Ukraine This Week: a new offensive looming, huge Russian losses, and more

could Russia launch another offensive in hary oblast will Ukraine finally be allowed to strike Targets on Russian soil using Western weapons and is Russia facing issues with military recruitment this is week 118 of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine I’m Anna biker reporting to you from keev and I’ll be taking you through the top three stories from Ukraine from this week just a few weeks after Russia launched a new ground defensive in hary oblast which has quickly lost momentum Ukrainian officials warned that Moscow wasn’t planning to give up on its goals in the northeast of Ukraine just yet the current push into har of oblast has been stopped about 10 km into Ukraine with fighting ongoing in several areas soon after President Vladimir zinsky said that Russia was gathering another grouping of forces about 90 km Northwest of har whether the Russian troops are preparing to reinforce the current offensive or open a new front remains to be seen although top military officials say that the number of Russian troops currently gathered at the border is not enough for a breakthrough military analysts believe that the primary goal of the harke offensive or potentially offensives is not to make a serious bid for Harv’s territory but rather to pull Ukraine’s Manpower resources and attention away from other parts of the front in the East and the South intense fighting is ongoing in eastern Ukraine in particular in danet oblast which Russia has been attempting to fully occupy since the start of the full-scale Invasion the harke offensive could well be a strategic operation to spread Ukraine’s forces thin allowing Russia to take more territory this week also saw notable changes in policy regarding Ukraine’s ability to strike Targets in Russia using Western supplied weapons until now Ukraine has been forbidden from using Western weapons to strike military installations within the Russian Federation or to attack Russian troops before they cross the border most recently this has allowed Russian troops to amass on the har border relatively unimpeded the presidential office confirmed on May 31st that Ukraine can now use American weapons to deflect Russian missiles that are headed towards har oblast to attack troops that have gathered on the Russia harke border and to shoot down aircraft that are launching bombs at Ukraine while this is a huge step forward in staving off another offensive politicos unnamed sources in the US government clarified that Ukraine still cannot use American weapons to conduct deep strikes within Russian territory this change in heart by Washington has been mirrored by other NATO allies German Chancellor Olaf scholes who has long been adamant that Ukraine must not use German weapons on Russian territory fearing escalation announced on May 31st that he will lift the ban and allow Ukraine to strike Russian military targets with German weapons 2 days prior on May 29th Finland Canada and Poland issued separate statements saying that Ukraine can use their weapons to strike Targets in Russian territory on May 30th Denmark announced that Ukraine could use Danish supplied F-16 fighter jets for the same purpose when they arrive later in the summer every morning the keev independent publishes an updated list of Russian losses which accounts for the casualties and destroyed equipment from the previous day we get these figures from the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces and it’s common to see more than a thousand Russian casualties per day every day every month two weeks ago on May 12th Russia lost a record 1,740 soldiers in a single day and this week it was announced that in the 27 months since the start of the fullscale invasion more than half a million Russian soldiers have been killed or injured this number is corroborated by estimates from Western European nations France estimates that of that 500,000 about 150,000 are fatalities with the rest made up of some combination of wounded missing and captured soldiers if 150,000 Russian soldiers have indeed been killed that amounts to roughly 10 times the number of Soviet soldiers who were killed in the decade long conflict with Afghanistan in the80s this means that Russia is losing troops at one of the highest rates compared to other nations in previous Wars for reference Britain suffered 750,000 casualties during the 6 years of World War II Russia is currently losing troops at nearly double that rate per year in all the wars that the United States has fought since 1945 about 102,000 American soldiers have been killed in total in comparison 58,000 troops were killed in the entirety of the Vietnam War barely more than a third of how many Russians have been killed in Ukraine in the past 2 years and yet despite this huge loss of human life Russia’s military recruitment is doing fine the country’s defense Ministry claims that over 100,000 men signed military contracts in the first 3 months of 2024 averaging about a th000 new recruits per day if we take a look at this graphic again an average of a thousand Russians are killed or injured in Ukraine every day while simultaneously the same number of men are presenting themselves at recruitment centers John Foreman a former British defense attache to Moscow also speculated that although the huge casualty rate will eventually lead to a demographic crisis for Russia the government isn’t worried about that in Foreman’s words Putin is mortgaging his entire country’s future for his war in Ukraine that’s all for this week we’ll be back next Sunday with more stories from Ukraine your support is what makes our work possible if you enjoyed this video please like And subscribe to this channel if you’d like to become a member of The keev Independent Community please visit the link in the description below I’ll see you next week

The Kyiv Independent’s Anna Belokur explains the top stories from Ukraine this week, from the recent grouping of Russian troops along Ukraine’s northern border to policy changes to the longstanding ban on using western weapons to strike targets on Russian territory.

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27 comments

  1. I like how she’s leaves out USA casualties from World War II, 400,000! She avoids this and starts US casualties after 1945 joke

  2. Interesting, since when the US was planning the current proxy war in 2019, they claimed that they wanted to “calibrate” their own escalation to avoid dangerous “counter-escalation.” Russia will of course respond tit for tat and “counter-escalate.” As with the tit for tat escalation that ended in WWI, will this lead to WWIII?

  8. Czar Putin is such a hard headed bastard that he will force pensioners in old age homes to fight on the front line -he is like his hero Stalin who threw soldiers under equipped into the Frontline and does not care about his people. These cowardly EU countries i.e. Germany who does not want Ukraine to strike into Russia with weapons supplied to them expect Ukraine to protect them with one hand tied behind their back . Countries like for example Sweden, Finland se etc who are close to the Russian border knows that it is essential that the weapons are used in any way Ukraine sees fit otherwise Putin will gladly spill blood on their territory.He wants to punish a weak EU and NATO . Germany and the German people have become weaklings after WW2 and feel they should not speak about what the Nazi's did but they should forget about that because you do not want the Russians to do what they did to Berlin at the end of WW2 – get a backbone and fight against Czar Putin.

  10. “Huge Russian loses” but yet we continue to see countless of forced mobilization in Ukraine. Average age of Ukrainian soldiers is 43. Stop with lies about Russian loses, no one believes such bs just like no one believed the story about the ghost of Kiev.

  11. Imagine what devastative effect this war will have on russian economy and basically every aspect of their society. Ukraine too but the difference is that Russia is alone. Ukraine will be helped by us.

  13. I know I should not say it, but had to notice that the journalist is really beautiful. I hope to hear her some day announcing that Ukraine won this war.

  15. Russia cannot sustain this level of losses for two more years. But Ukraine, to hold on, needs more support from the western nations, who have been too hesitant and too slow in their help given to Ukraine.

  16. This is not even funny how stupid ukros who watching this are…. Yourcountry is going to be destroy beyond repair you should negotiate immediatelly!

  17. Has this video been through an AI or something, or is it just the lighting?
    Why does it look like that?

  20. The sooner Russians realize they are fighting for Putin and not the motherland of Russia , they should be rid of Putin so Russia can flourish and advance with the world!!

  23. Can one really believe that if Russia lost half a million men then Russians would be keen to go to the war? What is the evidence of Russian losses except of Ukrainian MoD claims. In every village and town people know who died or is missing. That cannot be hidden. Mediazona might be right after all.

  24. In the nearly 4 years that the USSR was at war with Nazi Germany, the Soviets lost 13 million soldiers. Around 3 million PER YEAR. Probably more like four or five million in the first year or two, and lower losses in the later years. For decades after the the end of WW II the Soviets kept constant vigils at war memorials all around the USSR remembering that fact. It's the war casualty rate that Putin would compare the war to conquer the Ukraine to, not the Afghan war. Current Russian casualty rates are a small fraction of those rates, and won't dismay Putin. It's the families of the Russian dead that will have to force an end without some other dramatic change.

  26. Look how America get the worst out of Ukrainian. Ukrainians become pathetic, miserable liar. When I looked back in 2008 when Ukraine organized the europa cuple, it is a different place now, people in the eastern part of Ukraine celebrated the same team, mariopol, Odessa, Karkiv, Donesk, lugansk these places were so united. In 2014 the US spent 5 billion dollars to buy Ukrainian souls, Vicky nuland makes them believe Russia is their enemy a country they live all their existence together with. They said we want to destroy Russia, it Russia that kept us from becoming the greatest country in Europe despite Russia gave them 15 billion dollars to keep their economy running, Ukrainians have a privilege place in everything in Russia, the Russians treat them like brothers, Russians will hire a Ukrainian before everyone else. Now jalousie and brainwashing turned them into American and Europe slaves. They sold 40 million of them for the interest of other countries. Pathetic.

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