Russia Losses in Ukraine Surpass New Milestone

The number of Russian troops killed since the start of their invasion of Ukraine has passed 110,000, according to the Ukrainian armed forces.

In an update on Saturday, the Ukrainian defense ministry said that 530 Russian troops had been killed over the previous 24 hours, taking the total since the war began on February 24, 2022 to 110,250.

The update also said that 23 tanks and 16 armored vehicles had been destroyed, taking the total number of losses to those pieces of equipment to 3,064 and 6,124 respectively.

Ukraine describes the unverified figures, which Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry about, as "approximate", and they are far lower than western estimates.

Ukraine said at the end of December that an average of 10,000 Russian troops had been killed each month since the start of the invasion.

However, figures it released on Thursday suggested that there had been a major spike in losses, with Ukraine saying that just under 10,000 had been killed in the fortnight between December 21 and January 5.

Russia has not updated its latest official figures announced in September, when defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that 5,937 Russian troops had been killed. Drawing on open source information, BBC Russian and the Russian media outlet Mediazona said last month that it had counted the verified Russian war dead as at least 10,000.

It comes as the Russian defense ministry admitted to its largest single official death toll following a New Year's Eve strike on the town of Makiivka in the Donetsk region, in which 89 of its personnel died in a Ukrainian strike by the U.S. supplied HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System). Russian military bloggers have said the death toll is much higher.

Despite Vladimir Putin's call for a 36-hour truce over the Orthodox Christmas period, hostilities have been ongoing, according the U.K. Ministry of Defense.

Kyiv has dismissed Putin's call for a truce while experts have said it was a Kremlin ploy to allow troops to regroup.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office said on Saturday that Russian forces struck a fire station in the southern city of Kherson leaving several people dead or wounded.

However, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday that its forces had been observing the ceasefire "along the entire line of contact since (midday) Moscow time on January 6" and accused Ukrainian forces of "shelling settlements and Russian positions."

The Russian defense ministry update said Moscow's forces would continue with the ceasefire until midnight Saturday. The update also said that Ukrainian troops fired more than 60 large-caliber shells at the residential areas of Donetsk city and HIMARS had hit Makiivka.