Ukrainian casualties mounting
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already engaged around 330,000 Russian personnel, Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromo of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces told local media on Thursday.
“[Russian] groups at various axes are close to 150,000 strong. If we add their air and sea components, there are about 220,000 military personnel,” Hromo said. Russia also deployed “units of the national army combat reserve, the federal service of guard forces, and mobilization units,” the Brigadier General added.
Hromo's sobering account came on the back of claims made by a top Ukrainian official earlier on Wednesday that revealed mounting Ukrainian casualties. Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded each day in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, with 200 to 500 killed on average and many more wounded, said David Arakhamia, who heads the presidential faction in the Ukrainian parliament.
In early June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said daily fatalities among Ukrainian ranks at the Donbas front were between 60 to 100 troops.
Arakhamia, one of Zelenskyy's closest advisers who oversees Ukraine's stalled negotiations with Russia, has been leading a Ukrainian delegation in Washington this week in a bid to lobby the Biden administration and Congress.
Arakhamia's team want to see the pace of weapons shipments increased and is pushing for a designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Yulia Drozd and Max Uzol
