Putin announces that 700,000 Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on television this Friday, June 14, that nearly 700,000 soldiers were currently participating in the offensive in Ukraine.

“We have nearly 700,000 troops in the special military operation zone”declared Vladimir Putin, using the official term for the armed operation launched in February 2022, during a televised meeting with soldiers decorated for their feats of arms.

The Russian president gave in December the number of 617,000 men involved in the operation.

5,937 Russian soldiers killed in combat in 2022

This announcement comes as Russia launched a large offensive in May in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine.

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Russia does not mention its human losses in its operation in Ukraine. The latest figure, in September 2022, was 5,937 soldiers killed in action.

But a number of independent analyses, and those of Western intelligence services, estimate that these losses amount to at least tens of thousands of deaths.

Russia, however, has the advantage of numbers on the front, against Ukraine which is now struggling to mobilize after more than two years of deadly and devastating fighting.

31,000 military losses in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, put his country’s military losses in February at 31,000 dead.

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Vladimir Putin on Friday set a de facto capitulation of Ukraine as a condition for talks, on the eve of a summit in Switzerland devoted to the means of achieving peace and from which Russia is excluded.

Volodymyr Zelensky rejected what he said was a “ultimatum” to the “Hitler”.