20,000 Russian troops killed in eastern offensive failures, says US | First Thing

Russian casualties mark acceleration even when compared with first days of the war, says White House national security council spokesperson John Kirby. Plus, all the coverage from the Met Gala

Good morning.

More than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and more than 80,000 injured in five months of fighting in Ukraine, an acceleration in already heavy losses for Moscow, US intelligence officials estimate.

How were the losses calculated? Kirby did not detail how the US calculated Russia’s losses, but said about half of those who died were fighting under the Wagner mercenary group rather than with the Russian military. They were being sent into battle without proper training or leadership, he added.

What’s happening on the ground in Ukraine? Ukrainian forces are still holding out in a corner of Bakhmut. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces, said yesterday “the situation is quite difficult”, but Ukrainian forces are still counterattacking against Russians.

What else did Hinton say? “I’ve come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we’re developing is very different from the intelligence we have. So it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learned something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”