Russia’s losses since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is edging closer to the one million, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in yet another hammer blow for Vladimir Putin. The losses from the start of the war in February 2022 are estimated to be 950,860, with 1,060 reported killed on April 28 alone.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s spy agency has claimed that there have been 4,700 North Korean casualties, including 600 deaths, since Pyongyang started supplying the Kremlin with troops, according to a politician in Seoul. Lee Seong Kweun, who was in a closed-door meeting with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), said 2,000 injured North Korean soldiers were repatriated to North Korea by air or train between January and March.
The estimate came two days after North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed soldiers to assist Russian forces in their attempt to recapture parts of the Kursk region in western Russia. Parts of Kursk were lost when Ukraine launched a suprise incursion last year.
The advance was the first time Ukraine has taken sovereign Russian territory, with Putin’s forces continuing to occupy around a fifth of sovereign Ukrainian territory.
The latest figures come with Washington pushing for a peace deal to end the fighting. Donald Trump held a striking one-on-one meeting with President Zelensky in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican prior to Pope Francis’ funeral.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to pour cold water on the White House’s efforts for peace.
He told Sky News: “We understand that Washington is willing to achieve a quick success in this process, but at the same time we hope for understanding that the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is too complicated [a process] to be done overnight, there are lots of details and lots of small things that need to be tackled before the settlement.”
“A peace deal should be done with Ukraine and not with America. America is trying to mediate and we are grateful… a couple of days ago President Putin renewed his readiness for direct negotiations with the Ukrainians without any initial conditions. This readiness is still active,” he added.
