By Brendan Cole
Newsweek
Aug 5, 2024
Russia continues to pay a high cost in troops and equipment during its full-scale invasion, according to Kyiv, the recent figures of which outline losses of several dozen artillery systems—as well as two warplanes.
Sunday’s update by Ukraine’s military noted how two aircraft had been among the equipment losses Russia had suffered over the previous day.
This followed what Ukraine’s General Staff said was a drone strike on the Morozovsk airfield, a Russian military base in the Rostov region near the Ukrainian border, which is home to Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-34 glide bombers.
Kyiv said that the strikes hit warehouses filled with ammunition, including those hosting guided aerial bombs which Moscow has used on Ukraine for months. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
The Institute for the Study of War ( ISW ) said footage of secondary explosions near the airfield was consistent with strikes against an ammunition depot. Without specifying which ones in its figures, Ukraine said that Russia had lost two planes that day, taking the total aircraft losses for the war to 365.
In July, Ukrainian drones had hit the same military airfield with footage on social media showing smoke rising above the site.
To choke off Moscow’s war machine, Ukraine has recently targeted air bases inside Russian territory, including the Engels-2 base housing long-range bombers in the Saratov region, and the Kushchyovskaya air base in Krasnodar.
Kyiv has also hit air bases in Crimea, with Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk recently saying that two Russian air bases in the occupied peninsula “are effectively without planes.”
Also among Ukraine’s recent tallies was its Monday update which said that Russia had lost 69 artillery systems, taking the total since the start of the war to 16,345.
As of Monday, the tracker website Oryx, which monitors Russian equipment losses, said Moscow had lost 794 pieces of self-propelled artillery and 393 pieces of towed artillery. The proof required of video and still images means that the real figures are likely to be much higher, Oryx says.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday that Russia had lost 1,180 personnel over the previous day taking the total number of casualties, which includes those both killed and injured, to 582,910.
The British Defense Ministry said Saturday that Russian daily casualties have decreased from a maximum of 1,262 in May to 1,140 in July because Russian forces are consolidating positions on the Kharkiv axis.
However, the last three months have been “the costliest” since the start of the war, the British MOD said. Russia has not updated its casualty numbers since September 2022 when it said it was just under 6,000.