Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces have lost 55 tanks in Ukraine during the course of the past week, according to Ukraine's military.
The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces posts daily updates about Russia's losses on its Facebook page, and on Tuesday it wrote that Moscow has lost 4,174 tanks since Putin launched his war on February 24, 2022.
Fifty-five of those tanks were lost since July 18, and 12 of the tank losses came in the last 24 hours alone. The announcement of these losses comes as the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank reports Ukraine has been making new advances in certain regions during its counteroffensive.
Kyiv's numbers—which include destroyed, damaged and captured tanks—could not be independently verified by Newsweek. The Kremlin rarely comments on losses sustained in the war, but Putin said during a meeting with military bloggers on June 13 that his country had lost 54 tanks in Ukraine. An unnamed U.S. official told the Associated Press that the Russian leader's comments were "not accurate."
According to Ukraine, Russia has also lost 243,220 troops since the beginning of the war, which includes 4,120 lost in the past week. (Those numbers also could not be independently verified by Newsweek.)
On Monday, the ISW wrote in an assessment of the war that Ukraine has reported military advances on the southern flank of Bakhmut, as well as advances in portions of both in the western and eastern parts of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrainian troops have also been making movements in the eastern Donetsk region, according to comments made on Tuesday by Ukrainian General Staff spokesperson Andriy Kovalev.
Ukrainian officials on Tuesday reported that Kyiv's air defenses had shot down all the Russian drones sent to strike the city during an overnight attack. (It was not announced how many Russian drones were reportedly taken down). The attempted assault on Kyiv followed Ukraine's own drone attack on Moscow on Monday that was reported by Russian media.
Russia has successfully carried out attacks on Ukrainian grain facilities over the past week following the Kremlin's announcement that it would not longer extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The end of the grain deal, which allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea during the war with Russia, has raised concerns about global food security.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
The war has cost both sides significant numbers of both military equipment and lives.
A recent tally by Dutch open-source outlet Oryx put Ukraine's tank losses at 587 and Russia's at 2,164. However, Oryx only includes visually confirmed losses, and experts have said its numbers likely only represent a bare minimum.
