Zelenskyy says Ukraine has lost 43,000 soldiers during war

Volodymyr Verbianyi, Bloomberg News on Dec 8, 2024

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Kyiv says fatalities among its soldiers since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 have reached 43,000, a rare estimate much lower than a figure offered by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

The toll was revealed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a statement on the social media platform X on Sunday, hours after Trump claimed that Ukraine’s had “lost” 400,000 soldiers.

Still, it’s unclear if Trump was referring to wounded troops as well as those killed. Zelenskyy said there had been 370,000 cases of “medical assistance for the wounded” on the battlefield, including light or repeat injuries. About half of the Ukrainian soldiers wounded in action have later returned to service, he said.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, the morning after a meeting in Paris with Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump provided an estimate of casualties for both Ukrainian and Russian troops in the almost three-year old war.

“Close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead,” Trump said. Russia’s defense ministry doesn’t publish casualty estimates.

Trump called for an “immediate ceasefire” followed by negotiations, adding that Zelenskyy “would like to make a deal” to end the war. While Ukraine’s government doesn’t deny it seeks peace, it has repeatedly stressed the necessity of obtaining meaningful guarantees from its allies, led by the U.S.

“When we talk about an effective peace with Russia, we should first of all talk about effective guarantees of peace,” Zelenskyy said in Sunday’s X post.

The war “cannot simply end with a piece of paper and a few signatures,” Zelenskyy said. “A ceasefire without guarantees can be reignited at any moment.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also responded to Trump’s social media post, repeating Moscow’s message that it’s open to talks but referring to “conditions” outlined in July by Putin. That included “taking account the realities emerging ‘on the ground,” Peskov said, at a time Russian forces have been making steady advances through parts of eastern Ukraine.

The updated fatality estimate from Zelenskyy implies that about 12,000 service members have died since February, when Ukraine’s leader officially estimated the death toll at 31,000.

In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News published on Dec. 1, Zelenskyy denied reports that as many as 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed. The Wall Street Journal reported the figure in September, citing sources it didn’t identify.

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(With assistance from Áine Quinn.)

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