Up to 100 Ukraine troops could be dying in Donbas each day, says Zelenskiy

While Ukraine and its allies have made much of Russian losses since the war began, the issue of Ukrainian casualties has been something of a black hole.

The heaviest fighting is focused around the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in Luhansk, one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas.

Historically a ratio of one killed in action to three wounded was regarded as a rough rule of thumb for assessing casualties, although better field medical treatment and evacuation, not least for US forces in theatres such as Afghanistan and Iraq, resulted in a far higher survival rate from injuries that would once have caused deaths.

The new estimate came as Kyiv also revealed its worst military losses from a single attack of the Ukraine war on Monday, saying 87 people had been killed last week when Russian forces struck a barracks housing troops at a training base in the north.

Moscow had said at the time that it hit a training base with long-range missiles. The toll Zelenskiy announced on Monday was more than double the number killed in a similar attack on a Ukrainian training base in Yaraviv in the west in March.

The updated death toll from Desna emerged following recent remarks by senior Ukrainian officials, including the president, that warned of increasing bloodshed in the next phase of the conflict, amid anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive later in the summer.