-
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused more than 2 million military casualties, with Moscow’s forces bearing the brunt of the losses, according to an American thinktank. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that between 400,000 and 450,000 Russian troops have been killed since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, out of a total of 1.4 million casualties that were killed, wounded or are missing. Ukrainian forces have meanwhile suffered between 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities out of between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties during the same period, CSIS said on Wednesday. “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US fatalities in all wars combined since world war two,” it added, while the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian casualties has likely risen to about eight to one in the first half of this year.
-
Russia launched an intense missile and drone attack on Kyiv overnight to Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens more. The large-scale strikes hit residential buildings in the Ukrainian capital and triggered a fire in a hotel on a central boulevard. People were trapped in a damaged nine-storey residential building while the roof of another high-rise apartment block was on fire, said Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko. He said the first to sixth floors of an apartment building collapsed after a direct hit and urged residents to remain in shelters, which were crowded with people amid Russia’s worst attack on the country since mid-June. At least eight people had been killed, said Kyiv’s military administration chief, Tymur Tkachenko, and a local official later said 56 more had been injured. Russia’s defence ministry said the attack, as well as strikes on several regions including Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk, were in retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on civil infrastructure.
-
Russia has started seaborne imports of petrol from India, Reuters quoted two industry sources as saying on Wednesday, in a bid to mitigate nationwide fuel shortages triggered by Ukrainian attacks on its energy infrastructure. Russia’s energy ministry and India’s oil ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. The news agency quoted an industry source as saying at least 60,000 metric tons of gasoline had been sent from India to Russia, while another source said two tankers – carrying 30,000 to 40,000 tons each – had been sent. The claims could not immediately be verified. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said Kyiv’s forces struck Russia’s major Ufa oil refinery in the Bashkortostan region for the second time in a week.
-
German prosecutors said they had brought charges against a suspect in the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline linking Russia with Europe. Federal prosecutors confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a man had been charged over the explosion, with German media reporting that he was a Ukrainian national said to be the head of the team that carried out the operation. They said he was the same suspect who was arrested in summer 2025 in Italy and extradited to Germany the following November. Zelenskyy has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.
-
Ukrainian arms manufacturers will be able to export products and components under a new framework that channels a percentage of revenues into a state defence fund, the prime minister said, as Kyiv seeks to raise funds for its burgeoning weapons industry. The scheme would levy 20% of proceeds from finished defence goods and 30% from components, Yulia Svyrydenko said on X on Wednesday. She said manufacturers would have to prove their capability to fulfil Ukrainian defence orders and export contracts simultaneously, and restrictions would apply to items placed on a list of critical goods.
