Russia Loses 960 Troops, 124 Vehicles, 51 Artillery Systems in a Day: Kyiv

Russia lost 960 troops, a combined total of 124 armored combat vehicles, military vehicles and fuel tanks, and 51 artillery systems in a single day, Kyiv's military said in an update on Tuesday.

As part of its daily update on the war, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces posts figures on Russia's troop and equipment losses. Moscow lost 960 soldiers over the past 24 hours, according to the military's latest casualty toll of Russian troops—bringing the total to 377,820.

Russia has also lost a total of 6,214 tanks, 11,548 armored combat vehicles, 11,956 vehicles and fuel tanks, 8,947 artillery systems, and 331 military jets in the ongoing war, the update said. Newsweek couldn't independently verify Kyiv's figures and contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment via email on Tuesday.

Estimates of casualty numbers vary, with Ukraine's figures usually exceeding those of its Western allies. Moscow rarely shares information on the number of casualties it has sustained in the war.

In September 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 5,937 troops had been killed since the war began. The defense ministry has since reported casualty numbers a further three times, confirming the loss of another 162 troops, the BBC's Russian Service reported.

On January 12, a joint investigation by the BBC's Russian Service and independent Russian news outlet Mediazona identified the names of 41,731 Russian military personnel who have died in the war in Ukraine since February 2022. It said that the actual number of losses was higher than the figures stated in the investigation.

The news outlets added that Russian President Vladimir Putin's convict army is making up a significant proportion of Moscow's losses in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Reports suggest that a lack of training by Russia's military has contributed greatly to Moscow's death toll in Ukraine.

The independent Russian-language news outlet Vazhnye Istorii (iStories) reported on January 18 that, in the fall of 2022, Russia's military command threw thousands of unprepared soldiers onto the front line in Ukraine in an attempt to stop a Ukrainian offensive on Svatove, a city in the eastern Luhansk region.

One parent of a Russian soldier drafted under Putin's partial-mobilization decree in September 2022 told the outlet that her 23-year-old son was captured and forced to fight in Ukraine.

"Under pressure, he was sent [to the front], by force. He didn't want to," 51-year-old Lyudmila Khovalkina said.

"The guys absolutely did not want to go and were indignant: 'We have families. We work, although we receive miserable wages, we live and will live on them. But we don't need war," Khovalkina said. She added that her son wrote his last message to her from somewhere near Svatove, that he had inadequate military equipment, and suddenly stopped contacting her.

Like Moscow, Kyiv does not provide updated information on its war casualties. A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment leaked in April 2023 said that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 dead.

Shoigu said in December 2023 that Ukraine has lost more than 383,000 troops since the war began. Newsweek could not independently verify the figures.

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