Moscow on Friday put out the casualties suffered by the Russian troops in Ukraine four weeks after it invaded its neighbour from all sides on February 24.
Checks by The New Diplomat indicate that as the bloody hostilities in the Eastern European country drag on, both Russia and the Western backed Ukraine have been attempting to claim victory at any slightest opportunity to do so amid ongoing media war and misinformation concerns.
Senior Russian military official, Sergey Rudskoy while briefing journalists in Moscow, Friday, claimed 1,351 Russian troops have been killed and 3,825 wounded, a figure smaller to what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had earlier declared for Russia.
The New Diplomat had reported that NATO a security alliance that comprises 30 nations spurring Ukraine despite not putting a foot on the ground in the war-torn country, had on Wednesday claimed that an estimated 7,000 to 15,000 of the invading Russian soldiers may have been killed in Ukraine.
NATO futher claimed that Russia’s operation is currently bogged down in a grinding military campaign as it has failed to make advance in recent days.
Whereas NATO had been tight-lipped on the casualties suffered by its ally–Ukraine, Russia claimed 14,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 16,000 wounded since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.
This is the second time that Russia has given an account of its military casualties since the war began.
The Russian armed forces gained air dominance and blocked the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mykolaiv, as well as Kherson and most of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Rudskoy, the senior Russian military official, said at the briefing in Moscow.
The Ukrainian air force and air defense system have been “almost completely destroyed” and the country’s navy ceased to exist, Rudskoy claimed.
All 16 Ukraine’s military airfields, as well as 39 ammunition depots, where 70% of all military equipment were stored were hit, he went on to say.
“The Ukrainian army has no organized reserves left,” he claimed, adding that people and units of territorial defense are being mobilized to fight Russian troops.
According to him, “6,595 mercenaries from 62 states” are fighting for the Ukrainian side.
Rudskoy claimed that the Russian armed forces destroyed 1,587 of 2,416 Ukrainian tanks and other armoured vehicles, 112 of 152 fighter jets, 75 of 149 helicopters, 148 of 180 S-300 and Buk M1 air defense systems, and 117 of 300 radars.
He warned that “the Russian military will immediately respond appropriately to attempts to close the airspace over Ukraine.”
He said that the Russian military does not target the objects of Ukraine’s civil infrastructure, claiming that 127 bridges, destroyed in the war zone, were blown up by the “Ukrainian nationalists” to deter the offensive.
He said that Russia gets applications from abroad from people who want to fight for the Russian side.
In total, he claimed, over 23,000 foreigners from 37 countries asked about such a possibility.
“In general, the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed. The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, which allows us to focus on achieving the main goal-the liberation of Donbass,” Rudskoy said.
“Nationalist formations, such as Azov, Aidar, Right Sector became the striking force of the Kyiv regime,” he added.
Russia has continued to suffer a wave of international outrage and sanctions from the EU, US, and UK, among others, since it launched a full-scale offensive in Ukraine, which is now in its fourth week.
