Russian President Vladimir Putin said on television that nearly 700,000 Russian servicemen are currently participating in the offensive in Ukraine, France reported press, quoted by BTA.
"We have almost 700,000 people (in the area of the special military operation)", Putin said in a televised meeting with soldiers awarded for their military exploits, using the official name of the armed operation that began in February 2022 ., says AFP.
In December last year, the Russian president said that the military involved in the operation numbered around 617,000.
AFP recalls that in May, Russia launched a large-scale offensive in Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine.
"We were simply forced to extend the front line to Kharkiv Oblast to reduce terrorist attacks on Belgorod and other populated areas," Putin said. So far, however, Russia has advanced in this sector of the front by only a few kilometers, DPA notes.
One "10, 15 or 17 kilometers" will not completely prevent the Ukrainians from continuing to shell Russian cities, but the danger is gradually decreasing, Putin said, adding that caution is needed.
"If the enemy continues to do what he has been doing so far, then we will decide what to do to protect our cities," the Russian president said, hinting that the Russian offensive could become larger.
Russia does not report its losses in manpower in its operation in Ukraine. According to the latest published data - as of September 2022 - the number of Russian soldiers killed in hostilities is 5,937. However, a number of independent analyses, as well as some Western intelligence services, estimate the losses to be at least tens of thousands.
However, Russia has numerical superiority at the front, while Ukraine is struggling to mobilize after more than two years of bloody and devastating hostilities, notes AFP.
In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
Today, on the eve of a summit in Switzerland, dedicated to ways to achieve peace in Ukraine, to which Russia was not invited, Putin practically set as a condition for negotiations the capitulation of Ukraine, notes AFP. Zelensky rejected such a possibility, defining what the Russian president said as a "Hitler-style ultimatum,", the agency adds.