Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky of “lying” regarding the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat in the last two years of war “All Ukrainian citizens realize that Zelensky is lying and, first of all, all members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine realize the same,” Zakharova wrote on social media.
Zelensky said last weekend that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in combat since the second military invasion of Russia that began on February 24, 2022.
According to the Russian diplomacy spokeswoman, the Ukrainian leader lowered “the real casualty count several times”. This is the first time that Kiev has presented a concrete number of casualties in its own ranks during the war.
Zelensky also released on Sunday a number of Russian soldiers killed in hostilities, which, according to the Ukrainian head of state, amounted to 180,000.
The number of Russian soldiers injured in the fighting amounts to “half a million”, Zelensky added, without specifying the number of wounded on the Ukrainian side.
The latest official death toll on the Russian side is 5,937 and was provided by the Moscow Ministry of Defense on September 21, 2022.
