Russia's Defence Ministry claims Russia destroyed more military equipment than Ukraine has — an investigation

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia's Defense Ministry has reported the destruction of more equipment than Ukraine has, repeatedly claimed the seizure of the same settlements, and provided conflicting statistics on casualties among Ukrainian defenders, says an investigation by Russian media Proekt.

Journalists analyzed the daily briefings of the chief spokesman for Russia's Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, about the war against Ukraine. According to the investigation, the number of Russian "victories" Konashenkov reported were only arithmetic and geographical falsifications.

Konashenkov reported that 25 Ukrainian settlements were captured more than once. According to the spokesman, the city of Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast was captured four times by Russian forces.

Five days after the first "capture" of Kreminna, Konashenkov claimed that "control was established" over the city, and the next day he said that Russian forces "took control" over Kremmina for the third time. Three weeks later, the spokesman reported on battles with Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Kreminna. On April 1, he said, the northern suburbs were blocked, and on April 21, a month and a half after the first report, he spoke for the fourth time about the capture of the city "without serious damage to urban infrastructure and housing."

Several times Konashenkov mentioned the village of Stepne in Donetsk Oblast. There are two places in the battle zone with this name, but the spokesman never specified which one he meant.

On April 17, Konashenkov reported that a Ukrainian drone was shot down in Preobrazhenske in Pavlohrad Oblast. There are few settlements with this name but Pavlohrad Oblast never existed in Ukraine. He also declared the capture of the village of Zakablukhovka. There is no such settlement on modern maps, and in the 1980s, military cartographers marked the village of Zakablukhovka as uninhabited.
Russia's Defense Ministry also provided conflicting data on destroyed Ukrainian equipment. As of June 26, Konashenkov reported 216 destroyed Ukrainian planes, which is actually more than Ukraine has. Before the full-scale invasion, Russia reported that Ukraine had 152 aircraft.

Data on Ukrainian prisoners of war is also contradictory. Before March 2, Konashenkov claimed 838 Ukrainian service members were taken prisoner, but on March 2, this number transformed to 572.

Konashenkov's estimates on Ukrainian losses in personnel are also exaggerated, the investigation says. According to the spokesman, Ukraine lost at least 40,596 service members during the full-scale invasion. The number of wounded is usually two to three times higher than the number of killed. Thus, the number of Ukrainians killed and wounded on the battlefield, according to Russia's Ministry of Defense, in total can be up to 160 thousand people. By the beginning of the full-scale war, the regular number of the Ukrainian Army of Ukraine was about 200 thousand people, another 250 thousand were in reserve.