Servicemen carry the coffins of troops killed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at Lychakiv cemetery in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, on March 9, 2022. (PHOTO:AFP)
Ukarine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia's full-scale invasion two years ago, giving the first official figure for more than a year, reports Reuters.
Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv that he could not disclose the number of wounded because it would help Russian military planning. "31,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000 ... (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is lying there ... But nevertheless, this is a big loss for us."
Ukraine has not put a number to its military losses since the end of 2022, when presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the invasion on Feb. 24.
Russia does not disclose military losses, which it regards as secret. Both sides regularly describe the other's military losses as vast.
The Ukrainian leader also said that tens of thousands of civilians had been killed in the occupied areas of the country during the war. Kyiv says it cannot accurately assess the scale of such losses because it does not have access.
