About 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the war unleashed by Russia, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Sunday during the forum in Kyiv “Ukraine. 2024,” reports The Kyiv Independent.

“For us, every person is a huge loss. 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war,” Zelenskyi said. “It’s very painful for us.”

With this statement, Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time publicly named the number of dead Ukrainian soldiers since the beginning of the Russian invasion. The Kyiv authorities are still keeping the number of military casualties during the war a strict secret.

At the same time, Zelenskyi did not specify whether the announced figure covers all 10 years of Russian aggression against Ukraine or only the last two years of the full-scale invasion.

The President of Ukraine also stated that 180,000 Russian soldiers died in the war, and including the wounded, Russia suffered 500,000 casualties.

“I won’t say how many are wounded (Ukrainians), because that’s how Russia will know how many people left the battlefield,” Zelenskyy explained.

• Read also: How many Russians died at the front in Ukraine during two years of war? The data was published by an independent Russian publication

Tens of thousands of civilians were killed by Russia’s war in the occupied territories, Zelenskyy also stated, noting that the exact number is unknown, which will be known only after the liberation of these Ukrainian territories.

At least 10,582 civilians have been killed and nearly 20,000 injured since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (UNHRM) said on Saturday.

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