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At least 3,000 Ukrainian troops killed so far: President Zelenskyy
He told CNN on Friday 19,000 to 20,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war. Moscow said last month that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in seven weeks of war with Russia and about 10,000 injured, but there was no count of civilian casualties.
He told CNN on Friday 19,000 to 20,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war. Moscow said last month that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded.
Russia pledged on Friday to launch more strikes on Kyiv and said it had used cruise missiles to the Vizar factory on the edge of Kyiv, which it said made and repaired missiles, including anti-ship missiles. The attack followed Thursday’s sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.
Ukraine’s presidential office reported on Saturday that missile strikes and shelling over the past 24 hours occurred in eight regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in the east, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kirovohrad in the central Ukraine and Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south. The strikes underlined that the whole country remained under threat despite Russia’s pivot towards mounting a new offensive in the east.
Zelensky threatens to end talks with Russia
The elimination of the last Ukrainian troops trapped in the besieged port of Mariupol would put an end to talks with Moscow, Zelensky said on Saturday. “The elimination of our troops, of our men (in Mariupol) will put an end to any negotiations” between Ukraine and Russia, Zelensky said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda news website.
In a new development, billionaire Roman Abramovich has travelled to Kyiv in a bid to restart peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, which stalled after evidence emerged of Russian atrocities against civilians.
The Russian billionaire, who has longtime ties to President Vladimir Putin, has been acting as an informal mediator since the war began in late February.
The Ukraine president has appealed to President Joe Biden for the US to designate Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”, joining North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria, the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the developments.
