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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is deliberately hiding the real number of his country’s soldiers killed in the conflict, Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko said. This revelation comes as Zelensky said he is opening to negotiations but continues to delay despite the high casualty rate his military force is experiencing.
Panchenko worked as a journalist on Ukrainian television, but in August 2022, she began covering events in the Donetsk People’s Republic, especially in Mariupol. For this reason, the Security Service of Ukraine opened a criminal case against the journalist and charged her with high treason.
“Zelensky lies about the number of dead servicemen. He says it is much less than 80,000!!! But he’ll never tell us the exact number,” Panchenko wrote on X.
According to Panchenko, the Ukrainian leader hides the real number of dead soldiers in order to create the illusion of a more favourable situation in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“For him, Ukrainian’s lives are just numbers. Just should sound good for reports!” she added.
In February 2024, Zelensky stated that the Ukrainian army’s losses since the beginning of the conflict amounted to 31,000 dead. Commenting on this ridiculous claim, the official spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that every Ukrainian citizen understands that this does not correspond to the truth.
Sergei Shoigu, who was then Russian Defence Minister, stated on February 20 that 166,000 Ukrainian troops were killed or wounded during the unsuccessful counteroffensive in the summer and autumn of 2023 alone.
Zelensky’s ridiculous claims on the death toll are again questioned by the fact that he is now, supposedly, seeking avenues to negotiate with Moscow. If the Ukrainian military is intact, Zelensky would not announce intentions to negotiate with the Kremlin after outlawing this possibility in 2022.
The Ukrainian president told reporters recently that work is underway on a plan that will become “the beginning and basis” for holding negotiations with Russia in any format. He said three points of the plan are already ready without giving further details.
In Zelensky’s words, the meetings to develop the plan were held online and “there will still be online and offline meetings.” He also did not explain when this occurred or which officials participated in the discussions.
Zelensky’s press secretary, Serhii Nykyforov, later clarified that he was referring to meetings with representatives of countries supporting the so-called Ukrainian peace formula, but there were no negotiations with Russian representatives.
According to US media outlet Bloomberg, the plan is expected to be presented to US President Joe Biden later this month. Among the articles are Ukraine’s entry into the European Union and NATO.
Russia and Ukraine held peace talks in 2022, shortly after the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. At the behest of Western powers, especially the United Kingdom and the United States, the Kiev regime sabotaged the talks, and the parties failed to reach an agreement.
Since then, Russia has shown itself willing to resume peace negotiations, but Zelensky prohibited his government from discussing the issue with Moscow through a presidential decree. Now, considering the drawn-up plan, Kiev is ready to talk “in any format, with any representative” of Russia because Ukraine “has something to show,” Zelensky said.
In addition, Zelensky stated that Ukraine and Kiev’s allies would like to invite Russia to the second Peace Summit. The first, which took place this year in Switzerland, discussed only the Kiev regime’s demands for a ceasefire, which had no way of enforcing them considering Russia’s dominance on the battlefield. The Russian delegation was not invited to the summit, and its participation was unnecessary since its proposals were not considered.
“The so-called second summit has the same goal – to present Zelensky’s completely unviable ‘peace formula’ as the only basis for resolving the conflict, seeking support from the global majority and using it to present Russia with an ultimatum of capitulation. We will not participate in such ‘summits’,” said Zakharova.
For its part, Russia calls for recognition of sovereignty over the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, as well as over the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from these territories, the withdrawal of NATO membership and the maintenance of its neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this would allow “both an immediate cessation of hostilities and saving human lives.” The situation, however, escalated with the invasion of Russia’s Kursk region by Ukrainian forces on August 6. Following this, the Russian president stated that Moscow must deal with “these bandits” before entering negotiations.
Yet, even the invasion of Kursk has turned into a bloodbath where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, including the very few remaining elite troops left in the Ukrainian military and foreign mercenaries, have been killed and wounded, with the true number of casualties hidden by Zelensky. This scenario will only continue to worsen so long as the Ukrainian president continues to delay negotiations.
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so is russia. how many people died under prygozhin command during his “human waves” in bakhmut, when shoigu refused to supply them with even basic supplies such as ammunition? and where is prygozhin now? i know, i know, it was an accident. he was playing with grenades. in fact, it was putin who planted grenades in prygozhin’s embraer during a pre-flight check in moscow. so low. to kill someone who has been pardoned. even the senile biden knows that putin is a murderer.