Nearly 1 million soldiers have been killed or wounded since start of the conflict, according to Valery Gerasimov
Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian General Staff, briefs foreign military attaches on December 18, 2024. © Russian Ministry of Defense Ukrainian forces have suffered almost 1 million casualties since February 2022 and have lost about 20,000 tanks and armored vehicles, Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian General Staff, told foreign diplomats on Wednesday. Russia’s top general hosted foreign military attaches to brief them on the activities of the country’s military in 2024 and how the Moscow views the global security situation. Part of his 30-minute report was dedicated to the Ukraine conflict. ”The US and its allies have significantly increased the volume of military assistance to Ukraine” in a continued attempt to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, Gerasimov said. Despite this, Russian troops are currently on the offensive, having pushed Ukrainian forces out of more than 190 settlements this year, he added. The estimates of Ukrainian losses cited by Gerasimov were previously made public by Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, who delivered a televised year-end report to President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Read more Gerasimov accused Kiev of a policy of confrontation with Russia which “has resulted in total dependence on foreign management and funding” as well as “the consequent loss of state sovereignty” for Ukraine. There were two major points of escalation in 2024 initiated by the West and Kiev, the general claimed. One was the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region in August, which Gerasimov called a futile “terrorist attack” motivated by battlefield failures. The other was the permission given in November by Western arms donors for Kiev to fire long-range missiles deep into Russia, he added. ”In essence, the US has permitted itself to use those systems against Russian territory. The Ukrainian army alone is incapable of imputing space surveillance data to form flight plans for the missiles,” the general told the audience. Moscow’s response was to demonstrate a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile dubbed Oreshnik, which the military launched at a Ukrainian weapons plant last month, Gerasimov said. The Russian military will react to further actions by its adversaries based on ongoing threat assessments, he warned.
