Russia Lost 1,090 Troops, 51 Artillery Systems, 72 Vehicles in One Day—Kyiv

Russia lost more than 1,000 soldiers, 51 artillery systems and 72 vehicles in a single day, according to Ukraine's military, as Moscow ramps up the pressure on the northeastern frontlines.

Russia lost 1,090 troops in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian armed forces said on Wednesday, bringing Kyiv's count of total troop losses to 385,230. In the same period, Russia lost 51 artillery systems and 32 armored personnel carriers, as well as a further 40 vehicles and fuel tanks, by Kyiv's count.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish tallies of their own losses. Moscow's Defense Ministry does not provide a running count of Ukraine's reported casualties, but said on Tuesday that Kyiv had lost more than 840 troops in the past day. In total, Ukraine has lost more than 14,847 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, and 7,902 field artillery systems, Moscow said.

Newsweek could not independently verify either count and has reached out to authorities on both sides for comment via email. The figures, however, are an indication of the eyewatering cost of almost two years of war for Moscow and Kyiv, with few prospects for an end to the conflict any time soon.

"It is very difficult to determine casualties in an ongoing conflict since both sides will try to keep the data secret and inflate the number of adversary casualties," Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, U.K., told Newsweek in May 2023.

In mid-November 2023, the U.K.'s armed forces minister, James Heappey, told British lawmakers that London believed around 302,000 Russian personnel had been killed or wounded since the start of all-out war. Losses of around 300,000 fighters is a "quite believable" figure, Frederik Mertens, an analyst with the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, told Newsweek at the time.

The casualties are not likely to ease. Russia launched its assault on the Donetsk town of Avdiivka in early October, paying a heavy price in casualties and in equipment losses for slow, but steady, advancements around the Ukrainian stronghold to the northwest of the regional capital, Donetsk City.

Ukrainian forces "repelled" 37 attacks across the Donetsk front line around Avdiivka in the past day, the Ukrainian military said on Wednesday. Ukrainian soldiers also fought off 16 Russian attacks around the leveled village of Marinka, to the southwest of Avdiivka, Kyiv said. Russian forces captured Marinka in late December.

Moscow has now also focused its efforts on the northeastern frontlines along the borders of Ukraine's Kharkiv and Luhansk borders, Western analysts say.

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, told Ukrainian media on Tuesday that Russia hopes to reach the Zherebets River, close to the Kharkiv and Luhansk borders, its forces gradually working westward.

Russia is maintaining its pattern of overnight aerial assaults, launching 20 Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones from several sites overnight into Wednesday morning, Ukraine's air force said in a statement. 14 of the drones were destroyed, Kyiv said.

Moscow also fired three Iskander-M ballistic missiles from Kremlin-controlled Crimea and Russia's Voronezh region, Kyiv said on Wednesday.

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