow had also recently spoken of high Ukrainian losses and reported that all attacks had been repelled. However, the information provided by the ministry has repeatedly turned out to be exaggerated and in some cases incorrect. The head of the Wagner mercenary unit, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had nothing but ridicule for the authority’s announcement of the gigantic number of kills. When Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the shooting down of eight Leopard battle tanks a week ago, he commented sarcastically: “Even Baron Munchausen turns green with envy.” If things continue like this, Russia will soon be fighting aliens.
How much truth there is in Putin’s statements is unclear. Both parties to the conflict are engaged in an information war. In the West, the Ukrainian claims about Russia’s losses are also generally considered to be exaggerated. After a champagne reception on the national holiday of Russia on Monday, the head of the Kremlin was still rather meek with injured soldiers in the hospital. When he visited and honored them, he dispensed with standard phrases such as “Victory will be ours” or “Everything is going according to plan”.
ISW: “Hard fight” for Ukrainian troops
Kiev had recently spoken of six liberated villages in the Donetsk region and one in the Zaporizhia region – more than 90 square kilometers in total. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj spoke of a “tough fight” – also because rain is currently softening the soil. Heavy military equipment hardly makes any headway in this way. After days of offensive actions by the Ukrainian military, the initiative clearly lies with Kiev: Moscow and the Russian army are on the defensive, but according to experts, Kiev’s troops have not yet advanced to the Russians’ main line of defense. With tactical operations in the mined area, Ukraine is attempting to advance to the well-secured Russian lines and find weak points in order to break through there.
The experts at the US Institute for War Studies (ISW) also state that there can be no talk of a breakthrough so far. The Ukrainian advances would also be made more difficult by the Russian dominance in the airspace. The Ukrainians suffered losses against some “of the best-prepared Russian forces,” according to the ISW analysis. “The Russian military remains dangerous and Ukrainian troops face an uphill battle.”