By ZOE STROZEWSKI
11/9/22
Newsweek
Russia has purportedly lost hundreds of men and dozens of military vehicles and pieces of equipment in the span of one day, according to the latest estimate from Ukraine.
In a new update shared on Twitter Wednesday, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that 780 Russian personnel had been killed in the past day. This brings the total number of Russian deaths up to about 77,950 from when the war started on February 24 through November 9, according to Ukraine.
Additionally, Ukraine said that Russia lost 15 tanks, 12 armored combat vehicles, two multiple launch rocket systems, two air defense systems, seven drones and 11 vehicles and fuel tanks.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry shared a quote from abolitionist and journalist William Lloyd Garrison that read: “With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments.”
Newsweek was not able to independently verify the Russian losses and reached out to Russia’s Defense Ministry for confirmation and comment.
Ukraine’s newest update on Russian losses came after a high-ranking unit in the Russian navy reportedly lost roughly 300 men in a recent offensive in the war-torn country. The Moscow Times reported Monday that the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade was involved in an attack last week on a Ukrainian military garrison in Pavlivka, a town southwest of the recently annexed Donetsk region.
In the wake of the attack, members of the elite naval unit reportedly complained in a letter shared online by a handful of Russian media figures about “baffling” leadership decisions that they say led to the alleged staggering infantry losses.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday denied that the unit had faced “high, pointless losses in people and equipment,” according to Reuters. The ministry also rejected claims in the letter that military leaders for the unit had shown incompetence, adding that the brigade had actually advanced more than three miles into Ukrainian defensive positions over the course of 10 days.
“Due to the competent actions of the unit commanders, the losses of marines for the given period do not exceed 1 percent of combat strength, and 7 percent wounded, a significant part of whom have already returned to duty,” Russian state-owned news agency Ria quoted the ministry as saying, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pushed back on the Russian denials.
Separately, a Russian reservist told The Guardian on Monday that about 440 Russian reservists sent to fight in Ukraine’s Luhansk region were killed by Ukrainian shelling after unit commanders abandoned them.