President: Russian army casualty rate in war many times higher than Ukraine’s

"If we talk about the ratio [of losses] between us and Russia, it is big – many times higher. They have much more losses. I hold the meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief two or three times a week. Every time, apart from certain decisions, one of the most important [issues] is how many lives we were able to save and how many losses we have. These are both the killed and the wounded... And I see the losses of the enemy and the losses of Ukrainians, we see specific numbers – and the Russian [casualty rate] is many times high," President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky told Spanish journalists in an interview, Ukrinform reports.

At the same time, he noted that it is now impossible to estimate civilian casualties as about 30% of the territory of Ukraine is under temporary occupation.

"Still, 26-30% of Ukraine is under occupation. And that's why we don't know how many [civilians] have been killed, we don't know if the information from those people who are in concentration camps or in captivity is true... Because this information is obtained through intermediaries, or from social networks, or from Russia, intelligence. That is, this is vague information. You do not know how many people are buried in Mariupol... We do not know today how many people [were killed] in Donbas where the towns were completely destroyed. Wherever Russia still controls the territory, we don't know what happens to the people there," the President said.

At the same time, he noted that the bodies of tortured people are found in the basements of the de-occupied towns, and mass graves of the murdered are discovered even now in Kyiv region which was liberated more than a year ago. Therefore, it is currently impossible to estimate civilian casualties.

As reported, the Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated about 228,870 Russian soldiers from February 24, 2022 to July 1, 2023.