Russian soldiers increasingly leave the front - Ukraine hits "important" military object

Created: 2022-12-28Updated: 2022-12-28 06:59

By: Sandra Kathe, Caspar Felix Hoffmann, Moritz Serif, Sebastian Richter, Niklas Hecht, Vincent Büssow, Lucas Maier, Christian Stör

Ukraine reports further successes in the east.

Intelligence reports say Russia has halted payments to injured people.

The news ticker.

• Russia's losses:

  Kiev reports repelling Russian attacks in the Ukraine conflict.

• Editor's note:

  Some of the information on the Ukraine war processed here comes from the warring parties in Russia and Ukraine.

  They can therefore not be independently checked in part.

+++ 6:40 a.m.:

According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian missile and artillery forces have hit a command post and six Russian positions, as well as an unspecified “important” military object and an ammunition dump.

The General Staff also said that the Russian armed forces are continuing their offensive actions in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions in the Donetsk region "despite significant losses of soldiers" and are trying to improve their tactical position in the Lyman direction.

Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war.

(Picture of December 14) © IMAGO/Konstantin Mihalchevskiy

Russia's losses in the Ukraine war: additional patrols to prevent desertion

+++ 8:20 p.m .:

The General Staff of Ukraine reports increasing cases of desertion on the war fronts in the Luhansk region.

The daily situation report of the military leadership of Ukraine on the social media platform Facebook states that the desertion attempts were accompanied by the increasing number of soldiers killed in the region.

In order to get the situation under control, Russia is using more patrols in the front area.

The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope

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In addition, when listening to the conversations of Russian soldiers, Ukraine's secret service received indications that Russia had stopped paying compensation to wounded military personnel, which further depressed the morale of the troops.

In addition, fighters whose contracts expired would only be released from service as agreed if they were over 50 years old.

Injured, killed, deserted: Russian losses in the Ukraine war

+++ 16.10 p.m .:

In addition to fallen and injured soldiers, Russia also repeatedly loses deserting fighters in the war in Ukraine.

Now the country itself has made public an incident in which, on the evening of December 26, eight Russian recruits between the ages of 20 and 44 walked into a police station in the city of Podolsk, south of Moscow, with their war weapons from the Luhansk operation.

According to the report on the Russian Telegram channel

, they wanted to lay down their arms, the news portal

reports .

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According to the report, the soldiers, all recruited in the Kaliningrad region, were subsequently taken to a nearby military base by local authorities.

Military investigators who had been brought in by the police forces are now to decide what to do with the eight soldiers who fled.

Heavy losses in the Ukraine war: Soldiers and secret service employees die near Zaporizhia

+++ 1:15 p.m .:

According to the General Staff, the Ukrainian army met a group of Russian soldiers on Sunday (December 25) near the village of Novobiloserka in the Zaporizhia Oblast.

The general staff put the losses of the Russians at up to 100 dead and wounded.

Among them are 15 employees of the Russian domestic secret service FSB.

+++ 10.30 a.m .:

The losses of the Russian armed forces are apparently increasing.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, 103,220 Russian soldiers have now fallen in battle (see update from 8.50 a.m.).

As it says in today's situation report, the Russian armed forces are currently suffering "the greatest losses in Bakhmut and Lyman".

Losses for Russia: 620 soldiers killed within 24 hours

+++ 8.50 a.m .:

The latest statistics on Russia’s losses in the Ukraine war are here.

This was announced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

According to this, 620 Russian soldiers fell compared to the previous day.

• Soldiers:

  103,220 (+620)

• Aircraft:

  283 (+0)

• Helicopters:

  267 (+0)

• Tanks:

  3016 (+0)

• Armored fighting vehicles: 

  6024 (+7)

• Artillery Systems:

  1998 (+2)

• Air defense systems:

   212 (+0)

• Multiple Rocket Launchers:

   418 (+0)

• Cars and other vehicles:

   4652 (+5)

• Ships:

   16 (+0)

• Unmanned combat drones:

   1707 (+0)

• (Source: Ukrainian General Staff report on December 27)

Russian losses in the Ukraine war: Ukrainian military attacks Russian positions

+++ 8.10 a.m .:

Yesterday, Monday (December 26), the Ukrainian military repelled Russian attacks near eight settlements in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, as the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced in its daily report.

In addition, the Ukrainian rocket and artillery forces hit four Russian command points and six positions.

Ukraine war: Ukrainian domestic intelligence neutralizes over 4,500 Russian cyberattacks

+++ 7.35 a.m .:

Since the beginning of the year, the Ukrainian domestic secret service has fended off more than 4,500 cyber attacks on Ukraine, the secret service said on Telegram.

“We went into 2022 with eight years of experience in hybrid warfare. The war in cyberspace happened before that.

At the time of the invasion, we were already prepared for the worst scenarios," said Ilya Vityuk of Ukraine's internal intelligence service.

Russian losses in Ukraine war: Russians in Donbass "destroyed" or captured

Update from Tuesday, December 27, 6.45 a.m.:

The front sections in eastern Ukraine are now particularly difficult, but the Ukrainian army is succeeding in "destroying" or capturing the Russian military, said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, in a Address last Monday evening (December 26).

"The front line.

Bakhmut, Kreminna and other areas of Donbass, which now require maximum strength and concentration," Zelenskyy said.

The situation there is difficult, acute.

"The occupiers are using every means at their disposal, and those are considerable means to force at least a small advance."

Zelenskyy also thanked the 80th and 95th Ukrainian airborne brigades "for the successful destruction of the enemy forces on the Lyman front".

In early October, the Ukrainian army regained control of the embattled small town of Lyman in the Donetsk region of Donbass.

However, fighting there continues.

Russian losses in the Ukraine war: Hundreds of soldiers killed and injured over Christmas

+++ 8.10 p.m .:

The attacks on the troops of Ukraine and their defensive measures did not take a break even on the Christmas holidays.

This was reported by the Ukrainian General Staff in its daily situation report on the social media platform Facebook.

According to this, several hundred Russian soldiers were killed or injured during the Christmas period in Ukraine.

For example, on Saturday (December 24) an attack by Ukrainian troops hit a military base in the Starobilsk region of Luhansk region, killing or wounding 150 soldiers, and on December 25 an attack on a military base in the occupied part of the Kherson region also killed 50 Soldiers killed and 100 wounded.

In addition, the general staff reported that 300 injured Wagner mercenaries were being treated in a field hospital in the village of Bilovodsk in Luhansk, and 300 other soldiers were in a school that had been converted into a military hospital in Pervomaisk, not far from Bakhmut.

The General Staff reported that other military bases belonging to the Russian occupiers were also hit on the 26th.

Update from Monday, December 26, 7:08 a.m .:

The

news agency reports explosions at a military airfield in the Russian Saratov region

, citing the Ukrainian news agency

and the Russian news portal

According to the report, sirens sounded at the airfield near the town of Engels on Monday night (December 26) after at least one explosion was heard.

The airfield is one of two Russian air force bases on which, among other things, strategic nuclear bombers are stationed.

According to

, there has so far been no official confirmation from the Russian side about a possible attack on Russian territory.

Ukraine War: Ukrainian military attacks Russian bases

+++ 3.30 p.m .:

The Ukrainian military reports attacks on Russian bases.

Ukrainian forces also confirm that three days ago they hit a "concentration" of Russian troops in the Kherson region, some distance behind the front line.

The attack took place in the Skadovsk district, near the border with Crimea.

"Up to 140 Russian soldiers were wounded and eight Kamaz trucks with ammunition were destroyed," the Ukrainian military said.

This information is not independently verifiable.

Losses for Russia: Ukraine celebrates milestone

Update from Friday, December 23, 6:50 a.m.:

Russia has lost more than 100,000 soldiers in combat in the ten months since the start of the Ukraine war.

For the Ukraine, this means a milestone that the country celebrated with a light projection in Kyiv.

"The situation with light has improved in Kyiv," Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko wrote on Telegram on a photo showing the light projection with the inscription "100,000".

First report:

Moscow/Kiev – The Russian invaders have been deployed in Ukraine for more than 300 days.

President Vladimir Putin had originally assumed that the "military special operation" would be over quickly.

But that has long been out of the question.

On the contrary: the Ukraine war is going downright devastating for the Russian armed forces, their losses are exorbitantly high.

A look at the statistics shows how problematic the situation has become for Russia.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the number of Russian soldiers killed since the invasion began on February 24 has now passed the 100,000 mark.

This means that the Russian armed forces are suffering an average of about 10,000 soldiers killed every month - an unimaginable amount.

Although winter has almost brought fighting to a standstill on the southern and eastern fronts, Russian casualties are still very high.

The reason is the battle for Bakhmut, where Moscow is obviously determined to achieve a largely symbolic victory despite significant losses.

(cs/spr/cas/vbu with dpa/AFP)