In just two weeks, Ukraine has lost almost 5,500 troops, including over 2,000 killed, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Monday while delivering an update on the conflict with Ukraine to President Vladimir Putin.
The minister made his second report to the Russian leader in as many days. On Sunday, he confirmed that Russian and allied forces had assumed full control of the territory that the government of the Lugansk People’s Republic claims as its own after the capture of the city of Lisichansk. The Monday in-person report provided additional details of the outcome of the operation.
According to the Russian minister, Ukrainian troops sustained 5,469 casualties over the last two weeks, including 2,218 fatalities. The fighting also cost Kiev a significant amount of hardware, including 12 warplanes, long-range six air defense missile systems, 97 rocket artillery launchers and almost 200 tanks and other armor.
Ukrainian troops abandoned some of the weapons in Lisichansk, including almost 40 vehicles, he said.
Earlier, Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, reported suffering heavy losses in the east, with an average of 200 casualties per day. Kiev claimed its troops were vastly outgunned by Russia and its allies in artillery and urged Western nations to speed up delivery of promised military aid to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia will shift the main focus of its war in Ukraine to trying to seize all of the Donetsk region after capturing neighbouring Luhansk, the Luhansk region’s governor has said.
Governor Serhiy Haidai told Reuters in an interview that he expected the city of Sloviansk and the town of Bakhmut, in particular, to come under attack as Russia tries to take full control of what is known as the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president has acknowledged that his forces have withdrawn from the bombed-out city of Lysychansk, but pledged late to regain control of the lost territory with the help of long-range Western weapons.
“If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in firepower, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
“That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons.”
President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Russian troops on “liberating” the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, a significant milestone for Moscow in its military campaign.
In a televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin said the troops involved in the operation to capture the region should rest but that other military units should continue fighting.
The Ukrainian flag has been raised again on Snake Island in the Black Sea, a Ukrainian military spokeswoman said, after Russian troops withdrew from the strategic outpost last week.
“The territory [Snake Island] has been returned to the jurisdiction of Ukraine,” Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, told a news conference.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow would respond in kind to Bulgaria’s expulsion of 70 Russian diplomats.
Russia’s ambassador to Bulgaria, a European Union and NATO member state and once a close ally of Russia, said last week she would ask Moscow to close its embassy in Sofia over the expulsions.
