While Russian losses in the Ukraine war are hot news we rarely get a sense of how Ukraine’s own military is holding up. Now we have a little more of window into the losses Kyiv is taking as well: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is losing up to 100 soldiers a day during Russia’s invasion of the country.
In an interview with Newsmax in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said the situation elsewhere in the country is “difficult.”
‘The most difficult situation is in east of Ukraine, in Severodonetsk, in Lysychansk,” he said. “This is the names of cities in the regions in the east of Ukraine, and the situation in the east of Ukraine is very difficult.”
Severodonetsk and Lysychansk are the most eastern cities that Ukraine has been able to hold on to. Russia has concentrated its attack in the east after making slow progress in other parts of the country earlier in its invasion as Ukraine mounted strong resistance.
“We are losing 60 to 100 soldiers per day killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action,” Zelenskyy said. It is not clear if Zelenskyy was talking about troop losses across all of Ukraine or just in the east, though most fighting is now taking place in eastern Ukraine.
He added that Ukraine has launched a successful counterattack in Kharkiv, also a city in the east, and that Ukraine has almost reached 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from its border with Russia.
Watch Zelenskyy speak here:
Ukraine has not shared much information on troop losses during Russia’s invasion so far.
US intelligence estimated that by mid-April between 5,500 and 11,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed. Thousands of civilians have died, according to United Nations.
Sinéad Baker is a News Reporter based in Business Insider’s London bureau.
