Russia loses 21 tanks, 23 APVs and 8 artillery systems in one day: Ukraine

Russian forces lost 21 tanks in a single day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Sunday.

Writing on Facebook, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that 23 additional armored personnel carriers and eight artillery systems had been removed in the past 24 hours.

According to Ukraine’s tally, this brings total Russian tank losses to 3,532. Kyiv authorities have repeatedly shared images of destroyed Russian tanks on social media.

Many estimates vary, but Dutch open-source verification outlet Oryx put visually confirmed Russian tank losses at 1,847 as of Sunday. The website lists 1,101 as “destroyed” and 550 as “captured” by Ukrainian forces.

On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had destroyed 8,338 Ukrainian tanks and armored fighting vehicles since Feb. 24, 2022. A combined tally of Ukrainian losses of Russian tanks and armored fighting vehicles brings their total to 10 385 for the same period.

In mid-February, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Russia had lost up to 50% of its pre-war tank fleet in the first nine months of combat. Just before this report was published, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank said that Russia probably lost half of the tanks it deployed during the war.

Last month, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would increase its production of military vehicles, including modern tanks, after Western aid deliveries to Kyiv.

“It is clear that in this case it is natural for us to increase the production of various armaments, including modern tanks,” he said on February 9.

On February 15, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia’s military production was a “critical weakness” made worse by the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“Production is almost certainly below Russian Defense Ministry requests to fund the Ukrainian campaign and restore its longer-term defense needs,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.

Also on Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff said 710 Russian fighters had been killed in the past 24 hours.

The death toll in Kiev is generally higher than Western estimates, and on February 17, 2023, the British Ministry of Defense said that up to 60,000 Russian military fighters and mercenaries had probably been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of total war.

Approximate losses could amount to 200,000 for Russia, the ministry added.

On Friday, the BBC, along with Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, said it had confirmed the deaths of 17,375 Russian soldiers since the start of the war last year.

Excluding militia fighters in the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, a “most conservative estimate” of Russian deaths in Ukraine would be around 35,000, the BBC said.

A total of 157,500 casualties, including those who are dead, missing or disabled, were likely to have been suffered by Russia, the BBC’s Russian Service said.

Newsweek contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.