On this picture supplied by the Ukrainian Emergency Providers on Thursday, June 12, 2025, a rescue employee places out a hearth of a automobile close to a constructing which was broken by a Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Providers of Ukraine by way of AP)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The variety of Russian troops killed or wounded in Ukraine has topped 1 million, navy officers in Kyiv mentioned Thursday, describing the large value that Moscow has paid for its 3-year-old invasion.
The declare by the Common Workers of the Ukrainian armed forces is in step with Western intelligence estimates.
The U.Ok. Protection Ministry additionally mentioned in a press release posted Thursday on X that Russia has suffered over 1 million casualties, together with roughly 250,000 killed because it launched the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
On June 3, the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington mentioned Russia doubtless would hit the mark of 1 million casualties this summer season in what it referred to as “a shocking and grisly milestone.”
Russia final reported its navy casualties early within the struggle when it acknowledged that about 6,000 troopers had been killed. Earlier this 12 months, the Common Workers of the Russian armed forces claimed that Ukrainian navy losses had topped 1 million.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy final spoke of Ukrainian navy losses in February, when he mentioned in an interview that 45,100 troops had been killed and about 390,000 injured.
The mutual claims of the opposite facet’s losses couldn’t be independently verified.
Russia launches extra drone strikes
The casualty estimates got here as Russian forces pummeled Ukraine with drones and different weapons, killing three folks and injuring scores of others regardless of worldwide stress to just accept a ceasefire.
In line with the Ukrainian air power, Russia launched 63 drones and decoys at Ukraine in a single day. It mentioned that air defenses destroyed 28 drones whereas one other 21 had been jammed.
Ukrainian police mentioned two folks had been killed and 6 had been injured previously 24 hours within the jap Donetsk area, the main focus of the Russian offensive. One particular person was killed and 14 others had been additionally injured within the southern Kherson area, which is partly occupied by Russian forces, police mentioned.
The authorities in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, mentioned 18 folks, together with 4 youngsters, had been injured by Russian drone assaults in a single day.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov mentioned Russian drones focused residential districts, academic services, kindergartens and different civilian infrastructure.
“Kharkiv is holding on. Individuals are alive. And that’s the most necessary factor,” Terekhov mentioned.
Russia has launched waves of drones and missiles in current days, with a report bombardment of just about 500 drones on Monday and a wave of 315 drones and 7 missiles in a single day on Tuesday.
Ukraine responded to the Russian assaults with drone raids. Russia’s Protection Ministry mentioned that air defenses downed 52 Ukrainian drones early Thursday, together with 41 over the Belgorod area that borders Ukraine. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov mentioned three folks had been injured by Ukrainian assaults.
Russia pushes its sluggish offensive in Ukraine’s east
The current escalation in aerial assaults has come alongside a renewed Russian battlefield push alongside jap and northeastern components of the greater than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) entrance line.
Whereas Russian missile and drone barrage have struck areas all throughout Ukraine, areas alongside the entrance line have confronted day by day Russian assaults with short-range exploding drones and glide bombs.
On Thursday, the Russian Protection Ministry claimed its troops captured two extra villages within the Donetsk area, Oleksiivka and Petrivske. The Ukrainian navy had no quick touch upon the Russian declare.
The assaults have continued regardless of discussions of a possible ceasefire within the struggle. Throughout their June 2 talks in Istanbul, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators traded memorandums containing sharply divergent situations that both sides see as nonstarters, making a fast deal unlikely.
Russia and Ukraine trade extra POWs
The one tangible consequence of the talks was an settlement to trade prisoners of struggle and the our bodies of fallen troopers.
Russia and Ukraine carried out one other POW swap on Thursday that included severely wounded and gravely sick captives, though the edges didn’t report the numbers.
“Our individuals are coming dwelling,” Zelenskyy mentioned in a press release on Telegram. “All of them require medical therapy, and they’ll obtain the required assist. That is already the second stage of returning those that are severely wounded and critically sick.”
In line with Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, among the repatriated troopers had been listed as lacking in motion. The oldest amongst them is 59, the youngest is 22, he mentioned.
NATO chief hails Trump’s peace efforts
In Rome, NATO Secretary-Common Mark Rutte counseled U.S. President Donald Trump for his “essential” transfer to begin direct peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the similar time, Rutte criticized Putin for appointing his aide Vladimir Medinsky as the highest negotiator for the talks in Istanbul. Medinsky ascended by the Kremlin ranks after writing a sequence of books exposing purported Western plots in opposition to Russia and denigrating Ukraine.
“I feel that the Russians sending this historian now twice to those talks in Istanbul, making an attempt to begin with the historical past of 1,000 years in the past after which explaining kind of that Ukraine is at fault right here, I feel that’s not useful,” Rutte mentioned. “However at the least step-by-step, we attempt to make progress.”
Additionally on Thursday, German Protection Minister Boris Pistorius arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced go to, noting the stepped-up Russian assaults ship a message from Moscow that it has “little interest in a peaceable answer at current,” based on German information company dpa.
Pistorius mentioned his go to underlines that the brand new German authorities continues to face by Ukraine.
“In fact this may also be about how the help of Germany and different Europeans will look in future – what we will do, for instance, within the space of commercial cooperation, but additionally different help,” he mentioned.
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Related Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
Italy’s International Minister Antonio Tajani, left, and Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary Common, previous to the “Weimar Plus” Ministerial assembly devoted to Ukraine and European safety in Rome, Italy, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse by way of AP)
On this picture supplied by the Ukrainian Emergency Providers on Thursday, June 12, 2025, a rescue employee evacuates a girl from a constructing which was broken by a Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Providers by way of AP)
On this picture supplied by the Ukrainian Emergency Providers on Thursday, June 12, 2025, rescue staff put out a hearth of a constructing which was broken by a Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Providers by way of AP)
On this picture supplied by the Ukrainian Emergency Providers on Thursday, June 12, 2025, a rescue employee evacuates a person from a constructing which was broken by a Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Providers by way of AP)
