200 vehicles per day: Russians set a "record" for equipment losses on the way to Pokrovsk, - Forbes
Date: 2024-09-04 Author: Кирило Загоруйко Categories: WAR
The offensive in the east is costing the Russian military a huge price, and this weekend the Russians experienced the most expensive 24 hours of their war in Ukraine, writes Forbes.
"On Sunday, analyst Andrew Perpetua counted more than 180 damaged, destroyed and abandoned Russian vehicles and heavy weapons. Ukraine's own losses were much smaller: less than three dozen," writes Forbes.
At the same time, Forbes explains, on average during the full-scale invasion, Russia lost only 19 units of heavy weapons per day. That is, the record losses of Russians in one day this weekend were almost 10 times worse than the average.
Of course, not all of the losses on this list are irreparable, not all of them happened this weekend - some happened earlier, but video or photographic evidence of them appeared over the weekend. Not all of them were in the Pokrovsk area. So it is impossible to say for sure that the Russians lost all of this equipment in one day trying to capture Pokrovsk. However, as an indicator of the scale of Russian losses, these statistics paint a fairly clear picture.
Thus, the offensive on Pokrovsk is very costly for Russian forces, and they will not be able to maintain this pace for a long time.
"If the current Russian offensive runs out of men and equipment before it reaches Pokrovsk, it may be some time before Russia can gather resources for a second attempt," the Forbes analyst believes.
Some Ukrainian analysts suggest that the enemy will reach the city by mid-September, but will not be able to capture it. And this failure may finally signal the end of the Russian offensive that began last fall near Avdiivka.
However, Forbes notes that these optimistic forecasts are based on a risky assumption: that the Russians will not be able to immediately replace their losses.
"Yes, the advancing Russians are leaving a shocking trail of dead soldiers and destroyed equipment on their way to Pokrovsk. No, these losses will not persist in the long term, because the Kremlin has already significantly used up its vast stockpiles of Cold War weapons. But it is unclear whether the troops and equipment will be able to save Pokrovsk and the surrounding area," the publication writes.
