Advisor to the head of the DPR, Yan Gagin, has said that the Ukrainian armed forces lost about 50,000 soldiers in Artyomovsk alone.
According to him, the understated figures of the AFU losses voiced by Vladimir Zelensky are aimed at lowering the degree of social tension and “relaxing” the population for mobilisation, RIA Novosti reports.
“From Ukrainian sources we know figures about the deaths of about 100,000 military personnel during the period of the “counter-offensive”. The same figures were previously heard from Ukrainian Defence Ministry sources,” Gagin said.
He added that these figures did not take into account missing and wounded soldiers.
Earlier, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called Zelensky’s words about the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ losses a lie.