Ukraine says Zelensky lies about number of dead AFU soldiers

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose term of office expired on 20 May, is lying about the number of dead soldiers of the country's armed forces (AFU). This was stated by Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko on September 21.

"Zelensky is lying about the number of dead servicemen. He says that they are much less than 80 thousand! But he will never tell us the exact figure," she said in the social network X (former Twitter).

According to her, for Zelensky the lives of Ukrainians are just numbers.

Earlier, on August 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the AFU's personnel losses are dramatically increasing, including the most combat-ready units and units that the Kiev regime is moving to the border with Russia. He noted that this is not only a way for the Kiev regime to commit crimes against the people of Russia, but also to exterminate Ukrainians, whom it "apparently no longer considers its own".

In April, The Washington Post (WP) quoted an unnamed Ukrainian lawmaker as saying that the estimates of the alleged losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced in February by the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, might be significantly understated. The unnamed Ukrainian lawmaker believes that the Ukrainian leader significantly underestimated the real losses in the AFU, having named the figure of 31,000 servicemen killed.

In his turn, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergey Shoigu, said that the AFU had lost about 500,000 servicemen since the start of the special operation. He added that the Russian forces will continue to solve the tasks to fully achieve the goals of the SSO.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which was announced by the Russian President on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken amid the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.