‘Grand scale’ destruction of ‘military superpower’ after Russia loses $5bn in equipment

Russia: Footage appears to show explosion in Belgorod

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The comments come as Russian forces have reportedly “almost certainly” failed in its objective to encircle Kyiv. The UK’s Ministry of Defence released their latest intelligence updates on Russian forces in Ukraine on Tuesday.

It stated: “Repeated Russian setbacks and successful counter attacks by Ukrainian forces mean it is almost certain that the Russian offensive has failed in its objective to encircle Kyiv.

“Russian statements regarding a reduction in activity around Kyiv, and report indicating the withdrawal of some Russian units from these areas, may indicate Russia’s acceptance that it has now lost the initiative in the region.”

The statement concluded: “It is highly likely that Russia will seek to divert combat power from the north to their offensive in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east.”

According to senior correspondent Richard Hall, the use of social media during this conflict means that we can have a more meaningful assessment of the scale of damage caused in the conflict to both military sides.

Mr Hall wrote for the Independent that the ability with this conflict to assess “thousands of images and videos of destroyed and abandoned equipment to tell one of the most important stories of this war so far: the destruction of Russian military equipment on a grand scale, and the stalling of a military superpower.”

The scale of destruction is reportedly so high that data analysers have been unable to keep up with the rate of new reports. 

One such analyser, the Oryx Blog, run by military analysts Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans, has attempted to document the total number of Russian military equipment that has been seized or destroyed by Ukrainian forces.

The duo stated that they only assess videos and photographic evidence and so they state that “the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here.”

In the first few weeks of Russia’s “special military operation” Russia had assumed they would steamroll Ukraine and take over major cities within a matter of days, but instead Oryx were struggling to report all the destroyed equipment as it happened.

The page tweeted, “I can’t … keep up” after a video was posted online of 30 Russian vehicles being seized by Ukrainian troops.

Oryx later tweeted: “I should probably start a list with types of equipment that haven’t been captured yet. It’s the only list that will decrease over time.”

It was reported by Forbes that while both forces in the conflict have suffered huge losses of both people and equipment, Russia have lost over $5bn in military equipment and it is thought to have suffered between 7,000 and 10,000 casualties in the first month of the conflict.

The Russian side has also been plagued by corruption according to reports which state that Russian troops have stripped bare some equipment that contains gold and precious metals to be sold to supplement their low income.

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An unconfirmed report from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has suggested that the commander of the “13th tank regiment” of the “4th tank division of the Russian Federation” shot himself after finding spoiled reserve tanks.

The report suggests that 90 percent of the tanks in storage were rendered useless after they were pillaged by troops.

The ever-growing list of high-ranking Russian officers who have died in this conflict adds to the narrative that Russia is unexpectedly being met with fierce resistance at every turn.

Much of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself has been given to their use of weapons supplied by the West, particularly anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems.

Ukraine continues to urge Western allies to send more military equipment in large numbers in order to continue defending their nation. Britain has agreed to send an additional 5,000 missiles.

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