Vehicle losses have been released for the month of September.

Primary credit: @HeyHey_Hayden TG

In total, Russia lost 32 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 175. A ratio of 1:5.5

Excluding Armoured cars/MRAPs, which skew the ratio as Russia hardly utilises them at all whilst Ukraine does so in huge number for transport purposes, Russia lost 32 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 69. A ratio of 1:2.2

Regarding self-propelled artillery, which is a great indicator of capacity to inflict attrition, Russia lost 7 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 37. A ratio of 1:5.3

Russian losses are counted by UkraineWarSpotting. Ukrainian losses are counted by LostArmour. Credit to HeyHeyHayden for compiling numbers.

Of course, these vehicle losses are all geolocated and only completely destroyed vehicles are counted. There could of course be some mistakes.

The common cope that i hear: “But Russia uses only civilian vehicles! Ukraine actually cares about the lives of their soldiers! Civilian vehicles are not counted in this!”

Are we still seriously falling for “meatwave assaults” in 2026?

A) I have spoken to Ukrainian soldiers that confirm the AFU also uses civilian vehicles in non-combat roles, for transport purposes. Russia does the same. In a war of attrition, cheap but good enough equipment is better than extremely expensive perfect equipment.

B) Adding onto that, Russia has a huge domestic war economy which can churn out so many civilian vehicles that it wouldn’t matter how many were destroyed. If Ukraine’s military vehicles such as SPGs, IFVs etc are destroyed, it needs to wait on deliveries from the west.

C) If AFU command cared about the lives of their soldiers, the Robotyne and Kursk mass suicides would never have happened. Ukraine quite literally burned through tens of billions of dollars worth of Western vehicles in Kursk oblast alone.

D) Even if vehicle losses favoured Ukraine by 2x, this would be nowhere close to the relative attrition needed to be inflicted upon Russia, because of Russia’s industrial capacity.

E) Keep in mind that armies collapse long before they are physically out of manpower or vehicles, as per historical examples such as the Germans in WW1 Collapse is induced when overall attrition inflicted reaches a critical point. Drones only mask this attrition and delay the final outcome. Ukraine is obviously far far closer to this critical point than Russia.