Thread by @clement_molin

Are Russian 🇷🇺 and Ukrainian 🇺🇦 losses sustainable ? What does OSINT tells us of their strategy ?

Lets dive into geolocated losses throughout the war and the two most recent battles, Pokrovsk and Kursk battles.

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What are my sources ?

I’m not using Oryx anymore for one main reason : there is only one picture at a time and many duplicates.

I’m using 2 tools, @lost_warinua , an account mapping geolocated Ukrainian and Russian losses on a map, @WarSpotting, which is doing a very good work of classification :
- Date of the loss
- Multiple videos/photos evidences
- Does not count abandoned/damaged armour
- Has a reliable website

Here are some statistics from War Spotting : 3 228 russian tanks have been destroyed, for 3 625 for Oryx. War Spotting, despite counting only Russian losses, is an example of reliable work.

I’ll also use two other sources. @naalsio26 , a guy working into War Spotting team and who made entire excel sheets of Ukrainian and Russian losses on some specific battles. Including Kursk, Avdiivka, Krinky or the 2023 counter-offensive.

I’ve also looked into @lostarmour, a pro Russian source to verify all the Ukrainian losses. Many Ukrainian losses are in Lost warinua map but not in lostarmour’s one.

First thing to do is to look at some statistics.

Russia lost 17 435 pieces of equipment, but we will focus on tanks and IFV's.

Here is a good visual, also from @WarSpotting showing the monthly russian losses of the war so far.

You can see there are more in 2024 than in 2023, but less than in 2022.

There is one main explanation, Russia didn't lose that much equipement in 2023 because it was defending half of the year (in the south), attacking with infantry in Bakhmout and only began attacking Avdiivka in october.

I havn't found a reliable analysis of ukrainian losses...

Now, lets dive into some battles to see if they have been costly for one or another side.

Lets begin with the most recent battle, the one in Kursk oblast.

Russia lost 343 destroyed vehicles
Ukraine lost 232 destroyed vehicles

But the most important thing is IFV's, IMV's and tanks.
(279 destroyed + captured for Russia)
(239 destroyed + captured for Ukraine).

Now, look at the map of destroyed russian vehicles. You can see they lost a lot of them during their counter-offensive in the western flank of Kursk salliant.
Ukraine lost vehicles on the western and northern part of this front.

What analysis could we do of these facts ?

While Ukraine was attacking, it lost many vehicles, more or less two mechanized brigade worth of equipment (3 mechanized bat (~90 vehicles) + 1 tank bat (~30 tanks).

Russia lost more vehicles in its counter-attack, worth noting Ukraine lost mainly IMV's like MaxxPro, Bushmaster and others while Russia lost many tanks and BTR's recently.

Now, lets look at Pokrovsk front line, from Vuhledar to Ocheretyne since a year and a month.

Russia lost 1 690 destroyed vehicles
Ukraine lost 344 destroyed vehicles + 50 captured

From my own data, they took 2 162 s/km of terrain in the area since october 2023.

On this data, there are 1 444 combat losses for Russia (tanks, IFVs, IMVs).

Ukraine lost 312 tanks/IMVs/IFVs. One destroyed ukrainian vehicle is equivalent to 4.6 destroyed russian vehicles. Here is the map of Ukrainian losses. One observation : there are everywhere.

Now, if we look at where the russian losses are, it is very different. They are concentrated in a few parts of the frontline.

First image is a general view of Naalsio geolocated losses, second are the most recent one, third shows nothern Avdiivka direction and fifth Novomykhailivka-Marinka direction.

Everyone should understand Russia lost many vehicles during the winter of 2023, while attacking strongly fortified Donetsk frontline. Now, they are losing less vehicles, in particular near Pokrovsk front.

However, this is still too much to claim any victory or any breakthrough.

It's not even difficult to see where the main fightings occured during this war, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, and the south and eastern frontlines.

Here are Kharkiv Bakhmut, Izium and Oskil (looking east, north ison the left) frontlines.

You can see all verified geolocated losses of the war. This helps understanding where are the main fightings.

I can also add Kherson (+Mykolaiv and Krinky), Orikhiv, Velika Novosilka and Marioupol battles, showing losses during ukrainian counter-offensives and the resistance Russia put up to stop these assaults.

Now, you may ask me what is the point of this thread ?

We saw statistics and maps of losses. We saw most of the losses are concentrated along the frontline, in particular the eastern one.

Lets compare and analyse those losses.

2 main things to compare. French army has 400 tanks and a ukrainian brigade is most of the time composed of 130 vehicles.

In Zaporizhia in 2023, Ukraine lost 3.5 brigades (without damaged equipment) worth of equipment.
In Kursk in 2024, Ukraine lost 2.8 brigades worth of equipment.
In Pokrovsk in 2024, Ukraine lost 3 brigades worth of equipment.

If we do the analysis with the tanks, Ukraine lost two time what the french army has since the beggining of the full scale war.

Now, if we do the same analysis for Russia, taking into account NATO countries tank to compare :

Germany (400) + France (400) + UK (400) = 1 200 tanks, Russia lost 2.6 times the number of tanks of those 3 combined...

In Pokrovsk, it lost more tanks than the french army has.

The number of equipment lost in Donbass, Kharkiv and the south of Ukraine is just an image of how much soldiers died in the fightings.

Both sides have lost hundred of thousands of soldiers (killed, wounded, captured...) and this will impact generations in both countries.

It is now clear those losses cannot be replaced. You can see it on the frontline by the type of equipment Russia is using. It has also been aknowledged russian storage bases are emptying.

https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1866916233230074243

Each day in 2024, Russia is losing around 15 pieces of equipments in Ukraine. This year, it only managed to take controll of Donetsk suburbs and some 10-20k towns in south Donetsk direction.

Losses are incredibly high and there are no breakthrough, even with manpower and artillery shortages for Ukraine.

When analysing attrition and "progress", people should have in mind both sides are suffering from too much equipment losses and KIA.

Every progress (some s/km everyday) is made thanks to the sacrifice of tens of tanks/IFVs and hundred of KIA/WIA soldiers daily.

This is the end of this thread, using existing OSINT tools. I recommend everyone to follow to @lost_warinua and @WarSpotting.

Don't fortget to follow @atummundi (I'm posting there also).

linkedin.com/posts/cl%C3%A9…

Small correction of the difference between Oryx and War Spotting, I messed up that part. Both lists are similar, but war spotting has a stricter analysis grid of losses.

War Spotting is also not counting abandonned equipment when there is nothing new for some time.

@lost_warinua @WarSpotting *Small correction of the difference between Oryx and War Spotting, I messed up that part. Both lists are similar, but war spotting has a stricter analysis grid of losses.

War Spotting is also not counting abandonned equipment when there is nothing new for some time.