Russia's elite special forces suffered devastating losses in Ukraine

Russia's elite military units were severely damaged during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Their main task was to eliminate the Ukrainian leadership.

This is reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to The National Interest.

According to the publication, the Russian military command wanted to use these units to achieve an easy victory in Ukraine. In particular, when Russian paratroopers stormed the Gostomel airport near Kyiv in early 2022, the special forces were supposed to attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials.

However, the attempt to remove Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership failed. Therefore, Russia continued to use elite special forces in the war. They were seen in battles near Mariupol, Kherson, Lyman, Kharkiv, and near Kyiv.

The publication writes that all but one of the five special forces brigades suffered significant losses by the end of the summer. In particular, one of the special forces brigades had only “125 active servicemen out of 900 deployed”. This implies that the unit lost almost 90% of its combat personnel.

Author - Dmitriy Levchenko, 01/11/2024