Ukrainian troops have achieved “good results” on the left bank of the Dnipro, the Operational Command South says. A missile strike on Crimea on Monday damaged a Russian S-300 air defense system. Russia has lost more than 300,000 troops since the invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff says.
Missile strike on Crimea on Monday damaged Russian S-300 air defense system
A missile strike on Crimea on the morning of October 30 damaged a Russian S-300 air defense system, Russian Telegram channel Astra said, citing sources. At 6 a.m. local time, missiles hit a Russian air defense site near the village of Molochne in the Saky district.
According to the Telegram channel, the strike damaged an S-300 air defense system and destroyed a diesel generator. There were no casualties, preliminary reports said.
On October 30 at 6:36 a.m., the Kerch bridge was closed and reopened an hour later. Crimea’s occupation authorities said that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was repelling a drone attack during that time.
Other media reports said that at around 3 a.m., Ukraine struck a Russian air defense unit in occupied Crimea, injuring 17 soldiers.
Later, the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed they had successfully hit “a strategic site,” part of Russia’s air defense system in Crimea on October 30.
Ukrainian troops achieve “good results” on left bank of Dnipro, Operational Command South says
Ukraine’s defense forces have achieved “good results” on the left bank of the Dnipro that cannot be made public yet, head of the joint press center of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, Natalia Humenyuk said on Tuesday, October 31.
“We continue to achieve good results in counter-battery fight and other operations. We cannot make them public yet to make sure that the results are substantial and fixed, not a short-term win,” Humenyuk told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
She said Ukrainian troops “forced the Russian army to move their positions back from the front lines on the left bank.” Yet it was not enough to stop the shelling of the right bank, she added.
“The increased use of tactical aircraft over the right bank highlighted in recent reports shows that [Ukrainian positions] are not entirely within range of the [Russian] artillery,” Humenyuk explained.
In the absence of actual gains, Russian forces are trying to invent ones, Humenyuk said. They ruin civilian infrastructure and economy of the region, and raze to the ground towns and villages on the right bank of the Dnipro.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian sources claimed that likely company-sized elements of two Ukrainian naval infantry brigades conducted an assault across the Dnipro River onto the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on October 17-18.
It is noteworthy that prominent and generally reliable Russian sources are discussing Ukrainian activities on the east bank as occurring at a larger scale than previously documented tactical cross-river raids by Ukrainian forces, ISW said.
Russia has lost more than 300,000 troops since invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff says
Russia has lost around 300,810 troops since it began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This updated count includes 870 Russian casualties in the past 24 hours, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Tuesday, October 31.
Russia has also lost more than 40,000 pieces of equipment.
Russia’s losses amounted to 200,000 in May 2023, and grew by 100,000 in five months.
On October 10, Russian forces began an offensive push toward Avdiyivka, in Donetsk region, trying to encircle the city. According to Ukrainian military sources, Russia has lost around 6,500 troops there. Recent Russian losses in its assault on Avdiyivka are likely to be some of the highest of the year, the UK Ministry of Defence said in an update on Saturday.