Disaster for Putin as 150,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine in a year

Vladimir Putin suffered the loss of some 150,000 soldiers during 2024, bringing total losses to 434,000, Ukraine’s top general said today.

As Ukrainian drones once again audaciously attacked a major aircraft plant making Russia’s strategic bombers, Kyiv’s highest military commander highlighted Russian losses.

Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Kremlin’s total military personnel to have been killed since the start of the war 35 months ago had reached 434,000 soldiers.

And Gen Syrskyi said that in 2024 Putin had seen the loss of more troops than in the previous two years combined.

“Total losses according to our estimates, it was more than 434,000 personnel, of which approximately 150,000 were killed,” he said.

“In one year … In 2024.

“In this year of hostilities, they lost more than in the previous two years of the war.”

The general vowed to set up a domestic air complex – a “dome” – including missiles as good as US Patriots, capable of defending the country from Putin’s ‘new’ Oreshnik rockets.

“It encourages us to actively negotiate with our allies to get such a system,” he said.

“And, of course, this should encourage us to create a modern missile system that could be a deterrent against the use of such weapons by the Russians….

“You know that work is under way, actively under way in this direction.

“I hope that we will get the desired result for us in the near future.”

Russia has declined to reveal its losses in the war, as has Ukraine, but Moscow has repeatedly disputed those estimates put out by Kyiv.

Meanwhile, on the ground, as the fighting continued, images released online e reportedly showed a strike on the Kazan Gorbunov Aircraft Plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region.

A major plant established by Joseph Stalin, it produces nuclear bombers such as the Tu-160 but also other aircraft used in Putin war against Ukraine.

Huge explosions were reported in Kazan, where the local airport was closed due to Ukrainian drones, and air defences attacked thew incoming UAVs.

The scale of any damage was not immediately clear.

But elsewhere, Russia also claimed to have downed four US-made HIMARS missiles in Bryansk region.