President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine has lost 31,000 servicemen during the full-scale war. He said this during a press conference in response to a question from a telethon journalist.
"Thirty-one thousand Ukrainian soldiers died in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, as Putin and his lying circle are saying," he said.
The president stressed that every death is a great loss for us. He called the first official announcement of the losses "a somber moment".
Zelenskyy said that different parties had mentioned different false losses: 100,000 and 300,000 Ukrainians.
"This is all a lie. All of this is absolute nonsense," the president said. After a short pause, he put the death toll at 31,000.
He added that 180,000 Russians were killed. And Russia's total losses, including the wounded, are up to 500,000.
"I won't say how many wounded, because Russia will know how many left the battlefield," he said.
There are also missing Ukrainians - the president will not say their number either.
"In addition to the military, there are tens of thousands of Ukrainians in the occupied territory, and we do not know how many our civilians Russians have killed," he added.