New York, Mar 25 (AP) The deputy head of Russia's military general staff says that 1,351 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine.

Col-Gen Sergei Rudskoi also said Friday that 3,825 have been wounded.

Also Read | Australia to Drop Pre-Flight COVID-19 Tests for International Travellers From April 17.

NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine.

The Russian figure did not appear to include the Moscow-backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, and it was not clear whether the toll encompassed Russian forces not part of the Defence Ministry, such as the National Guard.

Also Read | Russia-Ukraine War: 1,351 Russian Soldiers Killed in Ukraine, Says Russia.

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Warsaw: Polish President Andrzej Duda was unable to welcome US President Joe Biden on his arrival in Rzeszow due a technical problem with the Polish presidential plane taking him from Warsaw.

Jakub Kumoch, a top adviser to Duda, said Friday that the Polish presidential plane had to make an emergency landing in Warsaw.

The plane landed safely and Duda was waiting for a replacement plane.

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Vilnius (Lithuania): An exhibition of photos of civilian victims and shelling in Kyiv and Mariupol has been put up at the Vilnius railway station so that travellers on trains transiting Lithuania for the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad will see the images.

The Lithuanian railway said Friday that the 24 photographs were selected by the Lithuanian Press Photographers Club. A text on the photos says in Russian that President Vladimir “Putin is killing innocent people in Ukraine today. Are you OK with that?”

Lithuanian Railways CEO Egidijus Lazauskas said that the exhibition is a symbolic show of support.

Transit trains run daily from Moscow to Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland.

At home, Russia has tightly controlled news of what it describes as a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

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Copenhagen: Finland's national railway company says it will suspend services between Helsinki and the Russian city of St Petersburg from this weekend, closing one of the last public transport routes for Russians who want to reach the European Union.

Citing the sanctions imposed on Russia, the head of passenger traffice with state-owned VR, Topi Simola, said that “people who wanted to depart from Russia have had adequate time to leave”.

Only the morning train from Helsinki to St Petersburg will be operated on Sunday while the afternoon train will be cancelled. Both services from St Petersburg will be operated. After that, trains will be suspended until further notice.

VR said customers can cancel their tickets at no cost.

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Geneva: The UN human rights office says its strict methodology in counting casualties in Ukraine's conflict has yielded “very few” confirmed casualties in Mariupol, largely because of difficulties getting access in and information out of the besieged port city.

Matilda Bogner, who heads the rights office's Ukraine branch, noted that council leaders in Mariupol have estimated more than 2,000 civilian deaths in the city following Russia's military invasion on Feb 24.

Overall, the rights office has counted at least 1,035 civilians killed in Ukraine and 1,650 injured but Bogner said it doesn't have a “the full picture of locations that have seen intense fighting, in particular Mariupol and Volnovakha”. The office has acknowledged that its tally is likely to underestimate the actual toll. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)