OVER 23,000 UKRAINIAN TROOPS KILLED IN WAR, RUSSIA CLAIMS

Sun 17 April 2022:

A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While Independent Press takes utmost care to accurately report this developing news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

On Saturday, Russia claimed that Ukraine has lost nearly 23,000 troops since the conflict began.

At a daily briefing in Moscow, Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov promised to disclose documents taken from the Ukrainian military in the near future, confirming the figures.

“The Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation has reliable data on the true losses of the Ukrainian army, National Guard, and foreign mercenaries who arrived, which (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy is afraid to tell the people of Ukraine. As of today, the irretrievable losses amount to 23,367 people.

“We will publish some data from Ukrainian documents about their losses, revealing the place of death, the burial places of the dead, in the near future,” Konashenkov said.

Over the day, 15 objects of Ukraine’s military infrastructure were hit by high-precision air-launched missiles, including six sites of concentration of Ukrainian military equipment and seven strongholds of Ukrainian troops, the spokesman further said.

In addition, more than 320 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and wounded, 23 armored vehicles and seven vehicles for various purposes were destroyed in the strikes, he said.

“In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 134 aircraft, 460 unmanned aerial vehicles, 246 air defense systems, 2,269 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 252 multiple rocket launchers, 987 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 2,158 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed,” he said.

3,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed: Zelenskyy

Up to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of the Russian war late February, the Ukrainian president said.

“As to our military, out of the numbers we have, we think that we lost 2,500 to 3,000, in comparison with the Russian military, who lost about 19 (thousand) to 20,000,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with CNN on Friday.

Almost 10,000 others have been injured during the war and “it’s hard to say how many will survive,” Zelenskyy added.

Russia, however, said it has lost 1,351 soldiers during the war.

According to UN estimates, at least 1,982 people have been killed and 2,651 injured in Ukraine since the start of the war, with the true figure likely to be far higher.

According to the UN refugee agency, more than 4.8 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries, with over 7 million more internally displaced.

-NEWS AGENCY

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