The 6 Winter Fronts in Putin’s War on Ukraine
Friday’s Coverage: Russia Installs Rocket Launchers at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Source: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1129 GMT:
Power has been cut, except for critical infrastructure, in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine after overnight Russian strikes with Iranian-supplied attack drones.
The Ukrainian military said 10 of 15 drones had been downed in southern Ukraine, but energy company DTEK said “several energy facilities” were “destroyed simultaneously”. It did not indicate when power will be restored.
The military command said that there were no casualties so far from the attack and rescue and restoration efforts are underway.
Russian attacks with Iranian drones, hundreds of which have been deployed, had diminished in recent weeks amid the exhaustion of the Shahed-136 drones. However, Moscow has reportedly reached an agreement with Tehran to renew supplies.
UPDATE 1059 GMT:
US officials have confirmed that Washington is not deterring Ukraine from striking inside Russia.
On Monday and Tuesday, two Russian airbases — including the main base for Russia’s Long-Range Aviation — and an oil installation near a third were struck. Ukraine is suspected of using long-range drones, modified from Soviet-era surveillance planes, for the attacks.
While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We did not encourage and did not allow Ukrainians to strike inside Russia,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained that the Biden Administration is not preventing Kyiv from developing long-range strike capabilities.
See also Ukraine War, Day 286: Russia’s Missile Attack is Blunted…and Its Airfields Are Struck
Ukraine War, Day 287: US — We Are Not Restricting Ukrainian Capability to Strike Inside Russia
An official in the US Defense Department said on Friday, “We are not telling Kyiv: ‘Don’t hit the Russians.’ We cannot tell them what to do. It’s up to them how they use their weapons.”
The source continued, “When they use weapons supplied by us, we only insist that the military comply with the international laws of war and the Geneva Convention,” specifically no strikes on civilians or assassinations.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: An investigation by the BBC and the independent Russia outlet Mediazona confirms and examines the deaths of 10,004 Russian soldiers in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The analysis is of only a fraction of the Russian casualties — the Ukraine military claims that the invaders have lost almost 95,000 troops, and the reports estimates that the total killed and wounded among Russian and Russian proxy forces exceeds 112,500.
The study points out sharp disparities in the effects across Russia. The highest number of confirmed deaths are from Krasnodar Krai in the North Caucasus (428), Dagestan in the North Caucasus (363), and Buryatia in eastern Siberia (356). In contrast, there are only 54 confirmed deaths from Moscow, where 9% of the Russian population lives.
The BBC concludes that the pattern points to a disproportionate number of Russian troops coming from the periphery of the country, where military service may be seen as the only path to a livelihood. Russian officials, before and after Vladimir Putin’s mass mobilization of September 21, have concentrated on recruitment and forced service in these areas.
Of the battlefield deaths, 394 are of men mobilized since September 21.
The study finds Russian elite units and officers have suffered substantial losses. It confirmed 250 deaths — 25% of whom were officers — in Russia’s special forces, the Spetznaz. Some units have had more casualties than in 10 years of operations in Chechnya.
The BBC and Mediazona confirmed 1,509 deaths among officers, 15% of the Russian toll.
