The figures, shared by Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, which falls under the country’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, represent the only estimate currently available on the state of Moscow’s military. However, information about casualties and hardware losses cannot be verified and cannot be fully trusted due to individual government interests.
The Ukrainian government regularly issues updates on Russia’s losses in a conflict that has reached its four-month mark this week.
According to the latest update, on Friday, other losses under the Kremlin’s equipment included 3,645 armored protected vehicles (APV), 75 artillery systems, 241 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) and 2,560 vehicles.
Russia has only issued an official number of fallen troops twice, the latest on March 25, with a figure of 1,351 that was described as far too low by experts at the time.
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Kiev does not disclose such statistics for its own troops or hardware.
However, President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that his army was losing up to 100 soldiers a day, while about 500 were injured.
In an interview with the US television channel Newsmax, Mr Zelenskiy said: “The situation is very difficult: we lose 60 to 100 soldiers a day as killed and about 500 people as wounded in action. So we keep our defensive perimeters.”
Calling Ukraine and its people the “defensive perimeter” for the world against Vladimir Putin’s aggression, he added: “We need to realize who the dark force is – it is Russia.
“And Russia certainly won’t stop in Ukraine.
“The other countries, the former republics of the USSR and the members of the EU – some of them are already members of NATO – are already under threat.”
The fall of the city, once home to more than 100,000 people and now reduced to a wasteland of rubble by Russian artillery, is the Kremlin’s biggest victory since it took the port of Mariupol last month.
It was the latest symbol of Ukrainian resistance in Donbas, but now, Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said, anyone who stayed behind could no longer reach the Ukrainian-occupied territory, as the area was effectively cut off.
The victory means 95 percent of Luhansk province is under Russian and local separatist control.
Russians and separatist forces also control about half of Donetsk.
Kyrylo Budanov, chief of defense intelligence at Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, described the fall of Severodonetsk as a means for Kiev’s forces to regroup on higher ground in neighboring Lysychansk.
He said: “The activities taking place in the Severodonetsk area are a tactical regrouping of our forces.
“This is a pullback to advantageous positions to gain a tactical advantage.”
The head of military intelligence added: “Russia is using the tactic…that was used in Mariupol: to wipe the city off the face of the earth.”