A destroyed Russian T-72 tank is pictured July 6, 2022 in Warsaw, Poland. The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday that it killed 159 Russian troops overnight and destroyed 60 units of Russian military equipment during its counter-offensive in southern Ukraine. WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty Images
The Ukrainian military said it killed nearly 160 Russian soldiers after launching rocket and artillery strikes as part of its massive counter-offensive in southern Ukraine.
Vladyslav Nazarov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Operational Command South (OCS), said Tuesday that an estimated 159 Russian soldiers were killed and 60 units of Russian military equipment destroyed overnight. According to reports, over 220 missile and artillery strikes were launched by Ukraine on targets including three bridges around the same time.
A Facebook post by OCS said the destroyed Russian equipment included five T-72 tanks, three Msta-B howitzers, five anti-tank missile systems, an S-300 surface-to-air missile system, an electronic warfare station and a Radar station comprised , a mobile 120mm mortar system and 40 units of armored and automotive equipment.
OCS reported that the situation in southern Ukraine “remains difficult” but has been “controlled” by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine warned that the threat of missile strikes by a Russian fleet stationed in the Black Sea remained “relevant”.
Nazarov said a Russian rocket attack on Mykolaiv’s Bashtansky district caused no casualties, while artillery attacks on Dnepropetrovsk’s Nikopol district damaged residential buildings and injured one civilian.
Various Ukrainian officials have reported that Russian shelling of civilian targets elsewhere in the country on Tuesday left at least six dead and 15 wounded. A Russian military leader claimed that Ukrainian saboteurs were “destroyed” in the Tavrichesky microdistrict of Kherson on Tuesday morning.
Among the goals of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is the retaking of Kherson, the largest city that has come under Russian control since the invasion began on February 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also suggested that the southward push could precede an attempt to retake Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
On Monday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the counteroffensive highlighted the shortage of Russian military personnel, as the “looming threat” is forcing Russia to move troops south from Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.
On the same day, during a Department of Defense (DoD) briefing, a senior US military official said that the number of Ukrainian troops in the south of the country was “much larger” than in the east in terms of “equality or parity” with Russian troops.
The US official added that Ukraine’s military leaders “are students of military doctrine” and “understand that conducting an attack requires a larger number of forces than if you were on defense.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week that Russia’s military would be increased by 137,000 men, bringing the total number of troops to 1.15 million.
A senior U.S. defense official said during Monday’s DoD briefing that Putin’s plan was “unlikely successful,” adding that “Russia has a history of failing to meet manpower and strength targets,” and predicted that the new recruits will be mostly would be “elderly, unfit, and poorly educated.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian government for comment.