The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, yesterday put the number of Ukrainian soldiers dead at 31,000 since the beginning of the large-scale Russian military invasion. It is the first time that the Ukrainian side gives a specific number of dead in its own ranks.
“Thirty-one thousand Ukrainians, soldiers, have died in this war,” Zelenskiy said when asked about the number of casualties. The figure, he explained, does not include wounded or missing military personnel. “That’s a lot of people for us,” he said, rejecting estimates that put the Ukrainian death toll at up to 300,000.
The Ukrainian president did not want to give the number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers so as not to help Russia know the number of Ukrainians who have gone to the front. Zelenski also provided a figure for Russian soldiers killed in this war. “180,000 Russians have died,” said the Ukrainian head of state. Another half a million Russian soldiers, he added, have been wounded in the fighting.
The Ukrainian president also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” have died or been killed after being tortured in the territories occupied by Russia. Zelenski explained that the exact number will only be known when the war is over.
The Ukrainian president again ruled out any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin until he accepts defeat in the war. “Is it possible to talk to a deaf person? Is it possible to talk to a person who kills his opponents?” Zelenski said about the possibility of seeking a negotiated way out of the war.
The Ukrainian president insisted on his Peace Formula – a document that demands, among other things, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory – as the only possible negotiating framework.
“We will offer [Putin] a way to accept that he has lost the war, and that it was a big mistake,” said Zelenskiy, who hopes to hold an international summit in Switzerland this spring so that as many countries as possible give support for his Peace Formula.
Once the support of these countries has been obtained, Zelenski explained, the document will be presented to Putin, as happened with the grain agreement favored by Turkey and the UN. Putin agreed between July 2022 and July 2023 to allow the transit of grain through the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on its agricultural sector.
The Ukrainian president acknowledged that his country needs to continue receiving military equipment from Washington, and stated that there is no alternative to the armaments produced in the United States. “First of all, when we talk about the aid of the United States we must understand that it is not a matter of financial reserves. It’s about weaponry,” Zelenski said about whether Ukraine will be able to hold out in the coming months if U.S. assistance is not unblocked.
The Ukrainian leader admitted that if the $60 billion aid package proposed by the White House for this year is not approved in Congress, Ukraine will be “weakened on the battlefield.” “And here I can’t tell him what will happen. I don’t have [an option of] reservation here,” he added.
The Ukrainian president explained that his country can look for funding elsewhere, but that it would not find enough weaponry outside the US to meet the needs at the front. “For example, a Patriot [missile] system costs 1.5 billion [dollars], but it cannot be bought without the help of the US,” he said. “There are no systems like this in the world. And the alternative in the world exists in low quantities”, he said.
On the aid package pending in the US Congress, Zelenski said he was “confident” in a positive solution, insisting that both President Joe Biden and the Republican and Democratic parties know that Ukraine needs to be unblocked. ‘assistance before “one month”.
