This update came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed at the moment six Russians died on the battlefield for every Ukrainian.
In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Ukrainian leader said: “Indeed, they have a much larger population, and we take care about our soldiers more [than they do]. Indeed, we will not have a larger population than Russia. However, for every six Russians, one Ukrainian dies today [on the battlefield].”
Mr Zelensky said he was sharing these figures not to imply there are enough Ukrainian troops to fight Russia but to stress that the “war is technological, and whoever owns more technologies”, rather than men, “will prevail”.
The Ukrainian President repeated this concept also on July 1, as he announced on X his country was “ramping up the production of drones” as well as of “certain types of weapons, ammunition, equipment, demining machines and many other essential items”.
He added: “This shows that technology on the battlefield is an effective defence against aggression in the modern world.”
Separately, Mr Zelensky also asked Western allies to further relax restrictions on the use of weapons against military targets inside of Russia after the Kremlin dropped more than 800 glide bombs on his country in the past week.