A top adviser to Ukraine's president has cited military chiefs as saying 10,000 to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the country's nine-month struggle against Russia's invasion, a rare comment on such figures and far below estimates of Ukrainian casualties from Western leaders. Late Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, relayed new figures about Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle, while noting that the number of injured troops was higher and civilian casualty counts were "significant," the AP reports. "We have official figures from the general staff, we have official figures from the top command, and they amount to between 10,000 and 12,500-13,000 killed," Podolyak said.
The Ukrainian military has not confirmed such figures and it was a rare instance of a Ukrainian official providing such a count. The last dates back to late August, when the head of the armed forces said that nearly 9,000 military personnel had been killed. In June, Podolyak said that up to 200 soldiers were dying each day, in some of the most intense fighting and bloodshed this year. On Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union's executive Commission, said 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed before her office corrected her comments—calling them inaccurate and saying that the figure referred to both killed and injured.
Last month, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and "well over" 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far. He added that it was the “same thing probably on the Ukrainian side." The UN human rights office said Monday it had recorded 6,655 civilians killed and 10,368 injured, but has acknowledged that its tally includes only casualties that it has confirmed and likely far understates the actual toll. Russian forces kept up rocket attacks on infrastructure and airstrikes against Ukrainian troop positions along the contact line, the Ukrainian general staff said Friday, adding that Moscow's military push has focused on a dozen towns including Bakhmut and Avdiivka—key targets for Russia in the embattled east.
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