Zelensky says 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died fighting Russia’s invasion
Fighting against Russia’s four-year-old invasion has cost the lives of 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers, according to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, as a US envoy described two days of talks between Moscow and Kyiv officials as “detailed and productive”.
Ukraine has also listed “a large number of people” as missing in the war, Mr Zelensky added in an interview broadcast by French TV channel France 2.
The last time the Ukrainian leader gave a figure for battlefield deaths, in early 2025, he said 46,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed.
The two sides are locked in a grinding war of attrition along the roughly 1,000km (600-mile) front line, snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, where the Russian army is trying to make the bigger size of its army tell. Both sides are also firing long-range drones and missiles at targets in the rear.
Mr Zelensky’s figure for troop deaths is much lower than an estimate given last month by a US think tank. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated that up to 140,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed through the end of last year.
Its report said Russia suffered up to 325,000 troop deaths over the same time.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses. The Russian Defence Ministry has not released figures on battlefield deaths since a statement in September 2022 that said just under 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.
Ukrainian civilians have also reeled from the fighting. Last year there was a 31% increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties compared with 2024, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Almost 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 40,000 injured since the start of the war through last December, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Peace efforts have dragged on, meanwhile, and negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv on Thursday held a second day of US-brokered talks.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the two sides agreed to exchange 314 prisoners, their first exchange in five months, though the meeting in Abu Dhabi delivered no major breakthrough.
“While significant work remains, steps like this demonstrate that sustained diplomatic engagement is delivering tangible results and advancing efforts to end the war in Ukraine,” Mr Witkoff said on X.
The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by Mr Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council chief, who was present at the meeting.
They were also at last month’s talks in the same place as the Trump administration tries to steer the two countries toward a settlement. At the time, Mr Zelensky described the issue of who would control the Donbas industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine as “key”.
General Alexus Grynkewich, Nato’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, was also present at the talks, according to a spokesman for the general.
Together with Prime Minister of Poland @donaldtusk, we paid tribute to fallen Ukrainian defenders.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 5, 2026
Eternal memory to our bravest people who fought for Ukraine, defended its independence, and gave their lives in this struggle.
Eternal glory to our heroes. We remember each and… pic.twitter.com/Kop4f9mtq7
Mr Zelensky urged allied countries to press Moscow into ending its all-out invasion, which began almost four years ago on February 24 2022, and said his country needs security guarantees to deter any post-war Russian attacks.
Ukrainians must feel that there is genuine progress towards peace and “not toward a scenario in which the Russians exploit everything to their advantage and continue their strikes”, Mr Zelensky said on social media.
Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrived in Kyiv on an official visit on Thursday.
Two people were injured in the Ukrainian capital as a result of overnight Russian drone strikes, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. In the wider Kyiv region, a man suffered a shrapnel chest wound, authorities said.
Russia fired 183 drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Russian air defences downed 95 Ukrainian drones overnight over several regions, the Azov Sea and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.
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