Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
Russian forces losing almost nine times more soldiers than Ukraine in Bakhmut, says deputy defence minister
Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile
Ukraine: Residential building in Zelensky’s hometown engulfed by flames after deadly strike
Corpses of dead Russian soldiers are strewn along the roads leading into the recently recaptured Ukrainian village of Storozheve, alongside burnt-out armoured vehicles.
Other remains of the Russian troops fighting in the sector were found dumped in the grass and fields nearby where they died, according to Reuters.
“Three days ago we liberated the village of Storozheve. You can see for yourselves how it was achieved. You can see the destroyed hardware. Glory to Ukraine,” a Ukrainian soldier who gave his name as Artem told the news agency.
This comes amid claims from Ukraine that the Russian forces are losing almost nine times more soldiers than Ukraine.In Khortytsia in Bakhmut “the enemy has 8.73 times more dead, almost nine times” [more than Ukraine], Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said.
But on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine’s human losses were 10 times higher than Russia’s since the start of Kyiv’s counteroffensive.
On the battlefield, Ukraine has reported incremental advances in its counteroffensive against Russian forces in what it described as “extremely fierce” fighting.
The road into the liberated Ukrainian village of Storozheve, recaptured from Russian forces last week, is lined with the corpses of Russian soldiers and burnt-out armoured vehicles, reported Reuters.
Some corpses of the dead Russian soldiers remain on the dusty ground beside the husks of their vehicles when Reuters journalists reached the village yesterday. Others were found dumped crumpled in the grass and fields nearby where they died.
“Three days ago we liberated the village of Storozheve. You can see for yourselves how it was achieved. You can see the destroyed hardware. Glory to Ukraine,” a Ukrainian soldier who gave his name only as Artem told Reuters in Storozheve.
The grim landscape bears witness to the ferocity of fighting as Ukrainian troops recaptured Storozheve – which had been held by Russia since March last year – and several other villages in the past few days as part of a counteroffensive in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Nato defence ministers have gathered today to discuss future relations with Ukraine, which has intensified its push to join the military alliance since Russia’s invasion.
The ministers were also due to take part in a separate meeting at Nato’s headquarters of the US-led Ukraine Contact Group — the forum Ukraine’s supporters routinely join to try to drum up weapons and ammunition to help Kyiv fight the Russian invasion.
The alliance agreed in 2008 that Ukraine would join one day, but did not set a date for it to start membership talks. After Vladimir Putin’s invasion sparked further talk of Kyiv’s membership, Ukraine applied for “accelerated accession” to the mililtary bloc last September.
However, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has said there is no consensus for the country to join while it is at war with Russia.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, he said: “We agree that the most urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign independent nation because unless Ukraine prevails and can continue as a democratic state in Europe, there is no membership issue to be discussed at all.”
Stoltenberg said that he expects the 31-nation alliance to “agree [to] a multi-year program where we help to move Ukraine to transition from old standards, equipment, procedures, doctrines to Nato standards and become fully interoperable with Nato.”
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov arrives for the Nato meeting in Brussels
A senior Russian official said on Thursday it was too soon to assess agricultural losses in Russian-controlled areas from the breaching of Ukraine‘s Kakhovka dam, state news agency TASS said.
The dam burst flooded huge areas of Kherson region, one of four that Russia claimed last year as its own territory after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Unfortunately, we cannot yet estimate the total amount of losses for agriculture. We need all the water to drain. And then we will be able to understand which farmers have suffered this damage and to what extent,” TASS quoted Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko as saying.
Russian forces control about 18% of the territory of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain producers. A majority of countries at the United Nations General Assembly have rejected the annexations as illegal.
TASS quoted Abramchenko as saying the flood would not affect Russia‘s crop forecasts overall.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of blowing up the dam in the early hours of June 6.
Houses are seen underwater and polluted by oil in a flooded neighbourhood in Kherson after the destrucion of the Kakhovka dam
The breach of the Kakhovka dam will not affect Russia‘s crop forecasts, state-owned news agency TASS cited Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko as saying on Thursday.
Belarus has started taking the delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, president Alexander Lukashenko announced, claiming that some of these were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Mr Lukashenko said that “the bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, adding to his previous statement that he didn’t simply ask Mr Putin for the weapons, but “demanded” them.
The Vladimir Putin ally was speaking to the Russian state TV channel Rossiya-1 on a road in a forest clearing with military vehicles and a storage facility visible in the background seen around him.
‘The bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki’
Norway and Denmark have agreed to donate an additional 9,000 rounds of artillery to Ukraine, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement today.
Norway will provide the shells, while Denmark will donate fuses and propellant charges, the Norwegian ministry said.
The Russian mercenary Wagner group chief’s rhetoric is “evolving into defiance” as he continues to lock horns with the Kremlin over the contract signing controversy, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
Earlier this month, the Russian defence ministry demanded that members of “volunteers formations” such as Wagner Group sign contracts directly with the MoD. The move was explicitly endorsed by president Vladimir Putin on television on Tuesday this week.
“For several months, Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has been aiming vitriolic criticism at the MoD hierarchy but deferred to Putin’s authority,” the British ministry said in its intelligence update today.
It added that despite Putin’s comments, a day later Prigozhin said that, “none of Wagner’s fighters are ready to go down the path of shame again. That’s why they will not sign the contracts”.
“Prigozhin’s rhetoric is evolving into defiance of broader sections of the Russian establishment. 01 July 2023, the deadline for the volunteers to sign contracts, is likely to be a key way-point in the feud,” the British MoD said.
Japan is in talks to provide artillery shells to the United States to bolster stocks for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
It added that the Asian ally is considering supplying 155-mm artillery shells under a 2016 agreement to share ammunition as part of its long-standing security alliance with the US, the paper added, citing people familiar with the matter.
War-torn Ukraine is reeling from the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which saw its reservoir burst causing chaos for miles around.
The catastrophe on Tuesday 6 June forced thousands of residents of nearby towns and villages to evacuate their homes as the floodwater barrelled towards them and left some climbing onto rooftops or into trees to escape the raging torrents.
The water in the reservoir feeds a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the annexed peninsula of Crimea, as well as providing all-important cooling water to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, lying nearby as indicated on the map below.
Thousands forced to flee flooded homes in Kherson as devastating eco-disaster on Dnipro river threatens to decimate local agricultural sector and imperil Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Russian forces are losing almost nine times more soldiers than Ukraine, the war-hit country’s deputy defence minister said on Telegram, adding that during the offensive, the Ukrainian army has suffered many times less losses compared to the “invaders”.
In Khortytsia, the Bakhmut direction, “the enemy has 8.73 times more dead, almost nine times five times”, she said on Telegram last night, sharing the data for the past week.
On the other heavy fighting axis in the war along “Tavriya” towards Zaporizhia and Berdyansk directions, Russia’s casualties were “5.3 times more than ours”, the deputy defence minister said.
“I want to remind you that during a war, neither side publishes accurate data on their losses, because this can be used by the enemy to predict the enemy’s future actions on the battlefield,” Ms Malyar said.
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
A screen grab captured from a video shows Ukrainian soldiers after retaking control of the village of Storozheve in Donetsk
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
Log in
New to The Independent?
Or if you would prefer:
Want an ad-free experience?
Hi {{indy.fullName}}