Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with graduates of military universities in the Kremlin on June 21 , answered a question from a correspondent of one of the publications about the situation at the front:
“I have already said, it is well known: the armed forces of Ukraine launched its [counteroffensive] on June 4, using strategic reserves. Oddly enough, at the moment we are seeing a certain lull. This is due to the fact that the enemy suffers serious losses – both in personnel and in equipment. As of yesterday evening, to be more precise, tonight – I'm not talking about the losses of personnel, they are very significant – our men "pricked" 245 enemy tanks and approximately 678 armored vehicles of various types.
The Dutch independent military-analytical project Oryx is counting the losses of both sides in equipment, updating the data daily. Information about every vehicle destroyed, damaged or captured by the enemy on the Oryx website is confirmed by a photograph.
On June 4, the Oryx list included 514 Ukrainian tanks lost since the start of the war. On June 21 – 539 tanks, that is, only 25 were added to the losses. Of course, these are not all losses; Oryx makes a special disclaimer:
“This list includes only destroyed vehicles and equipment, about which there are photo and video materials. Thus, the amount of destroyed equipment is much higher than indicated here.”
In addition, the data may get to the Oryx website with some delay. But a discrepancy of 9.8 times is already implausible, especially given that Russia has established cash payments for knocked out Ukrainian equipment, which means that the Russian military is interested in documenting its combat successes.
Oryx data on armored vehicles are as follows: as of June 4 – 1472 (from infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers to armored jeeps of the Humvee type) as of June 21 – 1554, that is, 82 vehicles were added to the list. The discrepancy with Putin's data is 8.3 times.
