Zelenskyy warns of 695,000 Russian troops inside Ukraine
Photo: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
There are 695,000 Russian occupying troops currently on Ukrainian territory. An additional 52,000 enemy troops are stationed across the border in Russia, near Kharkiv and Sumy, according to a statement by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting with journalists.
"As of today, there are 695,000 Russian troops on Ukrainian territory. Plus the Kursk and Belgorod directions — I mean where they are positioned across from Kharkiv and Sumy. So there's also a corresponding number of personnel on the Sumy front, approximately 52,000," Zelenskyy said.
As a reminder, in November 2024, a source in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told RBC-Ukraine that Russia had up to 575,000 troops in Ukraine. According to the source, Russia aimed to increase its troop presence in Ukraine to 690,000 by the end of the year, but failed to do so.
At that time, a group of 11,000 North Korean soldiers was also stationed in Russia’s Kursk region. In total, the Russian military grouping in the Kursk region numbered 59,000 troops.
In December of last year, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that over the past year, Russia had increased its troop presence in Ukraine by 100,000.
Russian army losses
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the losses of the occupying forces in Ukraine have exceeded 1 million soldiers since the start of the full-scale invasion. In addition, Ukrainian forces have destroyed tens of thousands of units of enemy equipment.
