MINSK, August 17. /TASS/. Ukraine has lost 45,000 people as killed and wounded since starting the counteroffensive, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.

"You [Ukraine] have 45,000 people killed and crippled during the counteroffensive. <...> Your losses at the battle front are 1 to 8," he said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko, which she posted to her YouTube channel.

According to the Belarusian president, Russia has a corps of 250,000 people in reserve, equipped with advanced weapons.

"They will grind you down and then do what you are most afraid of: They will cut you off from Moldova, Transnistria," Lukashenko said.

According to the Belarusian president, those motivated, "ideologically-minded Nazis" no longer exist.

"They have all been killed already. Who is fighting there now? Those, whom you catch in the streets and bring there. They lack training. Well, and a little bit of the military servicemen," Lukashenko said. "They can't cope with this machine. Russia has adapted itself. Russia has the latest weapons at the battle front today. There are enough drones already. It's already a completely different army. And the most dangerous thing is that they have a 250,000 volunteer corps".

According to Lukashenko, Russian troops are "sitting in defense" not because they can't advance.

"They don't have to. You are going ahead, you know, like you are stoned and drunk. You're walking with your arms in front of you, the way they show Germans in the movies. You go to these barricades, but you don't even get to the minefields. We can see that. You are simply being destroyed by the thousands," Lukashenko said.