Invasion of Ukraine “military disaster” for Russia - UK at OSCE

This was stated by the Senior Military Advisor at the UK Delegation to the OSCE, Nicholas Aucott, who spoke at the regular meeting of the Security Cooperation Forum in Vienna on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"It is now two years and 212 days since Russia conducted its full-scale invasion, a military action which Russia envisaged would be over in a matter of days. In that context, the current predicament can be construed as nothing less than a military disaster for the Kremlin," said the British diplomat.

He also pointed out that Ukraine "now controls up to 900 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk Oblast. Ukraine has a clear right of self-defense against Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and barbaric invasion, and its actions are demonstrative of the ability of Ukraine’s armed forces to achieve strategic surprise and expose Russian weaknesses."

The military advisor at the British Mission to the OSCE noted the fact that "at the military level, Ukraine’s effective use of maneuver warfare stands in stark contrast to Russia’s ‘meat grinder’ tactics. Russian casualties averaged 1,187 a day in August. Contrast this to the daily rate of 544 Russian casualties in August last year, and 236 for the same month in 2022, and it paints a bleak picture for Russia’s military.”

“Even more starkly, Russia has now lost more than 610,000 casualties (killed and wounded) in the prosecution of its illegal campaign," Aucott said.

According to the diplomat, Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine "is faring little better".

"Despite having a considerably smaller maritime component, Ukraine has pushed much of the Russian navy eastwards from Crimea. Ukraine has damaged or destroyed a quarter of the Russian black sea fleet. This includes the destruction of the ‘Rostov-on-Don’, a $300M Russian submarine which was lost to Ukrainian action on 3 August, marking the first combat loss of a Russian submarine since the second world war. As in the land domain, this loss is a stunning Russian military failure," Aucott emphasized.

He emphasized once again that, if Russia really wants peace, "there is a simple way to end this ongoing pattern of destruction – Russia must cease hostilities in Ukraine and remove its forces from Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory."

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russia’s war casualties are three times greater than those suffered by Ukraine, and in some areas -- "even higher".