31,000 Ukrainian troops killed in war with Russia, says Ukrainian president

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) — Over the past two years, 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the country's war against Russia, its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday.

Speaking at a forum in the capital Kyiv, Zelenskyy said, 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers "have died in this war."

"Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and his lying circle are saying. But each of these losses is a great loss for us," he said at the event, titled Ukraine. Year 2024.

He did not disclose the number of wounded, saying that doing so would aid Russian military planning.

This was the first time that Kyiv has confirmed the number of its losses since Moscow launched its "special military operation" on the country on Feb. 24, 2022.

Zelenskyy also said that "tens of thousands of civilians" had been killed in occupied areas of Ukraine, but that exact figures were not currently available.

He claimed that 180,000 Russian troops had died during the war.