(Kiev) As many as 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded their country in February, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday.
“We have official estimates from public servants […] They can be up to 10,000 […] 13,000 people died,” Mykhailo Podoliak, one of Mr. Zelensky’s advisers, told Ukrainian Channel 24.
According to him, the head of state will make public the official data “at the right time”.
In June, as Russian forces battled for full control of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky said his country was “losing 60 to 100 soldiers a day, killed in action and about 500 wounded.”
On the other hand, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in September that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began on February 24.
Both adversaries are suspected of minimizing their human losses to avoid weighing on the morale of their troops.
US Chief of Staff General Mark Milley has estimated that more than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the invasion, and that casualties on the Ukrainian side could be in the same order.
These figures – which cannot be confirmed from independent sources – are the most accurate provided by the US government to date.
Thousands of civilians have been killed in Europe’s most violent armed conflict in decades.
