Russia’s gradual, heavy advance into parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region managed to destroy 4,168 square km (1,609 square miles) of abandoned fields and villages by 2024 – equivalent to 0.69 percent of the country.
That was the assessment of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank, based on satellite imagery and geolocated video footage.
“Russian forces have captured four medium-sized settlements – Avdiivka, Selydove, Vuhledar and Kurakhove – throughout 2024, the largest of which had a pre-war population of just over 31,000 people,” ISW said.
Russian forces spent four months taking Avdiivka and two months each for Selydov and Kurakhov.
“The capture of these settlements has not allowed Russian forces to threaten any visible Ukrainian defensive nodes,” the ISW said, adding that Moscow’s troops failed to carry out the kind of rapid, mechanized maneuver needed to convert these “tactical gains in deep penetrations in the rear of Ukraine”. .
At this rate, it would take Russia another two years to complete its occupation of Donetsk alone, ISW estimated – something Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his commanders to do by 1 October.
Russia’s sacrifices to achieve these advances have been great, as Ukrainian forces used their backdoor advantage to inflict heavy casualties, especially in urban environments where they fought building-by-building, street-by-street.
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Monday that Russian forces had suffered an estimated 427,000 wounded and killed in 2024. Days later, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry estimated Russia’s losses last year at 430,790 soldiers – the equivalent of 36 rifles motorized Russian divisions – exceeding its losses in 2022 and 2023 combined.
Those losses averaged 1,180 per day, but the death toll rose sharply at the end of the year as Russian forces stepped up their attacks in an apparent attempt to influence the US election.
The highest monthly losses, the Ministry of Defense said, came in November and December – 45,720 and 48,670 respectively – as Russia intensified its offensive in Donetsk.
“This year, the Russians paid the highest price for the war against Ukraine, as our army and all our defense and security forces of Ukraine destroyed more enemy equipment and manpower than in any of the previous years of the war,” Syrksyi said. . forces in an address on 31 December.
‘1700 killed and wounded every day’
Russia managed to increase its daily land grab from 14 sq km (5.4 sq mi) in October to 28 sq km in November, but fell to 18 sq km (11 sq mi) per day in December. Apparently, her losses did not fall proportionately.
“Over the past week, the occupiers have lost around 1,700 people killed and wounded every day,” Syrksyi said on Monday.
December also produced two potential Russian casualty records.
On December 29, the Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces lost 2,010 people. They suffered a possible all-time record of 2,200 daily casualties in a total of 191 combat engagements on 19 December.
Ukraine also estimated it had taken out 3,689 Russian tanks, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and more than 13,000 artillery pieces. The Ukrainian navy said it sank five ships and 458 smaller vessels.
Russia recruited North Korean fighters in a bid to ease pressure on its manpower, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a quarter of them had disappeared.
“According to preliminary data, the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people,” Zelenskyy said in his evening speech on December 23.
He recently claimed that Russia was killing North Koreans at risk of falling into the hands of Ukrainian forces.
“Everything is arranged in a way that makes it impossible for us to take Koreans as prisoners – their people are executing them, there are such cases,” Zelenskyy said in an evening speech on December 27.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, GUR, said more North Koreans were being brought to Kursk to replace losses.
Russia looks to Central Asia for economic recovery
Putin seems to have prioritized labor for war over workers for the economy.
He signed a decree on Monday that forces all undocumented immigrants to leave Russia by the end of April, but joining the military allows them to bypass normal legal status requirements.
Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service estimated that Russia suffered from a labor shortage of 1.5 million people last year, as the available labor force fell by one million. However, Putin’s decree would absorb foreign workers from the economy and put them on the front lines.
Putin acknowledged the absences of “hundreds of thousands” at a year-end press conference on December 19, but did not link those absences to the war. Instead, he proposed bringing in more migrant workers from Central Asian countries.
He dwelt on the need “to develop a network of Russian schools there, to study the Russian language, to introduce people who will come to work here” and spoke about the need to increase labor productivity through higher technologies.
Ukraine and Russia have both transitioned to war economies, financed by Russia from fossil fuel revenues and Ukraine from aid from its Western allies.
Both have sought to become as autonomous as possible from weapons.
In his New Year’s speech, Zelenskyy said that 30 percent of the weapons used by Ukraine last year were domestically produced.
“I felt ashamed as a citizen that since the 90s the state had not noticed such people of ours,” he said. “And I’m proud… that Ukraine is once again building its own missiles. And for the first time, it produces over a million drones in a year.”
Ukraine has used aerial and naval drones of its own design to strike deep inside Russia and across the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said Tuesday it used a SeaDragon missile fired from a Magura V naval drone to shoot down a Russian Mi8 helicopter.
“Today, for the first time, a helicopter crashed, fell into the water. That is, the fact of the destruction of an air target over the Black Sea has been recorded,” said Kirill Budanov, Ukraine’s intelligence chief, in a telethon.
GUR published footage of the strike. Earlier, Russian helicopters shot down in the war had managed to reach an airport, he said.
Russia has also invested in drones, although it is hampered by Western sanctions on imports of sensitive technology.
Its drone factory in Alabuga, 1,000 km (620 miles) east of Moscow, produced 5,760 drones in the first nine months of last year, Ukrainian intelligence sources told CNN, doubling its output by 2023.
Ukraine’s air force said in 2024 it faced a much greater missile and drone threat against critical infrastructure than in 2023, in part because Russia was also using shahed drones that do not carry explosives but confuse and defeat air defenses .
“The enemy is trying to complicate the air situation as much as possible, overwhelm our air defenses and tire our sky defenders,” the air force said.
Throughout last year, Ukraine said it shot down 11,200 “attack” drones, of which 7,800 were Shahed.
Kyiv alone faced 200 airstrikes last year, the municipality said, including 1,300 drones, more than 200 cruise missiles and 46 ballistic missiles.
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine reported one civilian death overnight on New Year’s Eve after a Russian drone crashed into a residential building in Kiev. Another drone caused a fire at the National Bank of Ukraine.
The drones were part of a major strike that included 111 Shahed kamikaze drones, Ukraine’s air force said, 63 of which it said it shot down.
Despite increased arms production, Ukraine remained heavily dependent on supplies from its allies.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced on Monday 2.5 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine, half of it in the ability to withdraw immediately.
Biden said the package represented the remainder of the $60 billion in aid he signed into law for 2024 and included “hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of missiles and hundreds of armored vehicles,” as well as air defense equipment.
