Putin keeps having problems in Ukraine: On day 315 of the war, the number of Russian soldiers killed in the recent Ukrainian missile attack continues to rise.
Meanwhile, the battlefield remains fairly unchanged as both sides are trying to combat their adversary and the winter weather.
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The Ukrainian HIMARS Strike
On New Year’s Eve, the Ukrainian military intelligence managed to pinpoint a concentration of Russian troops in a school building that had been converted into makeshift barracks due to the use of mobile phones. Soon thereafter, the Ukrainian military targeted the building with M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), completely destroying it. It later became apparent that the Russian forces had been using the building both as makeshift barracks and as an ammunition depot.
“Given the extent of the damage, there is a realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike creating secondary explosions,” the British Military Intelligence assessed.
Located in Makiivka, which is approximately 8 miles from Avdiivka, the building was very close to the front. The Ukrainian town is in the Donbas and further to the south of Bakhmut. The sector is one of the most fiercely contested on the battlefield, with high losses on both sides.
“The Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate,” the British Military Intelligence added.
As the days pass, the Russian Ministry of Defense is updating the casualty figures from the Ukrainian missile strike on the closing days of 2022. Moscow is now confirming that 89 Russian troops were killed, an increase of 26 killed in action from the previous figure of 63. The very fact that the Kremlin has to go public with as high as a figure as 89 indicates that the actual number of casualties must be in the hundreds.
The Russian Casualties in Ukraine
Even without the HIMARS strike on the Russian makeshift barracks in the Donbas, the Russian forces are suffering horrendous casualties on a daily basis. In the first four days of 2023 alone, the Russian military has lost almost 3,000 men killed, according to official Ukrainian estimates.
To be sure, Moscow has the capacity to lose that many troops and continue to fight—indeed, a high rate of casualties is part of the Russian way of war, after all—but it is also taking a toll on the morale of the Russian military and society.
Overall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that as of Tuesday, Ukrainian forces have killed approximately 108,910 Russian troops (and wounded approximately twice to thrice that number), destroyed 283 fighter, attack, bomber, and transport jets, 270 attack and transport helicopters, 3,038 tanks, 2,039 artillery pieces, 6,106 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 424 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 16 boats and cutters, 4,745 vehicles and fuel tanks, 215 anti-aircraft batteries, 1,842 tactical unmanned aerial systems, 181 special equipment platforms, such as bridging vehicles, and four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems, and 723 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.
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Expert Biography: A 19FortyFive Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
