breaking the silence
Zelensky says 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, The Kyiv Independent reported.
This is the first time Ukraine's government has released an estimate of Ukrainian military casualties since the first day of the war, when Zelensky's office said at least 30 members of the country's armed forces had died.
The Ukrainian military's general staff claimed last weekend that over 11,000 Russian troops had been killed, an estimate that has since been increased to around 12,000, BBC reported.
Russia has not publicly updated its own casualty figures since March 2, when Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said around 500 Russian troops had been killed. He estimated Ukrainian military deaths at more than 2,800.
The U.S. government's figures suggest both sides are painting too rosy a picture for themselves. One official said Wednesday that the Ukraine's armed forces have suffered between 2,000 and 4,000 deaths. The same official estimated Russian losses at 5,000 to 6,000 killed in action, a number larger than the total number of American troops killed during the entire eight-year-long Iraq War, Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich noted.