Zelensky raises military deaths to 31,000 and calls for more Patriot missiles to change the course of the war

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyrevealed this Sunday that some Since the start of the war with Russia, 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killeda fact that until now they had not been published the Ukrainian authorities.

“I don’t know if I have the right. It is a very serious moment (…). There have been voices among the more radical American public saying we have 300,000 dead and how many more we want. The Russians say Ukraine has lost more than 100,000 people and the Russians about 35,000. They say something like that, but it’s all a lie. 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war, not 300,000, not 150,000 as Putin and his circle of liars say. Each of those lives is a great loss for us,” Zelensky said at a meeting on the war situation, according to Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.

The President has reiterated that “it is very painful for us” and that for this reason “I am not going to say how many wounded there are, because Russia would know how many have left the battlefield.” “I’m not going to say,” he emphasized.

Zelensky has also acknowledged missing soldiers. “I’m not going to play with the numbers. I don’t want to. Why? Because the last exchange showed that it would be inaccurate because several people have returned. They were on the list of missing people,” he argued. .

The Ukrainian president has also referred to the “tens of thousands of civilians killed in the temporarily occupied areas.’ ‘We know tens of thousands of them. “I don’t know how many died, murdered, tortured, how many were deported,” he added.

The Ukrainian armed forces have also been reporting this since the start of the war About 409,820 Russian “invaders” have diedincluding 810 deaths in the past 24 hours.

Zelensky asks the US for more Patriot missiles to change the course of the war

On the other hand, the President of Ukraine has emphasized the capital interest that will have for your country scontinue to receive military assistance from the United States in the third year of the war, and ensured that lThe dynamics of the conflict could change if Ukraine were to receive ten Patriot anti-missile systems in the coming months Additionally.

The Ukrainian head of state has explained that Kiev can look for alternatives to the financing it receives from Washington, but that American weapons are irreplaceable for Ukraine on the battlefield due to the shortage in the rest of the allied countries of certain types of military equipment. that the US has.

“Can we strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses without the United States? No! There are no adequate systems in the world,” he said of the difficulties associated with finding systems like the Patriot in other countries.

Regarding the prospects of releasing the $60 billion in aid to Ukraine that a section of the Republican Party in the US Congress is rejecting, Zelensky has said he is “confident” that a positive solution will be reached, and has stated that Ukraine needs the aid to be approved within a period of “one month”.

Zelensky expected a “difficult” month of March and April for Ukraine, given the pressure of the Russian offensive in the east and southeast and the uncertainty about the continuity of US aid.