"Trap of attrition"

Avdiivka: Russians pay high price for taking it

Burnt-out Russian tanks in Ukraine (archive image)

(Bild: AFP)

After the bitterest defeat in nine months, Ukrainian officials are trying to put a positive spin on the fall of the city of Avdiivka to Russia. Oleksandr Tarnawsky, the commanding general on the ground until the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops on Saturday, claimed on Sunday that Moscow had lost almost 47,200 soldiers through death or injury in the conquest of the city in eastern Ukraine, located northwest of Donetsk. According to other analyses, the Russian army lost ten percent of its deployed tanks during the four months of fighting. 

The conquest of Avdiivka is Moscow's greatest military success since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023 - and the result of dramatic superiority in soldiers, artillery shells and, for the first time, in the air.

Many civilian homes also destroyed
Both Ukrainian military forces, as analyzed by experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington, and hundreds of glide bombs weighing up to three tons each, fired from aircraft from a distance of up to 70 kilometers, destroyed Ukrainian defensive positions in former factories as well as civilian homes.

Russia lost 224 tanks in and around Avdiivka 
But the price for this is likely to have been very high. "With the conquest of a few square kilometers of destroyed and depopulated urban terrain, the Kremlin has sacrificed almost exactly one entire tank division," analyzed military bloggers for "Forbes". According to the report, Russia's 2nd and 41st armies lost 224 tanks.

Russians lost 655 objects of war
The majority of these are said to be T-72 and T-80 tanks, but there are also some high-quality T-90s among them. In contrast, the Ukrainian army "only" lost 21 tanks. In total, the Russians lost 655 objects of war (tanks, vehicles, equipment, etc.), while Ukraine "only" lost 50. "The losses of Russian tanks in and around Avdiivka may amount to more than a tenth of all the tanks that the Russian armed forces have in Ukraine," Forbes also reports. 

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"Russia has fallen into an attrition trap"
The military blogger concludes: "By losing four times as many tanks as they should have lost, the Russians have fallen into an attrition trap. They could take what's left of Avdiivka. But they will gain the ruins at a cost in men and equipment that they are unlikely to recoup any time soon - and probably not without slowing the pace of operations elsewhere along the front in Ukraine."

Ukraine war has already claimed over 400,000 dead Russian soldiers
While Russian and Ukrainian troops continue to fight fiercely in other theaters in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian General Staff published new figures on Russian casualties. According to these figures, more than 1,800 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured in the past 24 hours. This means that the number of Russian soldiers killed or injured since the start of the war has exceeded 400,000. There is no information on Ukrainian casualties, but they are also likely to be at least in the thousands.

Military expert: "Moscow's units are growing in numbers nonetheless"
However, even if the conquest of Avdiivka cost Russia tens of thousands of soldiers, this is unlikely to significantly affect its army, as Jack Watling from the London-based military research institute Rusi analyzed: "Moscow's units suffered significant losses, but are growing in numbers nonetheless". Since the beginning of 2023, Russia has increased the size of its armed forces in Ukraine from 360,000 to 470,000 troops. Moscow has also ramped up its arms production and is counting on victory by 2026. According to the London-based think tank IISS, Ukraine has 800,000 active military personnel, but is having considerable problems with new conscriptions and supplies for the army.