These dead are part of the 1.5 million Russian forces casualties during the war in Ukraine, says UK Armed Forces Chief of Defence Staff Richard Knighton.
The figures provided by the UK roughly match the data published by the Ukrainian army. Russian officials have not yet commented.
The larger Russian army is struggling to make progress on the battlefield. Western officials and analysts say that the pace of Russia’s offensive has significantly slowed this year.
The Russian armed forces have also lost a “huge” amount of military equipment, Knighton told journalists. This includes more than 10,000 armored vehicles and other transport, nearly 3,000 air defense and artillery systems, and more than 370 aircraft and helicopters, Knighton said.
He did not speak about Ukrainian losses.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv regularly provide information about their battlefield losses.
Russian drones target Kyiv gas stations
Russian drones targeted roadside gas stations in Kyiv for the second day in a row on Friday. According to Ukrainian officials, this is intended to cause panic among civilians.
The attacks hit two Ukrnafta gas stations, one of which resulted in two deaths and six injuries, the prosecutor’s office reported.
Russian strikes on city gas stations have intensified in recent months, mostly in regions near the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine.
This is part of a campaign aimed at disrupting civilian life and weakening morale. This campaign also includes attacks on food distribution centers, causing some supermarket shelves in the Ukrainian capital to empty.
“Russia systematically attacks places where it knows people spend time living their daily lives, aiming to maximize casualties, sow fear, and pressure Ukrainian society,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on the social network X on Thursday evening.
Officials urged residents not to linger near gas stations and other unprotected infrastructure during air raid alerts.
Ukraine is urgently trying to improve its air defense as the Russian invasion continues into its fifth year, and on Thursday received promises of increased support from Canada.
Five people killed in central Ukraine
Pavlohrad, located in central Ukraine, declared an official day of mourning on Friday for five residents killed the previous day near shopping centers by Russian drones in broad daylight.
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Sixty-seven people were also injured in the attack, Sybiha reported on the social network X.
In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a 32-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son were injured during a nighttime Russian drone attack, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported. The drones hit a nine-story apartment building and a shopping center, the service said.
Efforts to extinguish fires were slowed by the constant threat of repeated strikes, forcing firefighters to stop work and seek shelter, the service added.
Russia claims to have shot down 777 Ukrainian drones
Meanwhile, Ukraine has expanded its long-range drone campaign deep into Russian territory, straining air defenses across its vast neighbor.
On Thursday, the country’s military reported striking an oil refinery in Siberia, more than 3,000 kilometers away, as Kyiv sought to damage Russia’s vital oil sector. These strikes caused fuel shortages in Russia, one of the world’s largest energy producers.
Russian oil product exports hit record lows in August, and Moscow is importing fuel from South Korea and India, according to a report by the Energy and Clean Air Research Center.
“Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refining capacities have changed the situation of the once-largest oil product exporter in the world, which has started importing fuel, with imports reaching record levels in August,” the Finland-registered nonprofit organization reported on Thursday.
Ukraine launched a massive attack overnight into Friday, and the Russian Defense Ministry reported that air defenses intercepted 777 Ukrainian drones over 16 Russian regions, as well as in occupied Crimea and the waters of the Azov and Caspian Seas.
In the Tula region, south of Moscow, two people were killed and three others injured during a Ukrainian drone attack overnight, local officials reported on Friday.
A Ukrainian drone strike overnight caused a fire at the Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia, the independent Russian online publication Astra reported on Friday. Kyiv has repeatedly targeted this refinery, which was last hit in early August.
The large online retailer Ozon reported that its logistics center in the same city was hit and set on fire by a Ukrainian drone, but no casualties were reported. Ozon is a competitor of Wildberries, whose facilities Ukraine has also targeted.
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