MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. The Ukrainian army’s irretrievable losses may exceed 193,000 service members since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Spokesman for the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) Militia Eduard Basurin said on Monday.
"This has to be mentioned. The figure will, perhaps, even be much higher. These are the figures that they give. I believe that the scope may even be larger," Basurin said in a live broadcast on Russia’s TV Channel One, responding to a question by the anchorman about whether he could confirm the information that the Ukrainian military’s irretrievable losses amounted to 193,000 service members, as reported by Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, according to some media outlets’ data.
As the spokesman for the DPR people’s militia specified, irretrievable losses included killed military personnel and crippled service members who could not rejoin the troops.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics for assistance he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine.
The West retaliated by imposing numerous large-scale sanctions on Russia. Along with this move, Western countries ramped up the deliveries of weapons and military hardware worth billions of US dollars to the Kiev regime.