Ukrainian forces have lost between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers in the war against Russia, according to a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenksyy.
In an interview on Thursday night, Mykhailo Podolyak quoted top military officials as revealing detailed information as “classified” by a Ukrainian armed forces spokesman earlier in the week.
“We have official figures from the general staff, we have official figures from the higher command, and they amount to between 10,000 and 12,500-13,000 dead,” Podolyak told a Ukrainian media outlet.
Ukrainian national guard servicemen carry a bag containing the body of a Ukrainian soldier in an area near the border with Russia, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Monday, September 19, 2022.
(AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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The comments were not only a rare announcement, but the numbers are likely much lower than Western estimates, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said last month, both Ukraine and Russia have “probably” seen.” well over 100,000″ soldiers killed and wounded.
An independent adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview on Wednesday that kyiv estimated the death toll in Russia’s ranks to be about seven times that of Ukraine’s, according to Reuters.
Podolyak did not provide any estimates on the number of wounded soldiers, but said: “We are open to talk about the number of deaths” noting that more soldiers were wounded than killed.
Ukrainian soldiers carry supplies to trenches on the front lines between Mykolaiv and Kherson in Ukraine, Tuesday, March 22, 2022.
(Photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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Russia has remained silent on the reported deaths and has not released any figures on its fallen soldiers in months.
In late March, Moscow claimed it had lost more than 1,300 soldiers in what it called its “special military operation” in Ukraine. However, after only a month of war, NATO officials had estimated that the number was probably much higher, ranging from 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military has not confirmed the figures provided by Podolyak, and the head of the armed forces last reported in August that 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers had reportedly been killed.
Podolyak said in June that up to 200 soldiers were killed every day in the then four-month war.
Ukrainian soldiers on a truck on the Donbass front Donetsk, Ukraine, July 23, 2022.
(Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Civilian casualties in Ukraine remain largely unknown with the UN reporting some 17,000 casualties since the war began.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned in its latest update on Monday that it “believes the actual numbers are considerably higher.”
