In the past 9 months of war with Russia, the Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 13,000 people, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Channel 24.
“We have official estimates of the General Staff, there are official estimates mentioned by the commander-in-chief. And they lie between 10,000 and 12,500-13,000 deaths,” he said as quoted by Focus.ua.
He also branded the recent statement by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who mentioned 100,000 killed military personnel, as false. “That is why they deleted this video, took these numbers out,” Podolyak said.
On 30 November, von der Leyen claimed that 100,000 Ukrainian military personnel had died since the beginning of the Russian invasion. However, this video was later taken down. A new video with this controversial claim edited out was published again in several hours. “The estimation used, from external sources, should have referred to casualties, i.e. both killed and injured, and was meant to show Russia’s brutality,” EU official Dana Spinant tweeted.
In late September, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that the Ukrainian army lost 61,000 people and had 49,000 more injured. According to him, 5,937 Russian service members died in the Ukrainian war. At the same time, information collected by Mediazona and the BBC from open sources alone as of 4 November showed that at least 8,294 Russians were killed in the war, 115 of whom are draftees called to join the armed forces as part of the “partial mobilisation”.
