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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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As Russia celebrated Victory Day and marked the Soviet role in defeating Nazi Germany, Moscow's forces continued to suffer high losses of military vehicles and troops in its invasion of Ukraine, according to Kyiv.
In its update on Wednesday, the Ukrainian armed forces said that over the previous 24 hours, Russian forces had lost two tanks, 18 armored vehicles and 690 troops. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry about the figures which have not been independently verified.
These losses add to Russia's equipment challenges that were seemingly evidenced by its scaled-down display in Moscow's Red Square during Victory Day celebrations. They also come ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has been talked about for weeks.
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Kyiv's estimates of Russian losses of tanks have risen to 3,736, and of armored vehicles to 7,275, since the start of President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion in February 2022. The open-source intelligence website Oryx puts Russian losses of armored vehicles of tanks at 838 and 1,938 respectively, as of Wednesday.
Regarding Russian troop losses, Kyiv's latest estimate stands at 196,310. Other estimates are much lower. In February, the U.S. said that up to 43,000 Russian troops had been killed in action, according to a leaked Pentagon report carried by U.S. news outlets.
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Earlier in May, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since December, half of them mercenaries fighting for the Wagner Group headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Russia has not updated its tally of troops killed in action since September 2022, when it was just under 6,000.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry also said on Wednesday that Russian attacks had taken place across nine Ukrainian regions over the previous 24 hours, in which two civilians had been killed and five others injured.
Russian troops launched 25 Kalibr and Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles and nine S-300 surface-to-air missiles in Ukraine overnight Wednesday, according to Ukraine's military.
Since late April, Russia has intensified large-scale series of missile and drone attacks. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Moscow was looking to launch "almost daily" missile strikes to create the impression that it is stopping the counteroffensive expected from Ukraine's forces in the coming weeks.
The missile strikes were on a smaller scale than during its campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure during the fall and winter and were "likely" not having a significant impact on Ukraine's forces, the think tank said on Tuesday.
During curtailed Victory Day celebrations in Russia, an old T-34 was the only main battle tank on show in Moscow's Red Square while most of the 8,000 military personnel reportedly in the parade were auxiliaries, paramilitary forces and cadets, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in its update on Wednesday.
Russian authorities likely refrained from fielding more equipment "because they want to avoid domestic criticism about prioritizing parades over combat operations," the update added.
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