Advisor to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his country has lost not less than 13,000 soldiers in an ongoing war with Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his latest update on war with Russia has claimed that 9,000 troops have died since late August this year. Thousands of others have been wounded since, including the head of the armed forces of Ukraine.
“We have official figures from the general staff, Podolyak told a television channel on Thursday, while adding that “official figures from the top command suggest the numbers are between 10,000 and 12,500 to 13,000 killed.”
It is the first time that any Ukrainian official has talked about the number of casualties in the war. Ukraine’s armed forces haven’t talked about the official numbers yet. According to Podolyak, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will make the official data public “when the right moment comes”.
During the month of September the Ukrainian troops had made some lightning advances against the Russian forces. This saw them winning back some patches of territory in the northeast and south of Ukraine. This includes the city of Kherson, which has a good strategic importance for both the warring countries.
Number of Russian casualties in the war still remains a mystery. A top US General had claimed last month that the Russian military has seen more than 100,000 of its soldiers killed or wounded against Ukraine. Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, had later claimed that Russia had suffered seven times more casualties than the Ukrainian troops.
Number of civilian deaths in Ukraine also remains undisclosed as there are no official estimates. Russia and Ukraine have been in a major conflict since 2014. In 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin made a decision on war and since 24 February 2022, Russian forces are on a battlefield against its neighbouring Ukraine.
