The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, put this Sunday at 31,000 the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed since the beginning of the large-scale Russian military invasion two years ago. It is the first time that the Ukrainian side has given a specific number of deaths in its own ranks during this war. “31,000 Ukrainians, military personnel, have died in this war,” Zelensky said when asked about the number of casualties.
The figure, he explained, does not include injured or missing soldiers. “That's a lot of people for us,” argued Zelensky, who rejected estimates that put the Ukrainian death toll at up to 300,000. The Ukrainian president did not want to give the number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers so as not to help Russia know the number of soldiers who have gone to the front.
Zelensky also offered a number of Russian soldiers killed in this war. “180,000 Russians have died,” said the Ukrainian head of state. Another half a million Russian soldiers, he added, have been wounded in the fighting.
The Ukrainian president also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” have died or been murdered after being tortured in the Russian-occupied territories. He explained that the exact number will only be known when the war ends.
He even asserted that Russian forces will try to carry out another offensive in Ukraine at the end of May or in the summer. "We will prepare for their attack. I believe that the one that began on October 8 has not given any results," he said.
In this sense, he highlighted the capital importance that his country will have to continue receiving military aid from the United States in the third year of the war, and assured that the dynamics of the conflict could change if Ukraine received ten additional Patriot anti-missile systems in the coming months.
The Ukrainian head of state explained that Kiev can look for alternatives to the financing it receives from Washington, but that American weapons are irreplaceable for Ukraine on the battlefield due to the shortage in the rest of the allied countries of certain types of military material. that the US has
Zelensky gave as an example the Patriot anti-missile systems that Ukraine already uses successfully to protect some of its cities and strategic infrastructure and continues to demand a greater number to stop being vulnerable to Russian air attacks in more areas of its territory.
“Can we strengthen Ukraine's air defense without the United States? No! There are no suitable systems in the (rest of the) world,” she said of the difficulties involved in finding systems like Patriot in other countries.
Zelensky once again ruled out any negotiations with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as long as he does not accept his defeat in the war. “Is it possible to talk to a deaf person? “Is it possible to talk to a person who kills his opponents?” He said about the possibility of seeking a negotiated solution to the war.
The Ukrainian president insisted on his Peace Formula - a document that demands, among other things, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory - as the only possible negotiating framework.
“We will offer him (Putin) a way to accept that he has lost the war, and that it was a big mistake,” stressed Zelensky, who hopes to hold an international summit this spring in Switzerland so that as many countries as possible give their support to his Formula of Peace.
Once the support of these countries is obtained, he explained, the document will be presented to Putin as was done with the grain agreement sponsored by Turkey and the United Nations.
Putin agreed between July 2022 and July 2023 to allow the transit of grain through the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on its agricultural sector.
Zelensky made these statements at a press conference held in kyiv on the occasion of the second anniversary of the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
