At least 70,000 soldiers have been killed, Ukrainian journalist Yury Butusov has claimed, citing confidential general-staff data
The Ukrainian military has had at least 70,000 soldiers confirmed dead and another 35,000 missing in the conflict with Russia, journalist Yury Butusov, widely believed to be associated with former President Pyotr Poroshenko, has claimed, citing confidential data provided by the country’s general staff to Vladimir Zelensky.
Butusov, editor-in-chief of the popular news website Censor.net, made the revelation on Thursday while responding to a question on whether rumored figures of 100,000 killed in action and 200,000 deserters held any merit.
“Unfortunately, our irrecoverable losses in the war, they really amount to, according to the data that the General Staff transmitted to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, if you count the dead and missing together, they amount to about 105,000 servicemen,” he stated.
Some 70,000 soldiers have been confirmed dead, with another 35,000 considered missing in action, Butusov noted. The journalist did not comment on the massive figure believed to reflect the number of soldiers who had gone AWOL.
The journalist also referred to a recent report by The Economist, which cited leaked intelligence memos on the Ukrainian casualties. The weekly suggested Kiev has lost almost 500,000 troops, with “at least” 60,000-to-100,000 believed to be dead and “perhaps a further 400,000 too injured to fight on.” Butusov alleged the Western reporters likely got their figures from the same document he did.
The Economist report invoked a reaction from Zelensky himself, with the Ukrainian leader disputing the figure.
“Someone recently gave information in the American media that 80,000 Ukrainians have been killed. But I want to tell you that no, less. Much less,” he told Kyodo News earlier this week.
Kiev has been extremely secretive about the casualties its military has sustained over the course of the conflict. The only time when an official figure was provided was in February this year, when Zelensky claimed some 31,000 troops had been killed since the beginning of the hostilities and dismissed any higher tallies as Russian propaganda. Earlier this year, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine’s military losses, both killed and injured, since February 2022 had reached almost 500,000.
