Official: Over 10,000 Ukrainian troops killed in war

Kyiv, Ukraine –

A top adviser to the Ukrainian president quoted a senior military official who said between 10,000 and 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the country’s nine-month struggle against Russian aggression. An unusual comment on such figures, they are far below Western leaders’ estimates of Ukrainian casualties.

Russian forces continue to launch rocket attacks on infrastructure and airstrikes against Ukrainian military positions along the line of contact, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Friday, adding that Moscow’s military pressure was on 10 It is concentrated in a few towns, he added. east.

Ukraine’s presidential office reported on Friday that at least three civilians have been killed and 16 injured in the past 24 hours in Ukraine. The secretariat’s deputy director, Kirilo Tymoshenko, said in a Telegram that Russian forces had attacked nine regions in southeastern Ukraine using heavy artillery, rockets and aircraft.

Late Thursday, Mikhail Podlyak, chief adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, delivered new figures on Ukrainian soldiers killed in the fighting, saying the number of wounded troops was higher and the number of civilian casualties was “higher.” Pretty much,” he pointed out.

“According to official statistics from the Chief of the General Staff and the High Command, between 10,000 and 12,500 to 13,000 people died,” Podoljak told Channel 24.

The Ukrainian military has not confirmed such figures, and it was a rare instance that Ukrainian officials provided such numbers. When he said nearly 9,000 military personnel had died. In June, Podoljak said up to 200 soldiers were killed each day in the heaviest fighting and bloodshed of the year.

On Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union Executive Committee, said 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed before her office corrected her comments.

Last month, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and “well” over 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far. He added that it was “probably the same on the Ukrainian side.”

The United Nations Office for Human Rights recorded 6,655 civilians dead and 10,368 wounded in its latest weekly update released on Monday, though its tally included only confirmed casualties. He admits that he is likely to have greatly underestimated the true number of casualties.

Ukrainians were preparing for freezing winter temperatures as the Russian campaign recently hit infrastructure such as power plants and transformers, leaving many without access to heat, water and electricity.

Ukraine has faced a heavy onslaught of Russian artillery and drone attacks since early October. Artillery fire has been especially intense in Kherson in the south since Russian forces withdrew almost three weeks ago and Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city.

The local governor of Kherson said on Friday that three people were killed and seven wounded in Thursday’s shelling. Russian forces attacked residential areas in the city of Kherson, some of which remained without electricity after a Russian strike on Thursday knocked them out.

In the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian governor Pablo Kirilenko said Russian artillery shelling had significantly intensified. Russian forces are trying to besiege the important town of Bahmut by capturing several surrounding villages and blocking important roads.

There were also reports of a Russian strike targeting a town across the Dnieper from the Russian-owned Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. In northeastern Kharkiv province, officials said two women were wounded by Russian artillery fire.