A month after invading Ukraine, Russia reported for the first time how many of its soldiers had been killed. The Russian military said on Friday that 1,351 soldiers have been killed in Ukraine and more than 3,000 have been injured.
The Russian military said it had evacuated more than 400,000 civilians from Ukraine. During this, Russia strongly condemned Western countries for supplying arms to Ukraine.
At the briefing, senior military officials gave the first update on Russian deaths in weeks, adding that 3,825 of its soldiers were also wounded. Mikhail Mizintsev, a senior defense ministry official, said 419,736 civilians were taken to Russia from the “separatist Eastern Donetsk” and Lugansk regions, as well as from the rest of Ukraine.
‘Western countries making a big mistake by giving arms to Ukraine’
The Russian military reported that more than 88,000 of those evacuated from Ukraine were children, while 9,000 were foreign nationals. “Russia will continue to open and provide humanitarian corridors in all directions,” Migintsev said. A senior representative of the General Staff, Sergei Rudskoi, said: “We consider the supply of weapons to Kyiv by Western countries a big mistake.”
long drawn military conflict
“This will prolong the conflict, increase the number of victims, and yet this move will not be able to affect the outcome of our operation,” Rudskoi said. “The real purpose of such supplies is not to support Ukraine, but to drag it into a prolonged military conflict,” he said. “Some NATO members are suggesting shutting down the skies. The Russian armed forces will respond accordingly,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called on NATO to impose a no-fly zone on his country. Rudskoi said that Russia is conducting an operation “over the entire territory of Ukraine”. He claimed that Ukraine had lost 14,000 soldiers while 16,000 were wounded.