Conflicts

At least 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed since the start of Russia's large-scale invasion. Volodymyr Zelensky has said so in a rare admission about the scale of casualties in his country.

In a post on social media, the Ukrainian president said 370,000 wounded had been reported, although this figure included soldiers wounded more than once and some injuries were reportedly minor in nature. Zelensky also claimed that 198,000 Russian soldiers had already been killed and another 550,000 wounded.

This is striking since both Zelensky and Putin usually never talk about their own deaths and injured soldiers. The trigger for Zelensky's sudden communication is said to be Donald Trump's message claiming that Ukraine has ‘ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers already’, while nearly 600,000 Russians have already been killed or wounded.

Zelensky's estimates of Russian losses match those of senior Western officials, who estimate that Russia has suffered around 800,000 casualties, both killed and wounded.

According to the British Ministry of Defence, Russia suffered 45,680 casualties in November alone - more than in any month since the invasion began in February 2022. According to the latest estimates by the British Defence Intelligence Agency, an average of 1,523 Russian soldiers are killed and wounded every day.

(SR for Tagtik/Source: BBC News - Nieuwsblad/Illustration picture: Dmytro Tolokonov for Unsplash)