Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Zelenskyy said that the number was far lower than estimates given by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.
“31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about. But nevertheless, each of these losses is a great sacrifice for us”, Zelenskyy said at the “Ukraine. Year 2024” forum in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian leader said that he wouldn’t disclose the number of troops that were wounded or missing. He also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” had been killed in occupied areas of Ukraine, but said that no exact figures would be available until the war was over.
how many Russians?
It’s nearly 500 000 now. Insane.
Ukraine claims north of 400k, which is undoubtedly optimistic, but allied intelligence agencies have previously floated numbers around 1/2 to 2/3rds of Ukraine’s public claims, which is still an utterly appalling number of dead Russian men. Russia’s tactical approach from the start has been more or less to treat their mobilized conscripts as expendable. For politically-important objectives their commanders have been perfectly happy to dump fresh meat into the metaphorical meat grinder until the gears jam, and then claim victory.
I think that was just casualties. This is Ukraine talking about strictly dead people.
Is that casualties or killed? They’re not the same.
Casualties, but apparently the deaths are more than 50% confirmed - in the end, it doesn’t matter though, because russian field medicine is such a shit show, I highly doubt a single one of those 450k+ will ever fight again. So they are the same.
So if he says 31,000, Poutain says 300,000, can we assume the correct number is in between? Propaganda works both ways
maybe you don’t understand what’s happening… Ukraine wants everyone to know how many people have died defending their homeland… Putin doesn’t want anyone to know how many Russians have died for nothing…
I don’t think you know how propaganda works tho
i think you’re a troll, and not even a very good one
I would bet the number is higher than said, but Zelensky likely picked the most credible low number analysis for this statement.
Russia can and will say whatever the fuck they want.
So sure, in between; id wait for outside analysis too though.
31k sounds awful low, considering the amount of Russian troops they claim to have taken out
Difference between defensive positions and caring for your men’s lives vs being on the offensive and just throwing men into machine gun fire maybe.
And proper tanks, that may burn, but don’t catapult you in to space. Same goes for artillery and rockets that actually find their target.
Makes it so much more important, Ukraine gets all the best we (= the west) can offer.
Russia’s conduct has been abhorrent. Storm-Z and the troops of the Donbass pseudo-states in particular.
Also, one must consider that Ukrainian numbers of enemy personnel eliminated generally includes wounded and captured; whereas Zelenskyy’s estimate here does not include wounded, missing, or captured, just dead.
It’s probably an accurate estimate with that in mind, possibly (though not necessarily) a little on the low side for PR purposes.
Let’s double the Ukrainian numbers…makes the numbers not any less staggering
Somewhere in between, sure. But don’t interpret that to mean that the most likely real number is exactly in the middle. I consider Russian numbers to be way less credible.
Yep I’d agree with that!
The Pentagon leaks should give some insights here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/russians-ukrainians-killed-putins-war-leaked-documents-2023-4?op=1
The US estimated that about 16.5k UA soldiers were killed in about the first year and change of fighting so the 31k estimate is possible after 3 years but seems pretty low. It would extrapolate out to about 45k, but the fighting has been different every year.
Edit: apparently it’s only been 2 years of fighting, my bad, numbers from Zelensky look pretty legit to me then.
Come on, Business Insider?
Insider was not able to independently verify these figures, and it is unclear when, exactly, the leaked data was compiled
Aka, we just make this shit up for clicks 😂
Where’d you go? The other person responded to you.
The leaks were legit, the guy got prosecuted and everything. Snopes thinks they’re legit as well as every other major media outlet:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/04/13/ukraine-war-plans-leak-discord-server/
There was an old xkcd reposted recently about how both the earth and sun revolve each other and the truth is in the middle. The center of rotation is still inside the sun though. The middle depends on the magnitude of the lie, and Russia lies much more.
Some people say humans have gone to the moon, some people say it’s not true. So I guess it’s the middle ground: they flew a little bit and then they came back to Earth.
31.000+ lifes just gone. That’s my hometown and more and that’s only killed soldiers of one side and all because one man and his delusions of grandeur
You have to be very ignorant to think that this is only because of putin.
I’m terribly sorry I didn’t get all intricacies and nuances with one short comment
But not really
This fucking shaman in a dreas certainly isn’t helping much.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has told his followers that “sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty washes away all sins.”
“Official” numbers, what’s the real amount we will see at the end of the war…
Both sides will never say the exact numbers. That’s how this goes. It’s in both interest that actual numbers stay as secret as possible. But I do think that Russian losses are in the 1 to 3 or 1 to 5 range, in Ukraine’s favor, just because the meat grind attacks in Adiivka and Bachmut alone.
EDIT: clarifying the numbers
400k Russians are not in the fight anymore. That number has been confirmed. Even doubling the Ukrainian numbers makes this whole thing utterly staggering…that would be 1 to 6. But the 31k? 1 to 12…12!! For every dead Ukrainian, Russia pays with 12 of their own…
I have a hard time doubting Ukraines estimated Russian casualties.
They have posted video after video of Russia assaults with 5-8 APC’s with a tank or two being absolutely demolished.
I wonder what the life expectancy of fresh troops are now. I doubt they can get experienced troops to leave their trenches and rear positions. So you know it’s some conscript from a remote impoverished town being sent in meat waves to the front.
Same, I have a very hard time as well doubting those. Let alone for the fact, that being on the defensive will always help, home turf and all as well, all those tanks not killing their crew instead of the russian wannabe space-turrets.
Another point of how badly the Russians are doing is how fiercely their propaganda is trying to spin them being the best and Ukraine having already lost. Noticed the uptick of that shit in the last days pretty significantly…
yeah, at the first attempts of encircling avdiivka, with literal meatgrinding tactics (mtlbs dropping troops into the middle of if russian bodies and then running over them, repeatedly), it made it pretty obvious the russian army really don’t give a fuck about their troops. Maybe not as bad as wagner but on a larger scale.
As Churchill said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies”
Neither side is giving accurate information.
there’s no reason to doubt him… Ukraine hasn’t tried any mindless, meat grinder offensives, and the front line hasn’t moved against Ukraine significantly since about the 6 month mark… there’s no reason to believe they’ve lost many more than that, while it’s easy to believe the Russians have lost 10 times that number or more… most of the Ukrainian casualties have been innocent civilians… babies, women, children, etc… the Russians have not shown themselves capable of defeating Ukrainian military units…
while it’s easy to believe the Russians have lost 10 times that number or more
🥱
This war is a fascinating case study with how easily people believe whatever they want with no information to back it up.
there’s no reason to believe they’ve lost many more than that
While I do believe the official numbers that the Ukrainian government has released, it’s also important to note that these do not include military personnel that are missing in action. The actual number of dead is still unknown and likely will remain so until the war is over.
the point is, the Ukrainians are actually working to get and report an accurate number
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haha the truth makes some people say the wildest things they can think of
“WOW HOLY COW ARE YOU REALLY DOUBTING WESTERN PROPAGANDA???”
Yes. I talk to Ukrainians, not people on Twitter pretending to be dogs.
Holo cow, are you really believing eastern propaganda?
You could at least keep up with the inconsistencies between Washington DC and Kiev’s narratives lol. It’s simply a statement of fact that not even the Pentagon or CIA can believe Ukrainian casualty claims.
all those Russian casualties are getting to you… it’s nice to see such desperation… seeing all those planes fall out of the sky must be a little shocking…
What are you talking about you delusional crybaby? The Ukrainian war effort is collapsing. Look at The Hill! Look at TIME, doofus!
How do you think you lost a war while killing 10 Russians for every Ukrainian?
By lying! It’s that simple!
you try so hard to be insulting, it just makes you seem small… and desperate… does that work where you’re from?
That is a funny reply to someone using insults more befitting of a kindergarten teacher than forum users arguing about a war. I am not even swearing at you, kiddo.
Do you need me to spoon feed you links from the New York Times talking about how they lost 850+ Ukrainian troops in Avdeevka?
