Putin Says 700,000 Soldiers Were Involved in Offensive Against Ukraine

"We have almost 700,000 men in the area of ​​special military operations," said Putin, using the official term to characterize the ongoing war, during a meeting with soldiers decorated for their feats of arms, broadcast on television.

In December, Putin had indicated that the number of troops involved was 617,000.

This announcement comes at a time when Russia launched, in May, a vast offensive in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine.

Russia does not mention its human losses in the military offensive on Ukrainian soil.

The last known figure, as of September 2022, was 5,937 soldiers killed in combat, but several independent analyses, as well as those from Western intelligence services, estimate that these losses are at least in the tens of thousands.

Russia has the advantage in terms of numbers on the front line, particularly in terms of operational personnel, while Ukraine is struggling to mobilize after more than two years of deadly and devastating fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated his country's military losses in February at 31,000 dead.

Vladimir Putin today set a de facto capitulation of Ukraine as a condition for talks with Kyiv, on the eve of a summit in Switzerland dedicated to ways of achieving peace, from which Russia is excluded, while Zelensky rejected what he considered to be an "ultimatum " in the style of the leader of the Nazi regime Hitler.

Russia occupies practically all of Lugansk and large portions of the Donetsk region, as well as parts of Zaporijia and Kherson.

Ukraine has relied on financial and weapons aid from Western allies since Russia invaded the country on February 24, 2022.

Kyiv's allies have also enacted sanctions against key sectors of the Russian economy to try to diminish Moscow's ability to finance the war effort in Ukraine.

The conflict, which has now entered its third year, has caused the destruction of important infrastructure in several areas of Ukraine.