NEW YORK, June 1. /TASS/. The daily casualties of the Ukrainian armed forces amount to about 60-100 servicemen killed and around 500 injured, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview to the Newsmax television.

"The most difficult situation is in the east of Ukraine and southern Donetsk and Lugansk," he said. "The situation is very difficult; we're losing 60-100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action."

Zelensky claimed the Ukrainian armed forces were "holding our defensive perimeters" in the east of Ukraine and "counter-attacking and pressing" in the Kharkov region.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation in response to a request for help from the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country. The US and its allies responded with severe sanctions and ramped up weapons supplies to Kiev.