The Russian military has destroyed five Ukrainian tanks in Russia’s Kursk Region over the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Tuesday.
During the same period, Kiev has lost more than 300 troops, four infantry fighting vehicles, four artillery pieces, a counter-battery radar station, and other hardware, the ministry added.
Russian forces have been advancing in the areas of the settlements of Daryino, Leonidovo, Malaya Loknya, Nikolaevo-Daryino, and Novoivanovka. Seven Ukrainian counterattacks have also been repelled, according to a statement from the ministry.
Russian aviation and artillery reportedly struck Ukrainian troops in more than two dozen locations across Kursk Region. Air and missile strikes were also carried out against military concentrations in Ukraine’s Sumy Region, which borders Russia, the ministry added.
Kiev’s total losses in just over three months since the launch of its incursion in Kursk Region have reached over 31,700 servicemen, 200 tanks, 131 infantry fighting vehicles, 110 armored personnel carriers and hundreds of pieces of various other equipment, including 11 US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, the Russian military stated.
Ukrainian troops invaded Kursk Region on August 6, in the largest attack on internationally recognized Russian territory since the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The area under Ukrainian control has been steadily shrinking in recent weeks, but the incursion force is still present in some parts of the region.
On Sunday, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that Kiev prioritizes holding territories in Kursk Region over defending other parts of the front line where the Russian military has been advancing since the start of the year.
According to the paper, Ukraine currently has two of its “best regiments” operating on Russian territory, which are outfitted with the best available equipment, including German-made Leopard and American-made Abrams tanks.
Ukrainian soldiers told El Pais that troops fighting in Kursk Region rotate every ten days, while their counterparts in Donbass are replaced on average only every 25 days.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Ukrainian losses in Kursk Region as “colossal.” He suggested that the whole operation by Kiev made little military sense and was dictated by purely “political considerations” imposed on the Ukrainians by their foreign backers.
“They were ordered – from overseas – to hold on at any cost, at least until the US election [on November 5], to show that all the efforts of the Democratic administration to support Ukraine were not in vain,” according to the Russian leader.