New Delhi: As Moscow’s invasion of Kiev continues, the deputy head of Russia’s military general staff has said 1,351 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine.
He added that around 3,825 Russian soldiers have been wounded, PTI reported citing AP.
Earlier, Colonel Alexei Sharov became the latest high-ranking Russian official to die in what has become the country's biggest loss of military higher-ups since World War II, Daily Mail reported.
Colonel Sharov, the commander of the 810th Guards Separate Order of Zhukov Brigade in the Russian Marines, was reportedly killed in Mariupol.
Earlier, the Ukrainian authorities said about 300 people were killed in the Russian airstrike last week that blasted open a Mariupol theatre.
Ukrainian officials told news agency AFP that hundreds of people, including children, were using the theatre as a bomb shelter when the airstrike took place.
The situation is desperate in the southern port of Mariupol, with as many as 300,000 civilians unable to evacuate. Mariupol has seen some of the fiercest battles since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
Mariupol, located on the Sea of Azov, is said to be a strategic point for Russia, as it would help it create a land corridor between the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
These regions are largely controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and the European Union have announced a move to further squeeze Russia economically in view of the conflict with Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has characterized the Western pressure as “a real hybrid war, total war”, AP reported.
Stating “the goals are not hidden”, he said: “They are declared publicly — to destroy, break, annihilate, strangle the Russian economy and Russia on the whole.”