Ukraine Army Has Now Killed 43,000 Russian Soldiers, Destroyed 1,800 Tanks: Report

Ukrainian forces continue to inflict heavy losses against their Russian counterparts nearly half a year into Russia's invasion, according to Ukraine's military.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces killed 43,000 Russian military personnel between the start of Russia's unprovoked attack on Feb. 24 and Thursday, Pravda reported, citing data by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian combat losses also included 1,846 tanks, 4,100 armored fighting vehicles, 232 aircraft and 193 helicopters, among other pieces of military equipment, according to the Ukrainian military.

"The Russians suffered the greatest losses (in the past day) in the direction of Donetsk," the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claimed.

Russia's last official casualty figures from the war, provided by the country's Ministry of Defense in late March, said fatalities at the time numbered 1,351.

Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona claimed there had been 5,185 deaths of Russian soldiers as of July 29.

The latest figures of Russian combat losses by the Ukrainian military were released days after nearly a dozen Russian jets were reportedly destroyed in Ukraine's annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Four Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jets and seven Su-24 attack aircraft got destroyed after several explosions rocked Saky Air Base in Novofedorivka Tuesday, according to independent analysts at Oryx, an open-source initiative tracking military equipment losses.

"I can't think of a time Russia has lost this many air assets in one day in recent memory, and they have to be deeply concerned about Ukraine's ability to do similar strikes elsewhere," Eliot Higgins, the founder and director of the open-source investigative website Bellingcat, said in a tweet.

The blasts, which Russia claimed were caused by the detonation of ammunition, also killed one person, wounded 14 others and damaged dozens of nearby houses.

Ukraine did not claim responsibility for Tuesday's incident, but a Ukrainian military official with knowledge of the situation said Ukrainian forces were behind the explosions, The New York Times reported.

Partisans loyal to the Ukrainian government were involved in the operation, the official added.

The senior official did not disclose what type of weapon was used to attack Saky Air Base, describing it only as "a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture."

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, cryptically said the blasts were either caused by Ukrainian-made long-range weapons or the work of Ukrainian guerrillas operating in Crimea, according to The Guardian.