After many days of bloody fighting, which Europe has not seen since the Second World War, on July 3, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on the successful " Shoigu read from the sheet data on the alleged losses of the armed forces of Ukraine, keeping silent about the price that the Russian military had to pay for this, writes Voice of America.

Independent sources, relying on an analysis of only publicly confirmed losses, in June called the figure of about 4,000 Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine. Journalists used open information about deaths and funerals provided by both Russian and Ukrainian military departments, reports of the heads of Russian regions and local media. The real number of casualties in the war, which has been going on for the fifth month, is probably much higher.. Experts are convinced that the two-week offensive operation in the north of the Lugansk region also cost the Russian army enormous losses in manpower and equipment..

" The Ukrainians retreated from Lysychansk because it, like Severodonetsk, is not as strategically important, the fighting in Kherson, where Russian troops occupied both banks of the Dnieper, is more important,” commented William Courtney, former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia and RAND expert.

" Worried that Russian occupying forces may commit crimes against civilians that we have already seen in other parts of Ukraine. There is also the possibility of guerrilla activity, which we have begun to see in other parts of the occupied country,” added Nigel Gould-Davies, former British Ambassador to Belarus and an expert at the Kennan Institute..

After listening to the report of the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Putin ordered to " Experts have been wondering about this very " Unable to quickly verify information from both sides, they rely on satellite imagery and analysis.

“Russia lost in the war at least 25-30% of operational tank forces. The T-80 and T-72 tanks are being replaced by older T-62 models that technically are no longer part of the Russian armed forces, but there are huge reserves now sent to the front lines to try to keep heavy equipment present on the front lines.. We see in satellite images that the fighting around key areas of Donbass has become less dependent on this kind of heavy equipment, ”said Sim Tek, chief analyst at Force Analysis.

According to the military analyst, at first, the Russian forces tried to carry out a mixed operation, based on both modern Western experience and Soviet tactics: with a rapid advance of mobile forces and an airborne assault..

Having failed, they returned to the " "

Ukraine has focused on a campaign of deep strikes behind the front lines, using a combination of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and drones being converted to work as cruise missiles.. At the same time, on the Russian side, we actually observed a reduction in such opportunities. This can be seen from the missile attack in Kremenchuk: most likely they used an old model of an anti-ship missile, which has a very low accuracy,"

William Courtney, believes that " If the Ukrainians can get more of these systems, capable of hitting Russian artillery from afar, it could really make a difference on the battlefield."

According to the Ukrainian side, the loss of Lisichansk and the Lugansk region is not a loss, but an opportunity " However, it is also unlikely that the Donbass will become the end point of the Russian military campaign..

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" Proof of this can be the statement of former General Shamanov, who in an interview said that the so-called " He is a major figure in Russian military policy and until last year was chairman of the Duma Defense Committee.. Therefore, his words probably express a broader consensus within the Russian elite,” said an expert at the Kennan Institute.. Today at a meeting in the Ministry of Defense, Sergei Shoigu said that the "

Earlier it was reported that the head of the Nikolaev OVA Vitaly Kim assessed the likelihood of the Russians attacking Nikolaev.