Data comes at a time when peace is once again negotiated with the United States as mediator
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, revealed that around 55,000 Ukrainians died on the battlefield. It is one of the rare times that Zelensky makes these numbers public, in an interview with France 2 television.
“In Ukraine, the official number of soldiers killed on the battlefield – whether professionals or conscripts – is 55 thousand,” he said. “And there are a large number of people that Ukraine reports missing,” he added.
In the same interview, Zelensky identified a deadline for the end of the war. “I hope peace will be achieved in less than a year.”
The last record of Ukrainian losses on the battlefield came when Kiev announced, in February 2024, that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
Zelensky’s figures do not include Ukrainian soldiers killed between 2014 and 2022, when the war was restricted to eastern Ukraine, Crimea and Donbass. United Nations estimates point to 4,400 Ukrainian soldiers killed during this period.
Moscow has not publicized its casualties. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that, as of February 4, Russia has lost around 1.2 million soldiers in Ukraine since the invasion in 2022 – including dead, injured, missing and captured.
In the same interview, Zelensky warned that Russia will continue to suffer huge losses if it tries to continue to conquer all of eastern Ukraine by force of arms.
“We Ukrainians are perfectly aware of the price that every meter and every kilometer of this land costs the Russian army,” Zelensky said.
Ukraine and Russia begin the second day of negotiations this Thursday, mediated by the US in Abu Dhabi, to seek to end the war, which has lasted four years.
Russia has already admitted “progress” in them.
