“According to the General Staff, the Kursk operation was aimed at “preventing the enemy from advancing in the Sumy region””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“The invaders dragged some of the most combat-capable units of airborne troops, marines and special forces there. Also, Russia was forced to urgently ask for help from North Korea, which sent almost 12 thousand of its soldiers to the Russian Federation. About 4,000 of them have already been liquidated, and some of the units have lost their combat capability,” the message states.
According to the General Staff, the purpose of the Kursk operation was to “prevent the enemy from advancing in the Sumy region.”
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on January 6 that Russia suffered significant losses during five months of fighting with Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, in particular, according to him, about 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed, and the total losses amounted to more than 38,000 people. .
The General Staff also made public the data on the losses of equipment by the Russian Federation: 104 tanks, 575 armored combat vehicles, 1,104 units of automotive equipment, 330 artillery systems, 12 anti-aircraft missiles, 12 air defense systems, one plane, three helicopters, 859 drones and 32 units of special equipment.
Separately, the military command emphasizes that “during the operation, Ukrainian forces captured 860 Russian soldiers, significantly replenishing the exchange fund.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the full-scale invasion a “special operation.” Initially, its goal was defined as “demilitarization and denazification”, later – “protection of Donbas”. And in September and early October, Russia made an attempt to annex the partially occupied Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Ukraine and the West have declared that these actions are illegal. On October 12, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the Russian Federation’s attempt to annex the occupied territories of Ukraine.
The Russian authorities say that the army does not attack civilian objects. At the same time, Russian aviation, missile forces, navy and artillery bombard Ukrainian cities every day. Residential buildings and objects of civil infrastructure throughout the territory of Ukraine are subject to destruction.
At the end of October, Ukraine estimated Russia’s losses in the war at more than 70,000 dead soldiers. In September, Russia announced that its losses were less than 6,000 dead. In June, President Zelensky estimated the ratio of losses of Ukraine and Russia as one to five.
Having not overcome the resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the surviving Russian units withdrew from the territory of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions at the beginning of April. And in September, as a result of a lightning counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army liberated almost the entire occupied part of the Kharkiv region.
On November 11, the Ukrainian Defense Forces pushed the Russian forces out of Kherson.
After the liberation of Kyiv region from Russian troops, facts of mass murders, torture and rape of civilians, including children, were discovered in the cities of Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel and villages of the region.
Ukrainian authorities have declared that Russia is committing genocide. Western countries are involved in confirming the facts of mass murders and investigating them. The Russian Federation rejects accusations of war crimes.
Later, the facts of torture and murder of Ukrainian citizens began to be discovered in almost all settlements that were liberated from the Russian occupation. In particular, in Chernihiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast.
Since September 2022, fierce battles of the Russian-Ukrainian war have been going on in the east and south of Ukraine.
On June 6, 2023, the dam of the Kakhov reservoir was completely destroyed (it was under the control of the Russian army from the beginning of March 2022, and in October it was mined by the occupiers), which led to the flooding of a large area, human casualties, the destruction of agricultural land, and the pollution of the Dnipro and the Black Sea. Ukraine called it ecocide.
In total, during the full-scale war from February 24, 2022 to the end of June 2024, the UN verified data on at least 33,878 civilian casualties, including 11,284 deaths.
According to experts, the real number of losses is much higher. According to the Ukrainian authorities, more than 20,000 people could have died during the blockade and bombardment of Mariupol alone.