Up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died since the Russian invasion began in February, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed.
“We have official estimates from the General Staff (…) ranging from 10,000 to 13,000 dead,” Mykhailo Podolyak declared on Thursday to the Ukrainian Channel 24.
He added that Zelensky would release the official data “at the appropriate time”.
In June, when Russian forces took control of the Lugansk region (east), Zelensky claimed that Ukraine was losing “from 60 to 100 soldiers a day, killed in combat, and almost 500 wounded in combat”.
In September, Russian Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu said 5,937 Russian troops had died in nearly seven months of fighting.
Both sides are accused of minimizing their casualties in order not to undermine the morale of their soldiers.
In November, the Commander of the General Staff of the United States, General Mark Milley, claimed that more than 100,000 Russian service members had died or been wounded in Ukraine. He also said Kiev forces had suffered similar casualties.
The figures released by Milley, which were not independently verified, were the most accurate figures released by Washington to date.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians died in the fighting, the fiercest in Europe for decades.
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