Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war with Russia, in a rare official statement on military losses sustained during the two-year war.
At a press conference in Kyiv, Zelensky said: “31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war. Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever Putin and his lying circle are saying. But each of these losses is a great loss for us.”
Volodymyr Zelensky said he would not give the number of wounded as that would help Russian military planning.
Typically, Ukrainian officials do not make public the numbers of servicepeople killed in the war.
It comes after the defence minister said half of all Western aid for Ukraine has been delayed, costing lives and territory.
“At the moment, commitment does not constitute delivery,” Rustam Umerov said in a televised address on Sunday.
Ukraine is currently experiencing a variety of setbacks in its mission to drive Russia from its territory.
Mr Umerov said that the lack of supplies put Ukraine at a further disadvantage “in the mathematics of war”.
“We do everything possible and impossible but without timely supply it harms us,” he said.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned in November that plans to deliver a million artillery shells by March would not be met.
In January, the European Union (EU) said just over half of these would reach Ukraine by the deadline and that the full promised amount would not be there until the end of 2024.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, blamed a lack of production capacity but Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said allies had been stepping this up.
Ukrainian forces have often complained of shortages in their war with Russia.
Zelensky said one of the reasons Ukraine’s highly anticipated counter-offensive did not start earlier last year was the lack of weapons.
