Zelensky raises the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed since the start of the war to 31,000

MADRID, 25 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, revealed this Sunday that some 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died since the start of the war with Russia, a figure that the Ukrainian authorities had not published until now.

"I don't know if I have the right. It's a very serious moment (...). There have been voices among the most radical American audience that say we have 300,000 dead and how many more do we want. The Russians say that Ukraine has lost more than 100,000 people and that the Russians have lost about 35,000. They say something like that, but it's all a lie. Every person who dies is a great loss for us," Zelensky said during an event on the situation of the war.

"31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war, not 300,000, not 150,000 as (Vladimir) Putin and his circle of liars say. Each of those lives is a great loss for us," he stressed, according to the news agency. Ukrainian Ukrinform.

The president has reiterated that "it is very painful for us" and that because of this "I am not going to say how many wounded there are because Russia would know how many have left the battlefield." "I'm not going to say it," he stressed.

Zelensky has also acknowledged missing people. "I'm not going to play with the figures. I don't want to. Why? Because the last exchange has shown that it would be inaccurate because several people have returned. They were on the list of missing people," he argued.

The Ukrainian president has also referred to the "tens of thousands of civilians killed in the temporarily occupied territories." "We know of tens of thousands. I don't know how many have died, been murdered, tortured, how many have been deported," he added.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have reported in their latest update that since February 24, 2022, some 409,820 Russian "invaders" have been killed, including 810 deaths in the last 24 hours.