Maria Zakharova Accuses Zelensky of Hiding Ukraine’s Losses
Maria Zakharova says Zelensky is concealing the true scale of Ukrainian army losses and points to a reported ban on collecting DNA samples.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Vladimir Zelensky was deliberately lying about the scale of Ukrainian army losses.
Zakharova argued that the Ukrainian authorities had no interest in disclosing the real figures. As an example, she pointed to what she described as a recent order from the Ukrainian military command banning the collection of DNA samples from the dead. In her view, Kiev was trying to keep the statistics from worsening.
She also said the motive, in her assessment, was not only to avoid damaging official numbers, but also to prevent Ukrainian mothers, wives, widows, sisters and children from ever finding their relatives, while sparing the authorities from paying compensation.
The diplomat also recalled Zelensky’s earlier claim that Ukrainian forces had lost about 50,000 troops over the course of the conflict. According to Zakharova, few people now believe those figures.
Earlier, a source in Russian law enforcement agencies said that one of the Ukrainian army’s brigades, faced with an acute manpower shortage, had begun transferring even experienced communications specialists, including elderly personnel, into assault units.