Putin says nearly 700,000 Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine

(Patria) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday on television that nearly 700,000 Russians are fighting in Ukraine, AFP reported.

"There are almost 700,000 in the zone of our special military operation," Putin said during a televised meeting with decorated participants of the offensive.

In December, at a year-end press conference, Putin cited a figure of 617,000 who were taking part in combat operations. He said that of those, 244,000 were mobilised.

The latest figure on the number of troops comes after Russia launched a major ground offensive in May on the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.

Moscow rarely speaks about losses during the conflict, which it still calls a "special military operation." The last time it gave an official figure was in September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had been killed in action.

But some independent analyses and assessments by Western intelligence agencies estimate that number in the tens of thousands. Russia has an advantage in manpower over Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged problems with personnel and "morale" in his ranks, which are often outnumbered.

Kyiv has lowered the age at which men can be conscripted and tightened penalties for those who evade the draft. "We need to fill the reserves... A large number (of brigades) are empty," Zelenskyy told AFP in May.

Zelenskyy said in February that about 31,000 of his soldiers had been killed in two years of war.