Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says 31,000 soldiers defending the country from Russia’s invasion have been killed, in what is the country’s first official figure for military casualties in more than two years of fighting.
“I don’t want to mention the number of wounded,” Zelensky said at a press conference on Sunday.
US and Russian officials had previously said between 100,000 and 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the conflict, figures which Zelensky dismissed as “nonsense.”
Zelensky meanwhile put Russian losses at 180,000 dead and 500,000 wounded.
This is the first time that one of the warring parties has put out its own official casualty figures. The veracity of this cannot be officially verified.
The Russian casualty figures cited by Zelensky are significantly higher than the daily updated toll by the Ukrainian armed forces, which on Sunday put the total number of Russian losses at 409,820 – dead and wounded.
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