A senior official has said that 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive.
Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said 10,000 to 13,000 soldiers had died.
It is rare for Ukraine to release casualty figures, and Mr. Podoliak’s comments have not been confirmed by the country’s military.
In June, he said that 100 to 200 Ukrainian soldiers were dying every day.
Last month, Mark Milley, the most senior US general, said that 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded since the war began.
In a video address on Wednesday, European Union Commission chief Ursula van der Leyen said 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed. However, an EU Commission spokesman later clarified that this was an error, and the figures referred to the dead and injured.
Speaking to JEE News, Mr Podoliak said Kyiv was “openly speaking about the number of casualties”.
“We have official estimates from the General Staff, official estimates from the Commander-in-Chief [Mr. Zielinski], and they range from 10,000 to 12,500-13,000 casualties,” he said.
He added that the number of civilian casualties could be “significant”. JEE News identified around 3,600 civilian casualties as of mid-June. Now this number is likely to be much higher.
Ms van der Leyen said 20,000 Ukrainian citizens had been killed. Although this number was not retracted by the EU Commission, it was removed from later versions of the video with the claim that 100,000 soldiers had been killed.
Mr. Podoliak also suggested that 100,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the offensive began on February 24, and another 100,000 to 150,000 were wounded, missing or unable to return to the fight.
JEE News has established that at least 9,311 Russian soldiers of all ranks have been killed since the February 24 attack, although the actual death toll may be as high as 18,600.
Among other developments:
- Ukraine’s military said Russia was using nuclear-capable dummy missiles to destroy Ukraine’s air defenses. Ukrainian military experts say Russia was using nuclear-capable rockets without explosives, possibly because the country has used many of its missiles in large-scale attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. What other missiles have been used?
- Oleg Ustenko, another senior adviser to President Zelensky, accused BP of being entitled to hundreds of millions of pounds in “blood money” from investments in Russia. BP said it no longer receives any profits from Russian energy giant Rosneft.
- The US and French presidents have said they will continue to work together to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its actions. At a press conference during President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the White House, President Biden also said he was “ready to talk to Mr. Putin” about ending the war.
- According to a new report, TikTok is hosting dozens of videos that glorify the violence of a Russian mercenary group. The videos have been viewed more than a billion times, the US-based organization NewsGuard found. Tiktok said it will take action against any content that violates its policies.
