The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has caused huge casualties on both sides, Ukraine said on Friday, explaining that the Russian military has suffered greater casualties than that in Kyiv.
An aide to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, conceded Friday morning that Ukraine had suffered “heavy casualties” during the war, but said Russia had been “colossal”.
“We have serious losses, but the Russians are much, much higher … They have colossal losses,” said presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych.
Arestovych also acknowledged that Russia had managed to capture more territories and cities over the past week, but stressed that Moscow’s advances were Pyrrhic and resulted in heavy casualties for the Russian military.
President Zelenskyy’s office also said that Russia continues to shell the front line in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, hitting Ukrainian forces with artillery, rockets and bombs.
The Ukrainian government also announced on Friday that it would evacuate hundreds of civilians holed up in a huge steel complex in the besieged city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited Kyiv and nearby cities and lamented the suffering of Ukrainian civilians during the war.
“I picture my family in one of these houses, now ruined and black. I see my granddaughters running away in terror and part of the family eventually being killed,” Guterres told reporters.
“Innocent civilians lived in these buildings, they paid the ultimate price for a war they did not contribute to at all.”