Russians and Ukrainians, most likely, minimize their casualties so as not to hurt their troops’ morale.
A maximum of 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded their country in February, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday (December 1). “We have official estimates from the General Staff (…) They range from 10,000 (…) to 13,000 dead,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Zelenskyy’s advisers, on channel Ukrainian Channel 24. According to him, the head of the state becomes official Publish data “when the time is right”.
As Russian forces struggled to take full control of the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine in June, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country was losing “60 to 100 soldiers a day who are killed in combat and about 500 people are injured in combat.” On the other hand, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in September that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began on February 24. The two opponents are suspected of minimizing the extent of their human losses in order not to damage the morale of their troops.
US Chief of Staff General Mark Milley estimated in November that more than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured since the invasion and that Ukrainian casualties are likely to be in the same range. These figures – which cannot be confirmed by independent sources – are the most accurate figures from the US government to date. Several thousand civilians were also killed in the most violent armed conflict in Europe for decades.
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