Destroyed Russian equipment and dead Russian soldiers in the Kherson front-line area near the village of Krynki on April 14, 2024 (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)
Russia has lost 690,720 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on Oct. 28.
This number includes 1,680 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.
According to the report, Russia has also lost 9,120 tanks, 18,395 armored fighting vehicles, 27,660 vehicles and fuel tanks, 19,872 artillery systems, 1,240 multiple launch rocket systems, 984 air defense systems, 369 airplanes, 329 helicopters, 17,867 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
We are the news team of the Kyiv Independent. We are here to make sure our readers get quick, essential updates about the events in Ukraine. Feel free to contact us via email with feedback and news alerts.
Russian forces launched a large-scale drone attack on the city of Odesa overnight on Dec. 30-31, striking residential buildings and leaving part of the city without heat, electricity, or water, local officials reported.
Ukraine's military reportedly struck oil depots in the various Russian and Russian-occupied regions late on Dec. 30, Russian Telegram media channels reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Dec. 29 that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him Ukraine had tried to attack Putin's residence, an allegation Kyiv has denied. "I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it," Trump said.
"Where is their condemnation of the fact that our children are being bombed and people are being killed all this time? I don't hear India, frankly, nor the United Arab Emirates," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Dec. 30.
National security advisers from the Coalition of the Willing countries, led by the U.K. and France, have agreed to meet in Ukraine on Jan. 3, according to Zelensky. The meeting will be followed by another meeting among state leaders, planned for Jan. 6 in France.
Ukraine struck a Russian drone storage facility at Donetsk Airport in occupied Donetsk Oblast, Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi said on Dec. 30.
Ukraine's top commander said a battalion commander will face a legal review after Ukrainian troops abandoned a command post in the Huliaipole sector, leaving behind equipment and potentially sensitive materials.
Zelensky tells Fox News' Bret Baier that Ukraine has demonstrated concrete steps toward peace over the past month and raised the possibility of a referendum on the peace plan. At the same time, a referendum would not legitimize withdrawing from Ukrainian territory, given the current security realities.
Zelensky dismissed Russian claims that Ukrainian drones targeted Putin’s residence as “another lie,” warning Moscow is using the allegation as a pretext for possible strikes on Kyiv and government buildings.
Kyiv failed to implement nine indicators in the last three months of 2025, the highest number missed in any quarter since the Ukraine Facility began in 2024, according to a Dec. 29 assessment by RRR4U.
