Zelensky admits figure of 31,000 dead soldiers and says Ukraine is ‘in its most difficult moment’ | International

On the first day of the third year since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time referred to the number of his country’s soldiers killed in the conflict. The Ukrainian leader admitted on Sunday that the dead on his side amounted to 31,000, without wanting to provide the number of wounded so as not to give Moscow any clues about the troops he keeps at the front. Yes, he made public the number of victims that, according to his government, his army caused the enemy: 500,000, of which 180,000 were said to have died. He also admitted that Ukraine, on the defensive after the failed counteroffensive and lack of ammunition, is “in the most difficult moment.”

The per-side casualty ratio offered by the Ukrainian president – ​​five Russian soldiers killed for every one from Ukraine – is much higher than that offered by the United States last summer, at the height of Kiev’s counteroffensive. Even the total figures. US officials had assured last August that at that time the number of deaths on the Russian side had reached 120,000, and between 170,000 and 180,000 wounded, while Ukraine would have lost 70,000 (between 100,000 and 120,000 wounded), i.e. that the Russian soldiers fallen, although much superior to the Ukrainians, were not even twice as large, according to what was published The New York Times.

Ukraine has about 500,000 soldiers in its army, while Russia nearly triples that number, with 1.3 million men. Zelensky did not explain how his government counted his deaths, but it is very likely that these were confirmed deaths in which his body was recovered. The Kiev Executive Office, responsible for prisoners of war, assured on January 24 that there are “tens of thousands” of soldiers missing, according to its head Yuri Taraniuk.

On February 19, the independent Russian media Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBC, provided its estimate of confirmed Russian deaths in Ukraine, amounting to 44,654 military personnel. The research to reach that number was based on public sources such as obituaries, comments from relatives on social networks, news published in regional media and information from local authorities. The figure does not even take into account the tens of thousands of soldiers whose bodies may have been abandoned on the battlefield and who are considered missing.

The Ukrainian president, visibly tired, offered these data at a press conference at the end of the Ukraine 2024 Forum, an event designed by Kiev to instill optimism in a society that is beginning to show signs of tiredness, with a stagnant front and a retreating army cause of the economic crisis. to the lack of ammunition and rotations. The second largest financial and armaments contributor after the EU, the United States, has blocked a 56 billion euro aid package in the House of Representatives, with a Republican majority in favor of Donald Trump, the most likely candidate for president of the match. House, favored in the polls and whose position on aid for the Zelensky government is unknown.

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