The huge losses of Russian military vehicles documented in 8 weeks in Ukraine

@DefAviation ES 4·21·2022 · 22:28 0

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, is 8 weeks old today. And the result in losses could not be more disastrous for the invaders.

An image that symbolizes what is happening with Russian tanks in Ukraine
Russia has already lost more than 500 tanks in Ukraine: this affects its military forces

On Russian losses, Ukrainian sources regularly release their own figures. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry released its estimates this morning that include 171 planes, 151 helicopters, 166 drones, 829 tanks, 8 ships, 1,508 trucks, 2,118 tactical personnel carriers and more vehicles of other types. The figures seem very high to me and may be a form of war propaganda, so I take them with caution.

There is another independent source that is documenting the losses of both sides since the beginning of the invasion: a href="https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oryxspioenkop.com, a project put together by Stijn Mitzer, Joost Oliemans Kemal, and Dan and Jakub Janovsky. Unlike the estimates published by each side, this source publishes images of all the losses it indexes, so its figures are more reliable (obviously, the real figures will be higher than those published by that website, since not all the losses have yet been documented).

Russia's military losses

In its latest update, at the time of this writing, Russia has already lost 3,068 military vehicles in this invasion. That number breaks down like this:

• 528 tanks.
• 312 armored fighting vehicles.
• 558 infantry fighting vehicles.
• 101 armored personnel carriers.
• 24 mine protected vehicles (MRAP).
• 95 infantry mobility vehicles.
• 63 command posts and communication stations.
• 115 engineering vehicles and equipment.
• 12 heavy mortars.
• 56 towed artillery systems.
• 98 self-propelled howitzers.
• 58 multiple rocket launchers (MLRS).
• 4 anti-aircraft guns.
• 53 surface-to-air missile launchers.
• 10 radars.
• 7 jamming and deception systems..
• 23 aircrafts (6 fighters, 16 attack planes and 1 transport plane).
• 35 helicopters (of these, 20 were attack helicopters).
• 39 unmanned aerial vehicles.
• 4 ships.
• 2 logistics trains.
• 857 trucks, SUVs and miscellaneous vehicles.

Las pérdidas militares de Ucrania

Así mismo, Oryxspioenkop.com Ucrania ha perdido 874 vehículos militares durante esta invasión. Esa cifra se desglosa así:

• 134 tanks.
• 79 armored fighting vehicles.
• 91 infantry fighting vehicles.
• 53 armored personnel carriers.
• 69 infantry mobility vehicles.
• 12 engineering vehicles and equipment.
• 26 towed artillery systems.
• 25 self-propelled howitzers.
• 15 multiple rocket launchers (MLRS).
• 2 anti-aircraft guns.
• 2 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
• 43 surface-to-air missile launchers.
• 18 radars.
• 7 jamming and deception systems.
• 18 aircrafts (8 fighters, 8 attack planes and 2 transport planes).
• 5 helicopters.
• 17 ships.
• 249 trucks, SUVs and miscellaneous vehicles.

As you can see, Ukraine's biggest disadvantage is in naval losses, due to the much greater dominance of the Russian Navy. The documented losses of Ukrainian planes are surely very low, because a part of the fleet was destroyed at its bases and these photos have not been published since they are military installations. As for the rest of the losses, it is striking to see that in land vehicles, Russia is losing much more material than Ukraine. It may be because most of the artwork documenting these losses comes from Ukrainian sources, but even so, the disparity in figures is striking.

That Russia has lost more than 3,000 military vehicles in just 8 weeks in an unprecedented disaster. It is also about losses that greatly diminish the operability of the Russian Armed Forces, as we have already seen here. Ukraine has put up a very effective resistance using portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons supplied by the West, and that goes a long way to explaining the disparity in numbers.

At this point, it can be concluded that Russia cannot continue to undertake an invasion with such high losses for much longer. These figures reinforce the analysis that some media have published that Putin may be speeding up Russian operations in the Donbass to have a victory to sell by May 9, on the occasion of the anniversary celebrations of the German defeat in World War II. World, which in Russia include large military parades. If that is confirmed, of course, Russia will achieve much lower goals with this invasion than it initially intended. Let us remember that on February 24 he assured that he intended to "denazify" and "demilitarize" Ukraine, cynical terms to disguise an invasion aimed at conquering an entire independent and democratic country and turning it into a puppet of a Russia that Putin has turned into a true dictatorship.