Defense

Pentagon: Russia has likely lost half its tanks in Ukraine

by Ellen Mitchell - 11/09/22 2:54 PM ET

Destroyed Russian military vehicle are seen near the recently recaptured village of Yampil, Ukraine, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. Villages and towns in Ukraine saw more heavy fighting and shelling Wednesday as Ukrainian and Russian forces strained to advance on different fronts after more than 8 1/2 months of war. At least nine civilians were killed and 24 others were wounded in 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office said. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)

Russia has likely lost half its tanks, used up most of its precision-guided weapons and suffered tens of thousands of casualties so far in its war against Ukraine, the Pentagon’s top policy official said Tuesday.

Russia President Vladimir Putin “has failed,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters Tuesday.

“Russia will emerge from this war weaker than it went in,” he predicted. “They have suffered tens of thousands of casualties in eight months — orders of magnitude more than [the Soviet Union] experienced in Afghanistan in 10 years.”

Kahl added that Russian forces have “probably lost half of their main battle tanks in the entire Russian military,” and they’ve “bogged down more than 80 percent of their land force in Ukraine.”

The Kremlin has also “spent down a majority of their precision guided munitions in Ukraine, and the sanctions and export controls will make it very difficult for them to rebuild their military to what it looked like before the war,” Kahl said.

Russia has struggled in its land war with Ukraine since it first began on Feb. 24, with Kahl calling the invasion a “massive strategic failure.”

In its most recent setback, the country’s top defense official announced Wednesday that Kremlin troops would retreat from the strategic city of Kherson in Ukraine’s south.

The West, however, is still watching as to whether Russia will make good on its claims of withdrawal.

“We have seen the announcement, but we will of course wait and see what actually happens on the ground,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday, as reported by CNN.

“What we do know is that Russia has been pushed back, first from the north around Kyiv, then in the east around Kharkiv and then actually we see, slowly, how Ukrainians are able to push back the Russian forces in the south around Kherson,” Stoltenberg said after meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London. “So, it is encouraging to see how the brave Ukrainian forces are able to liberate more Ukrainian territory.”