The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield in the four years of war with Russia is 55,000, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Zelensky announced the figure in an interview with France 2 TV on Wednesday. Additionally, a large number of people are considered officially missing, he said.
While both Kyiv and Moscow have regularly published estimates of the other side's losses, they have been reluctant to detail their own. However, the BBC has confirmed the names of almost 160,000 people killed fighting on Russia's side in Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump has been leading efforts to end the war that began with Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour on 22 February 2022.
Special US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, held talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, for a second day on Thursday in an effort to try and thrash out the details of the US-proposed peace deal.
It was the second such trilateral meeting and the talks had been detailed and productive, Steve Witkoff wrote on X, but significant work remains.
The most difficult issue is territory, with Russia demanding that Ukraine cedes the rest of the eastern industrial region of Donbas that Moscow does not currently control.
Trump often says thousands of Ukrainians and Russians die unnecessarily every week. Western intelligence agencies also publish estimates, which are impossible to verify.
The last time Zelensky gave an update on Ukraine's casualties was in December 2024, when he put deaths at 43,000.
In his interview with French television, he said: In Ukraine, officially the number of soldiers killed on the battlefield - either professionals or those conscripted - is 55,000.
The official number of dead cited by Zelensky is considerably lower than Ukraine's total losses. As he said himself, 'a large number of people' are registered as missing.
As of six months ago, Ukraine's interior ministry had recorded more than 70,000 people as officially missing - both soldiers and civilians - but the breakdown is never given.
The true figure may be higher - information about the number of dead is highly sensitive and affects morale.
Across Ukraine, military graves are prominent in all cemeteries - marked with blue and yellow national flags. They often have an image of the soldier in uniform engraved on the headstones.
We have also met mothers still searching for their sons, who never returned from battle.
Often, they cling to hope that the men are prisoners of war, captured and held in Russia somewhere but not on any official lists.
Access to Russian prisons for organisations like the Red Cross is highly restricted.
The alternative is that the missing men have been killed and their bodies not recovered from territory now controlled by Russia, or that their remains have not yet been identified using DNA testing.
Every so often, the two countries arrange an exchange of bodies - in addition to swapping prisoners of war - but there has been nothing at all since last August.
Another agreement on swapping prisoners was reached in the Abu Dhabi talks, Witkoff announced. It involved the exchange of 314 prisoners - 'the first such exchange in five months', he said.
'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,' Witkoff added.
The talks began as Russia renewed attacks on Ukraine after a week-long pause that Trump had asked Vladimir Putin to observe as a fierce cold swept Ukraine.
It has been targeting the country's energy sector, leaving thousands without power and hearing as temperatures dropped to -20C (-4F).
![Caterers, Countless Lives: Detroit Chef's Food Feeds Lebanon's War‑Torn Families","description":"In the suburbs of Dearborn Heights, a 47‑year‑old Lebanese chef turns her catering profits into lifelines for over a million displaced from Lebanon, illustrating how U.S. diaspora communities bridge crises from afar.","summary":"When war in southern Lebanon breaks out, hundreds of thousands flee to neighboring Israel and the United States. Amid rising costs, Mirvet Makki—Detroit‑based caterer—sets aside a portion of her earnings each week to sponsor families back home. Her culinary endeavor, which serves soured couscous stews and savory kibbeh, becomes a quiet lifeline for a nation in economic crisis. The problem mirrors a larger diaspora trend: U.S. Lebanese communities fund relief, rally politically, and keep cultural bonds alive, even as they watch conflict unfold from afar.","image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588097834006-0edc6c69d944?auto=format&fit=crop&w=640&q=80","text":"<p>In the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights, 47‑year‑old Mirvet Makki punches kitchen knives and pushes trays of fragrant Lebanese dishes, the same dishes that stir memories of her childhood village in Bint Jbeil. When the devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah dragged thousands of civilians into tent cities, a wave of refugees hit Lebanon’s southern coast—and the Lebanese diaspora in America felt a pull they could not ignore.</p><p>Every week, Makki allocates a slice of her catering profits to families in Lebanon devastated by aerial bombardments and land mines. She says the money is not a charitable donation in the truest sense. Rather, it is a trans‑national family budget trickle that keeps aunts and cousins fed while they await a return that may never happen. The funds travel across borders to a people whose homes have been reduced to rubble.</p><p>Lebanon’s displacement crisis has reached a scale previously thought unlikely: more than one million of the 6‑million‑strong population—roughly one in six—have fled their homes. The economic damage is brutal and the currency has weakened to the point that the U.S. dollar circulates in many rural markets. Food cost, fuel availability, and basic utilities have all collapsed, leaving communities hungry and desperate.</p><p>“I was thinking, ‘What can I do for other people?’” Makki says. “So I used my business.” She maintains a strict budget, limiting personal overhead to spare enough money for her sisters, nephews, and a small handful of friends who live in the most affected regions.</p><p>Many Lebanese Americans—some of them in the U.S. since the late 1800s—have become the de facto financial lifeline for Lebanon. According to the last census, roughly 625,000 Lebanese‑American residents live in the United States now, though many estimates claim the number could be as high as 1.4 million. Secretary‑General António Guterres shook hands with families in South Lebanon while speaking in Nairobi, underscoring how diaspora remittances are crucial to the country's survival.</p><p>Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and smaller Druze communities in Lebanon face distinct hardships, but their U.S. cousins unite over common concerns. When the U.S. voted to provide war aid to Israel, a wave of Lebanese Americans gathered around the “uncommitted movement” to protest, and the community also rallied to condemn a Michigan synagogue shooting. These political coalitions share a single aim: to be the voice and the hand for those who cannot lift themselves.</p><p>“When they see suffering in Lebanon, people’s immediate reaction … is for the community to come together, raise funds, raise money, and try to help everybody as much as they can,” says Akram Khater, director of Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University. “Most rely on one another – they are not looking to Washington for the furniture to rebuild.”</p><p>In February, Makki visited her homeland. She saw how the price of living had skyrocketed: a car rental that once cost $200 would now be a luxury. She felt the loss firsthand in a small roadside food stall that had dwindled to a single dish. That trip cemented her determination to channel her income back to Lebanon.</p><p>Some Americans are moving beyond bank transfers; they meet with families on video calls and, when possible, travel to Lebanon themselves to deliver goods or give a hands‑on hand. Nadia Bryant, a 37‑year‑old mother of Troy, Michigan, sends money to her sisters in temporary housing after their village of Ayta ash‑Shab was invaded. “They donated in direct form to orphans,” she says. “They do not even ask to put the money toward their own betterment.”</p><p>While the U.S. still cannot process immigrant visas for Lebanese nationals due to congressional stand‑by, many families despair. Attoui, a Detroit‑based fundraiser, has urged her relatives to immigrate. They are unwilling. “I have all my aunts and my cousins over there,” Attoui says. “So if you could bring [people] here, that would be a relief.”</p><p>Despite the personal losses and cultural distance, the Lebanese diaspora in the U.S. remains fiercely alive. They keep the poise of their homeland, raise money, and stand together in protest. As the war stretches on, the warmth of a pot of stew and the generosity of a family’s earnings become a quiet, daily rebellion against impossible hunger.</p>](/m/d1/2a/d12a9a3593712ff0281d85ddca1a552c8f027c57cb44d7ac67e0241a3bd37d9d/o.webp)
