In the first hours of an offensive around Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces may have knocked out or captured over 100 Russian tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles. Photos via Twitter.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in early September appears to have destroyed over 100 Russian vehicles, including 24 tanks, in its opening hours, according to at least one online tracking account.
That level of loss among tanks would be roughly equivalent to the loss of an entire US Army tank battalion.
The Oryx news site, which is run by Dutch researchers, said on its Sept. 11 update it had confirmed via photographs at least 102 Russian vehicles overrun by Ukrainian forces in the opening hours of the counteroffensive around Kharkiv. Those numbers include armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery pieces, and command and staff vehicles. It does not include any aircraft, which Oryx also includes in its daily numbers.
Oryx publishes a daily update of Russian hardware losses it is able to confirm with photographs published on social media or sent directly to the researchers. As such, its estimates of Russian losses are considered reliable and possibly low, as the site does not estimate or report losses without photographic evidence.
Russian losses include Soviet-era T-62s, T-72s, and newer versions of the T-80.
The previous high numbers of Russian losses Oryx had reported in a day since May included a handful of days with losses in the 70s. Many Oryx reports, which sometimes cover multiple days, report the number of Russian lost vehicles in the teens or 20s.
Pictures of damaged and abandoned tanks filled up social media as Ukraine launched a counteroffensive around Kharkiv. Photo via Twitter.
Oryx classified nearly all of the Russian losses it reported on Sept. 11 as “captured” rather than “destroyed,” and most of the hardware in the confirming pictures appeared to be largely undamaged.
Since Sept. 7, the first day of the Ukrainian advance, Oryx says it has confirmed 60 destroyed or captured Russian tanks and 336 pieces of military hardware. Since the war began, Oryx has counted 5,803 pieces of lost Russian equipment, including over 1,000 tanks.
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Matt White is a former senior editor for Coffee or Die Magazine. He was a pararescueman in the Air Force and the Alaska Air National Guard for eight years and has more than a decade of experience in daily and magazine journalism.
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