UKRAINE
Ukraine war: Up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed since Russia’s invasion, says official Access to the commentsCOMMENTS
By Euronews with Reuters/AFP • Updated: 02/12/2022 – 09:59
Parents of recently killed Ukrainian serviceman Ruslan Zhumaboev stand next to his grave in a cemetery during Ukraine Defenders Day in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022.
Parents of recently killed Ukrainian serviceman Ruslan Zhumaboev stand next to his grave in a cemetery during Ukraine Defenders Day in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. – Copyright Francisco Seco/Copyright 2022 The AP. All rights reserved
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
facebook
twitter
flipboard
mail icon
Up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion in February, an official said on Thursday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, estimated that 10,000 to 13,000 servicemen and women have lost their lives.
Russia has put its number of war dead as being under 6,000. Washington claims up to 100,000 Russians have died in the war.
Both sides are suspected of minimising their losses to not dent the morale of troops and the wider public.
“We are open in talking about the number of dead,” said Podolyak, adding that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would make the official data public “when the time was right”.
Thursday’s figure is the first official estimate of the dead since August when the head of Ukraine’s armed forces said nearly 9,000 military personnel had been killed.
Ukraine war: Europe must brace for 100,000s of Ukrainian refugees this winter, says Jan Egeland
Two months before Zelenskyy said that “60 to 100 [Ukrainian] soldiers a day were killed in action”, with around 500 injured, when Russian forces were pushing to take over the Lugansk region in the east.
Ukraine’s position on the battlefield has now improved, with its armed forces making sweeping gains and recapturing the strategic southern city of Kherson in November.
In September, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start of the conflict on 24 February.
This is far lower than estimates that have been put forward by western analysts.
Last month, US Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, said in November that Russian losses were probably equivalent to those on the Ukrainian side, putting the figure at 100,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers killed or injured on each side.
Euronews cannot independently verify these figures.
The Ukraine war is the most deadly armed conflict to break out in Europe in decades, with several thousand civilians also dying as a result of the violence.
