TOP HEADLINES

• The White House estimated that Russia's military has suffered 100,000 casualties in the last five months in fighting against Ukraine in the Bakhmut region, including 20,000 deaths, half from the Wagner mercenary group. READ MORE BELOW

• Russia rejected the U.S. claim, saying it had been "plucked from thin air" and that Washington had no way of obtaining the correct data.

• Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia was inflicting heavy blows to Ukraine across the entire frontline, but that the supply of weapons was crucial to ensuring the success of what Moscow calls its "special military operation."

• Denmark's intelligence service expects Russia to recruit civilians and use journalists and business people to spy on the country as an alternative to Russian diplomats who were expelled last year on suspicion of espionage.

• Talks on a U.N-brokered deal that allows the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain are scheduled for Wednesday, with all sides in the negotiations involved, a senior Ukrainian source said on Tuesday.

• Ukrainian forces shelled a village in the Russian Bryansk region bordering Ukraine early on Tuesday, the local governor said in a social media post, a day after an explosion derailed a freight train in the region.

IN DEPTH

U.S. claims 100,000 Russian casualties in five months

The White House on Monday estimated that Russia's military has suffered 100,000 casualties in the last five months in fighting in the Bakhmut region and other areas of Ukraine.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the figure, based on U.S. intelligence estimates, included more than 20,000 dead, half of them from the Wagner mercenary group, which includes convicts released from prison to join the fighting.

"Russia's attempt at a winter offensive in the Donbas largely through Bakhmut has failed," Kirby said.

"Last December, Russia initiated a broad offensive across multiple lines of advance, including toward Vuhledar, Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and Kreminna. Most of these efforts stalled and failed. Russia has been unable to seize any strategically significant territory."

He said the Russians have made some incremental gains in Bakhmut but that this has come at a "terrible, terrible cost" and that Ukraine's defenses in the region remain strong.

Kirby said another U.S. weapons package for Ukraine would be announced soon.

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