Ukrainian troops lost more than 35,000 servicemen and 2,700 weapons in May this year, Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov has said.
“The Russian armed forces are systematically reducing the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces. In May, the enemy lost more than 35,000 servicemen and two thousand seven hundred units of various weapons. Among them 290 tanks and armoured combat vehicles, including four Abrams, seven Leopards, 12 Bradleys. In addition, 11 planes and four helicopters were shot down, 730 field artillery and multiple rocket launchers were destroyed,” Andrey Belousov said at a meeting of the CSTO Defence Ministers Council in Almaty on Friday.
According to the minister, “deprived of the opportunity to seize the initiative on the battlefield, the Kiev regime continues to demonstrate to Western sponsors its ability to damage the Russian Federation through strikes on civilian infrastructure.”
“And we see that the intensity of these actions is increasing ahead of the upcoming conference in Switzerland in mid-June,” the head of the Russian Defence Ministry said.
Belousov added that in May the Russian Armed Forces intercepted more than a thousand unmanned aerial vehicles, more than two hundred and fifty rockets “Himars” and “Vampire”, more than 80 guided aerial bombs “Hammer”, 50 operational-tactical missiles “Atacms” and eight cruise missiles “Sculp”.
Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said that the decommissioning of facilities, technical re-equipment and modernisation of production lines made it possible to increase production of three-tonne FAB-3000 high-explosive aerial bombs.
