Fact-checking of the conclusions of the Forbes article: “Out in the open and while moving in Russia's Kursk region, Ukrainian troops are vulnerable and losing a lot of armored vehicles”.
What is the article about?
The author took the total figures of Ukrainian losses according to Oryx, divided them by the number of days since February 24, and deduced the arithmetic average rate of Ukrainian losses in the war. Then, he took the osint calculation of Ukraine's losses in the Kursk operation, compared it, and came to a conclusion that he formulated into a thesis: “Ukraine is losing a lot of military equipment in the Kursk offensive.”
On the second day of the Ukrainian offensive, Forbes had already published rather subjective information from the same author, David Axe, where he claimed that the Kursk operation would result in Ukraine's allies turning away from Kyiv. But as the second week has shown, this has not happened. Therefore, we are forced to fact-check the conclusions of the new Forbes article.
The errors of logical judgment in the article made by the Forbes analyst include:
Firstly, any offensive means more losses than defense.
Secondly, the estimation of the “effectiveness of the offensive” is the ratio of losses taken to the result shown
Thirdly, the results can be military, political, reputational, and economic.
So let's see if the 9 days of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' operation in Kursk region have caused such large unjustified losses as David Axe of Forbes claims.
It has been visually confirmed that Ukraine has suffered losses in Kursk region during the 9 days of the offensive: 4 tanks and 41 units of armored vehicles. It should be noted that most of the losses include lightly armored vehicles, including mass-produced Ukrainian vehicles such as Kozak-2 and Kozak-7.
This means that Ukraine was losing, according to visually confirmed data, about 0.4 tanks per day. At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured 3 enemy tanks, losing only 4 in the offensive over 9 days. If we calculate the difference between the tanks lost by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and those captured from Moscow (4 tanks lost minus 3 captured), we will get the total of 1 tank lost by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 9 days.
It is not very correct to count Stryker, BMPs/APCs and armored vehicles such as Kozak-2.7, HMMWV, MaxPro, Senator together because they have different military values. For example, armored vehicles such as Kozak-2.7, HMMWV, MaxPro, Senator are not in deficit in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in contrast to IFVs/APCs such as Stryker, Marder or Bradley.
Even the osint researcher on whom the Forbes analyst relied on in his judgment divided the categories.
Therefore:
IFVs/APCs and other heavy equipment accounted for 8 units of losses (destroyed, damaged or captured by the enemy), or 0.8 units per day.
Armored vehicles — 13 units, or 1.4 per day.
In other words, 0.4 tanks, 0.8 heavy equipment, and 1.4 armored vehicles were lost by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the first 9 days of the offensive in the Kursk region. It is worth mentioning that the Ukrainian Armed Forces' offensive took place on the 2nd line of defense, across the mined border. During the 9 days of the offensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces defeated the leading troops of the Moscovia armed forces, broke through 2 defense lines and took control of more than 1100+ km2 of the Kursk region. But then, for comparison, let's see how many resources Moscow spends on similar operations.
But first: “Why did the expert decide that such losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are a lot?”
The reason is that he divided all the Ukrainian losses documented on Oryx by the number of days from February 24 and deduced that on average, Ukraine loses 1 tank and 3 IFVs per day across the frontline (all fronts, not just Kursk).
We would like to present our arguments why such arithmetic is false for evaluation:
Losses at the front are not linear and depend on the dynamics, intensity (offense/defense), improvement of weapons and the possibility of visual fixation (if we are talking about osint's estimates). In other words, to equate 2024, where the intensity of the battles is measured by the involvement of 500-600 thousand soldiers by Moscovia, with 2022, when it was up to 200 thousand soldiers from Moscovia. Similarly, Ukraine's forces in 2022 and now. This is at least incorrect, since the larger the armies clash, the greater the losses from both sides.
Equating the methods of recording losses and damaging heavy equipment in 2022 and 2024 is also a mistake due to the rapid development of the use of UAVs and cheaper FPVs in this war. In 2022, the number of UAVs, the number of FPV kamikazes was not nearly the same as in 2024, and therefore did not deliver as much damage, and therefore did not create as many visual recordings.
Meaning, the intensity, nature of the damage, and methods of fixation in 2024 are greater than in 2022, so it is an extremely incorrect analytical approach to derive an average figure between these 2 years to compare the events of specifically 2024, and especially the Kursk offensive operation.
THE MAIN POINT. The purpose of any military equipment is to protect the soldiers during the mission. Some of the armored vehicles were simply damaged and pulled away because this is now a wide Ukrainian control zone. After repair, these vehicles will be returned to the frontline. Some vehicles fulfilled their task of delivering infantry from point A to point B and were abandoned/damaged. In military jargon, lightly armored vehicles such as Kozak-2 or HMMWV are a “taxi” that often performs a one-time function, but the main thing is that it allows to deliver personnel without losses to the necessary point to perform the task.
Any equipment in war is a consumable resource. The only question is the amount of losses, but we don't think the loss of 4 tanks in the offensive is critical for Ukraine, considering the results of the offensive in Kursk. The main concern for Ukraine is the protection of its soldiers. Judging by many reports and video surveillance, the casualties suffered by Moscow's troops are much higher, especially in terms of captives. Ukraine has captured more than 1,000 Moscovia soldiers.
Eventually, the Moscovia lost 15 units of “vehicles,” which were Ural trucks, KAMAZ trucks, and light unarmored vehicles that contained hundreds of soldiers and were eventually destroyed by Ukrainian military weapons due to their weak armor. Meanwhile, armored vehicles were abandoned by the Ukrainian Armed Forces but were empty inside, what means that the vehicle fulfilled its purpose and protected those inside.
Thus, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, despite losing 4 tanks, 8 units of heavy equipment, and 13 armored vehicles, broke through 2 Moscow defense lines in 9 days of the offensive, took control over 1100+ km2, and captured more than 1000 captives for further exchange. Does this look like a “failure” or “too many losses for the desired result”? In our opinion — no.
And finally, a comparison of the effectiveness of Ukrainian and Moscovia offensive operations.
In the Kursk operation, Ukraine controls over 1100+ km2 in 9 days, according to public statements by the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Syrysky. Let's assume that the permanent territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces is 850 km2, and the remaining 250 km2 is a gray zone of active warfare.
In order to gain stable control over 850 km2 for the offensive through 2 defense lines, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered losses in the ratio of: 0.01 tank units per 1 km2, 0.009 heavy equipment units per 1 km2 and 0.015 armored vehicles per 1 km2. Of course, these figures are higher because not everything can be visually confirmed, but the methodology of comparison is identical for Moscovia, where not all losses can be confirmed visually.
For comparison, Moscow's Avdiivka-Pokrovsk offensive on the cities of Avdiivka, New York, and Pokrovsk gave Moscow control over 598 km2 and cost visually confirmed losses of 0.8 tanks per km2 and 1.5 heavy equipment per km2. This is without counting motorcycles, buggies, and other light military equipment used by Moscow in its attacks.
Or Moscow's more similar in terms of goals and scale operation with the offensive on the city of Vovchansk, Kharkiv region of Ukraine, where Moscow managed to take control over 184 km2, using 0.11 tanks per 1 km2 and 0.26 heavy equipment per 1 km2, taking into account that the Moscow High Command mainly used infantry assaults with low involvement of military equipment, which led to great losses in people.
So is there a difference between Ukraine's effectiveness in the offensive with losses of 0.01 tanks per 1 km2 and similar offensives by Moscow, where losses reached 0.8 tanks per 1 km2 in the Pokrovsk direction or 0.11 tanks per 1 km2 in the Vovchansk direction? All three are offensives, but Ukraine loses far less in such offensives.
Consequently, Ukraine's operation in Kursk region has a significantly higher military effectiveness than similar operations by Moscovia in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine.
The Forbes article made mistakes in the evaluation criteria, which led to falsely constructed theses and judgments.