BY ELLIE
COOK ON
2/7/23 AT 6:25 AM EST
Smoke rises from a Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces in Luhansk region on February 26, 2022. Russia has lost 25 tanks in the past two days, Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said on Tuesday.ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Russian forces have lost 25 tanks in the past two days,
according to the Ukrainian military.
Writing on Facebook on Tuesday morning, the General Staff of
Ukraine's Armed Forces attached a video of what appears to be Russian tanks
being targeted by Ukrainian weapons systems, with the footage showing smoke and
fire. The operational update then said 1,900 Russian soldiers had been killed
in the past two days.
In a further update, the General Staff reported Russia's total
tank losses since the beginning of its full-scale invasion in 2022 to be 3,245
tanks.
This is an increase of 14 compared with Monday's report by the
General Staff. A further Russian 11 tanks had been taken out of action the
previous day, the General Staff said in its daily update.
Ukrainian forces have long been capturing
Russian weapons and tanks to be used against their original owners in the
ongoing war. Back in October, the British defense ministry said that a
"large proportion" of Kyiv's military hardware was now made up of
captured Russian equipment.
By October 7, Ukraine was believed to have
captured at least 440 Russian main battle tanks, plus an additional 650 armored
vehicles since February 2022.
"Over half of Ukraine's currently fielded
tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles," the ministry added.
The government
department suggested then that the trend of the Russian military losing its heavy weaponry was
likely to continue.
Ukraine's armed forces have used the country's
stocks of Soviet-era main battle tanks, and has received deliveries of the
likes of T-72s from several countries sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause.
Ukraine's forces had around 900 T-64s, T-72s and T-80s
at the beginning of the war, according to The Times in
London.
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Russia has lost 1,678 tanks since February
2022 as of Tuesday, according to Dutch open intelligence monitoring site, Oryx.
The news of the latest
Russian losses comes as several Ukrainian officials warn that Russian forces are
preparing to launch a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine before mid-February.
Luhansk regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said
on Monday that a fresh push from Moscow's forces "can begin any time after
February 15." He later reported increased attacks in the eastern Donbas
region, adding: "This is not a full-scale offensive, but preparation for
it."
On Tuesday, Haidai posted another update,
detailing that Russian forces "are preparing to attack—we are preparing to
retaliate."
Reports from Ukrainian sources, and analysis
posted by Russian "milbloggers," indicates that Russian military
commanders may be "in a rush to launch the decisive offensive," the
Institute for the Study of War think tank said on Monday.
This is likely designed to get ahead of Western military aid,
including M1 Abrams, Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 main battle tanks, arriving in
Ukraine, the ISW said.
It may also be an effort to avoid the
"muddy spring season" from around April that "hindered Russian
mechanized maneuvers in spring 2022," the think tank argued.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-loses-25-tanks-two-days-video-deadly-strike-ukraine-general-staff-new-offensive-1779400
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