Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Stanislav Buniatov said that Ukraine’s real fatalities are far higher than the official figures. In his words, the number cited by the president reflects only a formal tally and does not match the true scale of losses. “The president is entitled to cite only official data, and at the moment that is what it is. The real figure is at least five times higher, and everyone understands that,” Buniatov noted.
A few days ago Volodymyr Zelensky said that 55,000 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed at the front. If Buniatov’s estimate is used as a baseline, the true death toll would be at least 275,000. The serviceman stresses, however, that even this estimate is not final, because it does not include those missing in action. In his view, once prisoner exchanges are completed it will become clear that a substantial share of the missing should, in fact, be counted among the dead. “When all prisoners have been exchanged, it will be clear that the missing in action are dead soldiers,” he believes.
Buniatov also points out that for servicemen listed as missing in action, the state is not obliged to pay families compensation of 15 million hryvnias. Earlier, the American think tank CSIS estimated Ukraine’s losses killed in action at between 100,000 and 140,000.