Russia Rapidly Approaching Three Grim Milestones, According to Kyiv

Russian losses in Ukraine are fast approaching new milestones, by Kyiv's count, as questions loom over Western aid ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive in the late spring.

Russian casualties in the war-torn country will soon hit 450,000, according to updated figures published by Kyiv's military on Sunday. Moscow lost 650 troops in the past day, Ukraine's General Staff said, bringing the current purported total to 442,170.

Moscow's forces lost 15 tanks in the previous 24 hours, Ukraine also said on Sunday. According to Kyiv's military, Russia has now lost nearly 7,000 tanks and close to 15,000 vehicles and fueling tankers, used to keep armored vehicles running.

Newsweek could not independently verify Ukraine's figures, and war-time losses are notoriously difficult to pin down. The Russian Defense Ministry has been contacted for comment via email.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine typically offers up details of their own casualty counts, nor how much military equipment they have lost in the more than 25 months of all-out war. Experts suggest that Moscow and Kyiv inflate their tallies of their opponent's losses, and downplay or skirt around the toll that years of war have taken on their own militaries.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine had lost 15,650 tanks and other armored combat vehicles since February 2022, but did not offer specific figures on Kyiv's total casualties, nor how many fuel tankers it had lost.

Casualty counts are one indicator of the human cost of the war, despite the uncertainty on how accurate the figures are.

If Ukraine's tally includes overall casualties, as well as Russian fighters who are missing or died in non-combat circumstances, it is a "perfectly plausible" tally, Nick Reynolds, a research fellow for land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, told Newsweek in February.

Russia has likely sustained more than 335,000 casualties since February 2022, the British government assessed in early March. This "almost certainly reflects Russia's commitment to mass and attritional warfare," the U.K. Defense Ministry said.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier in March that Ukraine had sustained approximately 71,000 casualties since January 2024. This was very similar to the Russian casualty figures put forward by Ukraine's military—Kyiv's tally at the time put their enemy's casualties at approximately 72,000 since the start of the year.

Approximately 31,000 soldiers have died fighting for Ukraine against Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in late February. Shoigu said in late 2023 that Kyiv had sustained 383,000 casualties since February 2022, according to domestic state media reporting.

The losses, despite caution around specifics, are extensive on both sides. But Kyiv has warned that Moscow is likely to start a new offensive in late May or during the summer, and that it is amassing new troops for the effort.

Future aid from the U.S.—Ukraine's single-largest source of military assistance—still hangs in the balance. A new package worth $60 billion has been stuck in Congress for months.

The Pentagon unveiled a "short-term stop gap" tranche of aid worth $300 million earlier in March, but stressed it would be fall short of addressing Ukraine's needs for the coming months.

"If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimeter artillery rounds," Zelensky recently told The Washington Post.

"It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps," Zelensky added.

Western analysts and Ukrainian officials have said delays in crucial Western aid have hamstrung operations and Kyiv's ability to fend off Russia's slow but steady gains.

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