Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
A Ukrainian civic group said it has confirmed the deaths of nearly 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers since Russia’s February, 2022, invasion by using open sources, and puts the total toll at more than 30,000.
Ukrainian servicemen fire a Partyzan small multiple rocket launch system toward Russian troops near a front line, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on 7th November, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Stringer/File photo
Rescuers look at the site of residential houses heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the town of Selydove, Donetsk region,Ukraine, on 15th November, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Alina Smutko
RESCUERS SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS AFTER LETHAL RUSSIAN MISSILE STRIKE IN EAST UKRAINE
A Russian missile smashed into an apartment block in the sleepy eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding at least three others, Ukrainian officials said.
Rescuers at the site raced to clear rubble to find anyone trapped after four S-300 missiles struck the town shortly after midnight, damaging six apartment buildings and 20 homes, according to the police.
The State Emergency Service said in the afternoon that a body had been recovered from the rubble, pushing up the death toll to two. “There are probably two people under the rubble,” it said on Telegram messenger.
The rescue work continued, it said.
“There were no soldiers living there, only civilians,” Olha, a 64-year-old woman who lives next door to the ruined building, told Reuters.
Through tears, she said she knew a woman who had been killed.
“Of course I knew her…and her son. He was given medical help, he was recovering from an operation. But [she] died…People have been left with nothing.”
Her neighbour, 66-year-old Natalia, looked shocked by the night’s tragedy. “Now I’m scared to be in my own flat.”
About half of the apartment block had been destroyed by the missile, which had torn out a gaping triangular hole that spanned at least ten metres at its top.
Rescuers cleared the debris and warned residents against approaching a surviving corner of the structure as it teetered, close to collapse. A large crane assisted workers in clearing a mass of loose rubble from where the top floor once had been. Many onlookers were in shock, some cried.
Russia has carried out regular missile and drone strikes on population centres behind the front line of its 21-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow denies targeting civilians. Ukraine regularly reports that Russian missile and drone strikes have killed and hurt civilians and damaged civilian infrastructure during the full-scale war launched by Russia in February, 2022.
– MAX HUNDER and IVAN LYUBYSH-KIRDEY, Selydove, Ukraine/Reuters
Kyiv treats its losses as a state secret and officials say disclosing the figure could harm its war effort. A report in August by the New York Times, citing anonymous US officials, put the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000.
Writing in the Ukrainian journal Tyzhden, historian Yaroslav Tynchenko and volunteer Herman Shapovalenko said Shapovalenko’s Book of Memory project had confirmed 24,500 combat and non-combat deaths using open sources.
The real figure was likely higher, they added, noting that many of the 15,000 troops listed as missing were likely dead.
Reuters could not independently verify the figures.
“Obviously, the 24,500 names are not the final number of dead, but by our assessment it is no less than 70 [per cent],” the authors wrote. “That is, the real number of dead in combat and non-combat situations is more than 30,000 people.”
Applying a 1:3 ratio, the authors also estimated that up to 100,000 troops had been wounded.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s defence ministry told Reuters he could not comment on the figures.
The Book of Memory project, which has tracked Ukraine’s war dead since Russia’s first invasion in 2014, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tynchenko, in a message through his employer, the National Military History Museum of Ukraine, declined to comment on the article.
The article, published late on Tuesday, comes as Ukraine increasingly faces the prospect of fighting a long war with Russia.
Ukraine’s top general wrote in the Economist earlier this month that the conflict was becoming static and attritional. A Ukrainian counter-offensive launched in June has made only incremental gains in the south and east.
The authors of the Tyzhden article said it was crucial to balance various estimates reported in Western media, which they described as given to “manipulation”, with verifiable data.
“Should we talk about this topic in Ukraine during the war? We believe so, but only in terms of concrete data and open and trustworthy sources,” they wrote.
Russia has also not disclosed the number of its war dead.
