The White House released late Sunday the latest estimate from the US National Security Council of how many Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded. Spokesman John Kirby said 80,000 Russian soldiers were wounded as Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks.
The information comes from intelligence reports that have just been declassified, Kirby told reporters at the White House.
About half of the number of soldiers killed are from the paramilitary Wagner Group.
“The conclusion is that the Russian attempts at an offensive have resulted in a setback with a large number of wounded and dead,” said Kirby.
Explosions in Kyiv
He said that information on US calculations of Ukrainian losses is not made public: “The Ukrainians are victims, it is Russia that is attacking”.
John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council. Archive image.
The American action came after a day in which residents in several areas of Ukraine were forced to seek shelter as air raid and robot warnings sounded. During the early morning hours of Monday, explosions were heard in the capital Kiev and, among other things, in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy.
In the city of Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk, over 30 people were reported injured in Russian attacks, among them five children. Among the targets were 19 residential buildings and several schools.
Downed robots
On the Russian side, state-run TASS reported that Russian fighter jets and artillery attacked 140 targets in Ukraine early Monday.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny stated that the country’s air defenses have shot down 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles.
The circumstances surrounding the Russian freight train that derailed in Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border, remained unclear late Sunday.
“An unidentified explosive device detonated, and as a result a locomotive of a freight train derailed,” the region’s governor Aleksander Bogomaz wrote on Telegram after the incident.