Fairytale accounts

Russia has already “destroyed” the entire Ukrainian army, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to advance. What is wrong with the numbers of Putin and Shoigu?

The Russian Ministry of Defense reports on the progress of the war with Ukraine every day. The person of the department is the head of the information Department Igor Konashenkov, but the first persons, including Vladimir Putin, periodically join him. The Russian authorities have more than once came across data manipulations, and the reality of the numbers of the Ministry of Defense is called into question regularly. However, with the beginning of the counterattack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, numbers from Konashenkov’s reports generally lost any connection with reality. The "cold" analyzed the data of the Ministry of Defense and found that, according to them, the Ukrainian army is already defeated, but for some reason it was still coming.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu and the main speaker of the Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov - everyone loves to tell the Russian public about the successes of the Russian military at the front. True, their words are often doubtful.

Vladimir Putin, for example, recently spoke about the destruction of five of only two Ukrainian Patriot air defense systems. The Secretary of the Security Council has been repeating about the capture of Western Ukraine Poland. The Ministry of Defense cannot figure out their own numbers, so the data of Shoigu contradict Konashenkov’s data .

Putin and Patrushev have no unity. For example, on June 16, Putin said that Ukraine during the counterattack lost 186 tanks and 418 armored vehicles of various classes, and by June 27, the data increased by half - to 259 tanks and 780 armored vehicles. The Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars Nikolai Patrushev reported that from the beginning of the counterattack, until June 22, Ukraine has lost more than 13 thousand people, about 250 tanks, more than 260 drones, 10 fighters, four helicopters, more than 40 missile systems of salvo fire and two anti -aircraft missile systems.

However, even these numbers are nothing in comparison with what picture the Russian Ministry of Defense is trying to draw. If you believe the data of Konashenkov and Shoigu, then only in June the Russian army destroyed 1068 tanks and other armored vehicles, 409 drones (almost twice as much than Patrushev called), 31 rocket lapsing fire system (40 in Patrushev), 24 aircraft, including seven fighters (10 at Patrushev).

"Cold" analyzed the briefings of the Ministry of Defense for June. The data obtained indicate that Russian troops have already destroyed the entire Ukrainian group that Kyiv had prepared for a counterattack. If you believe the words of Konashenkov and Shoigu, then even those brigades and formations of the Armed Forces that have not yet entered into battle were destroyed. Moreover, the descriptions of the “beauty of Russian victories” are growing parallel to the media content of the counterattack.

From the reports of the Ministry of Defense it follows that in June 2023 (that is, during the Ukrainian counterattack), Russian troops began to destroy twice as much equipment and Ukrainian troops than in May. Moreover, according to some types of weapons, Russia allegedly not only overwhelmed Ukrainian reserves, but even made their number negative.

As we believed, we collected the data of all the briefings of the Ministry of Defense for June. They defeated and calculated them according to various types of weapons and destroyed goals, such as warehouses or "enemy clusters." To verify these data, we used the open data of an independent OSINT project of Oryx and pro-Russian Lostarmour and “dressed in armor”. We also asked analysts to evaluate the reality of the Ministry of Defense and interpret them. In situations where the data of Shoigu contradicted Konashenkov’s data, we relied on information from the senior in rank.

Doubled power

The most frightening figure from the statements of the Ministry of Defense is almost 22 thousand military Ukrainian Armed Forces, killed in June, which is tantamount to 700 killed per day. Several times the Ministry of Defense even stated large losses per day: on June 6, according to Sergei Shoigu, 1,500 Ukrainians were destroyed, and on June 7 - 945 . At the same time, the data of Igor Konashenkov did not coincide with the data of Shoigu: the main speaker of the war counted a total of 385 dead Ukrainians on June 6 and 785 people on June 7.

On July 11, Sergei Shoigu claimed that since the beginning of the counterattack, Ukraine has lost more than 26 thousand fighters. Military analyst Kirill Mikhailov does not believe in these figures and pays attention to the statement of the Ukrainian military, chief sergeant of the 47th Magura brigade Valery Markus, who said that his unit had lost up to 2% killed and missing and up to 14% wounded. In total, in this brigade up to six thousand fighters, that is, in one brigade up to 100 people killed.

“Ukraine was prepared under the counterattack of 12 brigades, that is, in total there should be up to 70 thousand people. It turns out that according to Konashenkov’s statements about 22 thousand killed, that all these brigades have already been disabled. Moreover, most of them have not yet entered the battle - we have not seen either the Challenger tanks or the MARDER BMP. That is, they had not even fought yet, and they were already destroyed, ”continues Kirill Mikhailov.

Considering that in military conflicts, the ratio of those killed to the wounded usually is about one to three, it turns out that during the counterattack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, more than 80 thousand fighters should have lost. “Even with the losses killed and wounded at 30-40 thousand, the Ukrainian army could not continue the offensive, and it continues with allegedly 80 thousands of the fighters,” Mikhailov notes.

Every day, Konashenkov calls the number of some types of equipment destroyed over the entire time of the war. If we compare these total losses for May with the same data for June, it turns out that during the counterattack, the Russian military began to destroy almost twice as many APU equipment.

Even if you compare Konashenkov’s calculations with analytics built on pro -Russian sources, it turns out that in a month of counterattacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia destroyed more equipment than in the previous six months. So, according to estimates on the basis of these pro -Russian sources (we are talking about Lostarmour portals and “dressed in armor” ), in January - May Russia destroyed 123 infantry combat vehicles, 105 artillery guns, 76 tanks, 79 armored vehicles, 14 aircraft and helicopters. Konashenkov said that in June 331 tank, 586 armored vehicles, 241 combat infantry combat vehicles, 15 aircraft and five helicopters were destroyed.

Konashenkov fables

The analysis of daily briefings demonstrates a large number of inconsistencies indicating the intentional overestimation of enemy losses, which, apparently, should demonstrate the failure of the counterattack. For example, Konashenkov announced 331 destroyed tanks for June, however, according to the Oryx project, over the entire time of the war, Ukraine lost 574 tanks.

The losses of modern samples of Western equipment, according to ORYX, in June, amounted to 10 damaged Leopard tanks, while only three of them were completely disabled, three AMX-10 armored vehicles, of which two were abandoned and one was captured by the enemy. The Ministry of Defense declares 15 destroyed Leopard tanks and the five destroyed AMX.

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Moreover, according to the Kil Institute of World Economics, both armies for the first time since the beginning of the war were equal in the number of tanks. At the moment, each part of the conflict has about one and a half thousand tanks. At the same time, at the beginning of the year, the Russian army had one and a half times more tanks than the Armed Forces of Ukraine. That is, while Konashenkov with the words “destroyed” hundreds of Ukrainian tanks every month, the Armed Forces, on the contrary, were equal to the number of this equipment with the army of Russia.

According to Konashenkov, the Russian army destroys various howitzers. For June, according to the statements of the Ministry of Defense, Ukraine lost 62 howitzers D-20, 60 howitzers D-30, 48 howitzers "MSTA-B". At the same time, at the beginning of 2023, Ukraine had approximately 60 D-30 howitzers and the same number of D-20 howitzers, and the number of MSTA-B howitzers at the beginning of the year only slightly exceeded the number of “destroyed” in June: there were 80 of them. The ORYX project recorded only one destroyed howitzer for June-and only seven analysts found only seven analysts for the entire time of the war (from 02.22.22 to 19.07.23) The injured howitzers D-30, six howitzers "MSTA-B" and nine howitzers D-20.

The howitzers in question are tools that have remained with Ukraine since the time of the USSR. Even if we theoretically assume that they were additionally put from, for example, Bulgaria or Poland, this figure seems unlikely. “It cannot be that all Soviet weapons are over, and modern artillery systems from Western partners are still not there,” says Kirill Mikhailov.

Another type of equipment that the Russian army actively “destroys” is artillery systems. According to the Ministry of Defense, for June, the Russian army allegedly destroyed 47 self -propelled artillery plants "Cloves" and 23 self -propelled artillery installations "Acacia". At the beginning of the year, Ukraine had only 120 "carnations" and 140 Acacias. And the Oryx project for the entire time of the war (from 24.02.22 to 07/19/23) found only 62 destroyed or captured "carnations" (only two were disabled in June) and 32 Acacia (two in June).

The Ministry of Defense also states that in June it destroyed 17 artillery Polish production plants Krab - that is, almost half of the fact that Ukraine had at the beginning of the year (53 pieces). During June, the Russian armed forces managed to destroy, according to Konashenkova, 27 artillery systems of the M777A - a quarter of what was set by Ukraine by the beginning of 2023 (it was 132).

But the most embarrassed data on the number of destroyed weapons, artillery units and clusters of military equipment: they cannot correlate with reality. So, during the counterattack, the Russian military allegedly destroyed 2708 artillery units - if we take into account that each unit is equipped with at least one gun, it turns out that Ukraine has lost almost three thousand artillery attitudes and guns.

At the same time, Konashenkov himself declared only 335 destroyed artillery guns and mortars. The Russians “destroyed” the clusters of military equipment even more - almost four thousand (3975). Konashenkov added another 77 destroyed ammunition depots and six fuel warehouses.

Military analyst Kirill Mikhailov is perplexed by how Konashenkov manages to “destroy” artillery units, given that Ukrainians do not act in large calculations: “No one is building a battery and does not beat all the guns. I have never seen this with Ukrainians. She is dispersed so that several guns are not injured when covering at once. ” But the main thing is that the Armed Forces of Ukraine generally did not have so many artillery guns: at the beginning of the counterattack, Ukraine had about 2.5 thousand guns.

One of the problems of the Ukrainian counterattack is the lack of enough aviation, the supply of which has not yet been finalized to agree with the West. The Russian army, according to Konashenkova, left Ukraine by the beginning of July without aviation, because only for June the APU “lost” the four Su-25 attack aircraft (and in the first week of July seven more were added to them), five Su-27 fighters, two MiG-29 fighters and three Mi-8 helicopters. At the beginning of 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine had about 20 Su-25, 30 sides of the Su-27, about 20 MiG-29 fighters and 15 Mi-8 helicopters.

The Oryx project discovered only one MiG-29, shot down in June of this year. The sides of the Su-25 and Su-27 types in June-July did not fall. In total, since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has lost 19 MiG-29 fighters, 16 Su-25 attack aircraft and 12 Su-27 fighters. The Ukrainian military analyst Roman Svitan in a conversation with the Cold notes that Ukrainian planes are in principle to shun the territories where Russian air defense stands.

It does not converge a little

Sometimes the Ministry of Defense itself confuses in its calculations. A striking example is data on the losses of Ukrainian drones. If you add Konashenkov’s statements for June, you get 409 destroyed UAVs, and if you compare the final numbers (the Ministry of Defense updates them daily) for June 30 and May 31, then 443 drones for the same period will be released.

At the same time, it is not clear which unmanned vehicles have in mind conacers. If we are talking about all drones, then 409 is even an underestimated figure. According to the report of the British Royal United Institute of Defense Studies, in a month Ukraine loses about 10 thousand drones. If we are talking about an airplane -type UAV, then this figure, on the contrary, is highly overstated, says Kirill Mikhailov.

In some cases, Konashenkov, on the contrary, underses for losses. For example, in June, he announced only nine destroyed BMP Bradley, and the Oryx project counted 27 damaged machines, of which 13 were completely disabled.

It is interesting that after Konashenkov, according to Konashenkov, “destroyed” more than the Himars volley fire systems than Ukraine (the Ministry of Defense announced 27 liquidated Himars, although the APU had only 20), the department decided to report only intercepted shells. “It is clear why they are doing this. Because Russian artillery all the time falls under Himars. And in order to show that they are doing something with this, they will always report that they intercepted the missiles, ”Mikhailov explains.

According to the estimates of Kholoda, in June - early July, the Russian military, according to the statements of the Ministry of Defense, intercepted almost 200 missiles. Military analyst Roman Svitan is confident that this is impossible: “Himars missiles go along a small distance and fly only a few seconds, not a single system will have time to react so quickly. Also, we cannot intercept the S-300 missile: the system simply does not have time to start. They can sometimes intercept, but, of course, not in such quantity. ”

Severe reality

The counterattack of Ukraine is still moving slowly: the army has to wade through mined fields. By July 19, the Armed Forces managed to free 194 square kilometers (he calculated the “cold” on the DEPSTATE card). For comparison: in the week of the autumn counterattack in 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to free more than three thousand square kilometers.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and analysts recognizes the growth of losses from Ukraine, but not in the volumes that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation speaks of. “The losses of Ukraine in armored vehicles have really grown from the beginning of the counterattack. Even if we consider the statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we will still see the dynamics both there and there, ”says Mikhailov. Roman Svitan agrees with him: according to him, during the counterattack, Ukraine began to lose more equipment, and he evaluates the ratio of losses as one to one.

Nevertheless, the losses that the Ministry of Defense voices are several times higher in almost all positions than the losses documented by the Oryx project for June and during the entire war (from 24.02.22 to 07/19/23).

The Ministry of Defense is not just several times increasing the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and makes statements that are in no way related to reality. The department seems to be waging its “war”, proving that “victory” is not far off, not only ordinary Russians, who most likely have already stopped following these briefings, but also to those who are sitting in the Kremlin. At the same time, the agency adjusts its messages after public failures, sometimes allowing even more strange inconsistencies.

The department manifests special zeal during the aggravation of the situation: the counterattack of the Armed Forces forced Igor Konashenkov to report that in a month he was “destroyed” several times more than Ukraine, and “completely disabled” the brigade that did not even fail on the battlefield. Probably, by the end of the counterattack of the Ministry of Defense, several Ukrainian armies and all the equipment that Kyiv would not even have time to receive by this time will “finish”.