Russian forces have reportedly lost at least five divisions’ worth of armored vehicles and tanks in Pokrovsk Raion since beginning their offensive operation to seize Avdiivka in October 2023 and during intensified Russian offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast in Summer 2024. An open-source X (formerly Twitter) user tracking visually confirmed Russian vehicle and equipment losses in Ukraine stated on October 4 that the user has confirmed that Russian forces have lost 1,830 pieces of heavy equipment in Pokrovsk Raion since October 9, 2023. The X user stated that Russian forces have lost a total of 539 tanks (roughly a division and a half’s worth of Russian tanks) and 1,020 infantry fighting vehicles (roughly four to five mechanized infantry divisions’ worth of vehicles) during offensive operations in Pokrovsk Raion and specified that Ukrainian forces destroyed 381 of the 539 Russian tanks and 835 of the 1,020 armored vehicles. The X user noted that Russian forces have also lost 26 infantry mobility vehicles, 22 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), 11 towed artillery systems, and 92 unarmored trucks. The X user noted that he confirmed that Russian forces lost 25 tanks and 59 armored vehicles (roughly two battalions’ worth of mechanized equipment) in Pokrovsk Raion since September 6, 2024. Russian forces launched an intensified four-month-long offensive operation to seize Avdiivka in October 2023 and later continued assaults west of Avdiivka and west and southwest of Donetsk City in spring and summer 2024, and the user’s data should reflect Russian vehicle losses accrued during these offensive efforts. The X user’s assessment based on visually confirmed vehicle losses is likely conservative given that not all Russian vehicle losses are visually documented. The actual number of Russian vehicle losses in the Pokrovsk area is likely higher than reported.
The Russian military command may not be willing or able to accept the current scale and rate of vehicle loss in the coming months and years given the constraints in Russia’s defense industrial production, limits to Russia’s Soviet-era vehicle stockpiles, and the Russian military’s failure to achieve operationally significant territorial advances through mechanized maneuver. Russian forces expended a significant number of armored vehicles during the first weeks of their offensive effort to seize Avdiivka in October 2023 and later limited their armored vehicle usage while fighting within Avdiivka’s administrative boundaries. Russian forces appear to have limited their armored vehicle use in the area immediately west of Avdiivka in recent months, although Russian forces have simultaneously intensified their offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk city and frequently conduct largely unsuccessful platoon- and company-sized mechanized assaults in the area. Russian forces have conducted several battalion-sized mechanized assaults in western Donetsk Oblast since July 2024, the majority of which resulted in significant armored vehicle losses in exchange for marginal territorial advances. The commander of a Ukrainian bridge operating in the Donetsk direction recently reported that Russian forces are losing up to 90 percent of the vehicles used in mechanized assaults in the Donetsk direction. The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank previously estimated that Russian forces were losing over 3,000 armored fighting vehicles annually as of February 2024, although Russia’s current rate of armored vehicle losses may be higher given that the X user’s data notably does not account for Russian equipment losses throughout the entire frontline. Russian forces have only advanced about 40 km in the Avdiivka/Pokrovsk operational direction since October 2023 and a loss of over five divisions’ worth of equipment for such tactical gains is not sustainable indefinitely without a fundamental shift in Russia‘s capability to resource its war.
Russian forces have likely accumulated a large amount of equipment for these assaults, although the medium- to long-term constraints of Russia’s armored vehicle stocks and production rates alongside mounting equipment losses may force the Russian military to rethink the benefit of intensified mechanized activity in this sector over Russia’s longer-term war effort in Ukraine. The Russian military command’s willingness to pursue limited tactical advances in exchange for significant armored vehicle losses will become increasingly costly as Russian forces burn through finite Soviet-era weapons and equipment stocks in the coming months and years. Russia will likely struggle to adequately supply its units with materiel in the long term without transferring the Russian economy to a wartime footing and significantly increasing Russia’s defense industrial production rates — a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to avoid thus far.
Key Takeaways:
- Russian forces have reportedly lost at least five divisions’ worth of armored vehicles and tanks in Pokrovsk Raion since beginning their offensive operation to seize Avdiivka in October 2023 and during intensified Russian offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast in Summer 2024.
- The Russian military command may not be willing or able to accept the current scale and rate of vehicle loss in the coming months and years given the constraints in Russia’s defense industrial production, limits to Russia’s Soviet-era vehicle stockpiles, and the Russian military’s failure to achieve operationally significant territorial advances through mechanized maneuver.
- Ukrainian officials continue to document and prosecute Russian war crimes committed against Ukrainian forces.
- Russian authorities reportedly arrested the administrator of the Russian Telegram channel Thirteenth, who has previously criticized the Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), on October 5.
- Russian forces recently advanced southeast of Pokrovsk.
(For full report: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-6-2024 )