Zelenskiy says 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in two years of war
- 27 February, 08:12
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has publicized his country’s death toll in the war with Russia for the first time, acknowledging that 31,000 soldiers of the national army have been killed since February 2022.
Speaking in Kyiv a day after the second anniversary of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said the Western estimates of the Ukrainian death toll were too high.
“It’s not 300,000 or 150,000. Every casualty means a lot to us. Every single person is a tragedy,” Zelenskiy said, adding that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far. He didn’t reveal how many Ukrainian servicemen had been injured. As to Russia’s casualty figures, Zelenskiy said this number was 180,000 killed and 500,000 wounded. He described Putin and Russia as a “ring of inhumans”. Zelenskiy did not comment on the casualties among the Ukrainian population and said such figures are not currently known.
Ukraine has long kept its death toll secret in order to keep the troops’ morals high. The last official casualties update from Ukraine came in December 2022, when an adviser to Zelensky said that up to 13,000 troops had died in action.
The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate as Ukrainian soldiers are fighting to hold on to the territories recaptured in the east of the country.
