The ministry responsible for defense of the Russian Federation reported figures from the latest phase of the ongoing special operation. It states that on the final day of active operations in the Donetsk direction, more than 380 Ukrainian servicemen were eliminated. The report emphasizes that the fighting intensity in this area remains high and that losses are tracked across multiple Ukrainian units, contributing to a broader assessment of combat impact in the Donetsk region.
Additionally, the defense ministry asserts that units belonging to the southern group of forces conducted air strikes and artillery actions that resulted in the destruction of a tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, ten more vehicles, a pickup truck, and two Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers over a 24-hour period. The description underscores the cumulative effect of combined arms operations, including precision delivery from air assets and sustained artillery fire, which the ministry says degraded enemy mobility and fire capability in the specified sector.
In a separate briefing, the ministry referenced earlier figures, claiming that more than 250 Ukrainian soldiers were eliminated in the same operational direction. The report lists additional losses for Ukrainian equipment, including six tanks, five armored vehicles, seven other vehicles, and a D-20 artillery piece, illustrating a continued pattern of material attrition cited by the Russian defense authorities in this theater of operations.
The ongoing updates from the military department include a breakdown of casualties by region and sector. It mentions that more than 40 Ukrainian servicemen were killed in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions, while up to 40 fatalities were reported in the Kherson area, up to 60 in Kupyansky, and up to 125 in Krasnolimansky. These figures reflect the ministry’s effort to map losses across front lines and to convey a sense of the scale and distribution of activity during this phase of the operation.
Since the operation began, the Russian forces have reportedly deployed extensive air and ground capabilities, with thousands of aircraft and helicopters, a large fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, and a substantial number of armored vehicles and tanks. The ministry notes the strategic use of these resources in pursuit of operational objectives, describing the record as a measure of the scope and intensity of their ongoing campaign. Critics and observers, however, stress the difficulty of independently verifying casualty numbers and equipment losses in fast-moving conflict zones, where both sides frequently issue periodically updated tallies and claims that may reflect strategic messaging as well as battlefield reality.
In summary, the official communications from the defense ministry consistently emphasize the persistence of fighting, the attritional nature of the clashes in multiple fronts, and the sustained use of combined arms to achieve stated objectives. Independent assessments, including those from international observers and independent media, generally stress the need for verifiable data and caution against drawing definitive conclusions from single-source reports when evaluating the operational situation. The reported figures illustrate the ongoing contest of narratives that accompanies modern conflict reporting, where casualty counts and matériel losses are central to how each side seeks to shape public perception and morale on both sides of the conflict.