Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has informed the international community that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion against his country.
The Ukrainian leader spoke at the “Ukraine Year 2024” forum in Kyiv, stressing that “each of these losses is a great sacrifice” for Ukraine.
He added that “tens of thousands of civilians” had been killed in occupied areas of Ukraine, but said that no exact figures would be available until the war was over.
It’s the first time that Kyiv has confirmed the number of its losses since the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
On the Russian side, there have been few official casualty figures. However, Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona said on Saturday that about 75,000 Russian men died in 2022 and 2023 fighting in the war.
There are unconfirmed reports by a United States intelligence report declassified in mid-December 2023, which estimated that 315,000 Russian troops had been killed or wounded in Ukraine.
