Ukraine acknowledged on Monday that nearly 9,000 of its soldiers had been killed since the start of the Russian invasion six months ago, while the European Union (EU) plans a “training” mission of the Ukrainian army facing a “war that lasts”.
Speaking at a forum in Kyiv, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny, said that Ukrainian children needed special attention because their fathers had gone to the front lines and “found themselves probably among nearly 9000 heroes who had been killed”.
This is one of the rare declarations of Ukrainian officials about military losses in kyiv in this war, launched on February 24 by Moscow and which put Ukraine on fire and blood.
The previous estimate dates from mid-April, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the figure of 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and around 10,000 wounded since the start of the Russian offensive.
While many European countries are supplying military equipment to Ukraine, the EU plans to organize a “training and assistance” mission to the Ukrainian army which would take place in neighboring countries, clarified Monday the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell.
The proposal will be discussed next week in Prague during the Council of Defense Ministers of the member countries of the union.
“A large-scale war”, “which lasts”
“A war that lasts and looks set to last requires an effort not just in terms of supplying equipment, but also training and helping to organize the army,” Borrell commented during an interview. a press conference in Spain.
“We are facing a large-scale war”, “a conventional war” involving “extraordinarily large means and hundreds of thousands of soldiers”, he explained.
“This is not a small war,” insisted the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, of Spanish nationality. “Ten million Ukrainians have left their country, it’s as if 20% of Spaniards had left Spain. »
“We are at a time when the front is stabilizing. Even if the Russian army continues to attempt offensives [limitées], we see shortness of breath; Moscow is in a defensive position on a large part of the front and part of its rear in Ukraine,” Dimitri Minic, a researcher at the Russia/NIS Center of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), told AFP.
Two US military planes will fly over several countries in southeastern Europe on Monday, a new show of force to underline the “commitment” of the United States alongside NATO members against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, announced for its part the American command.
On Monday afternoon, UK-based B-52 Stratofortress bombers “will conduct low-level overflights of southeastern Europe,” the military said in a statement.
Moscow accuses kyiv of murder
On the ground in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its troops had killed up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers in three different localities in the Donetsk region, 30 in the Zaporizhia region, as well as 50 in the region of Mykolaiv, in eastern Ukraine. Dozens of Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed there, along with eight command posts, a Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system launcher and six weapons and ammunition depots for rockets and artillery, according to the ministry.
The Russian security services (FSB) on Monday accused the Ukrainian “special services” of having killed the daughter of a reputed ideologist close to the Kremlin, who died on Saturday evening in the explosion of his car near Moscow.
According to an FSB statement quoted by Russian news agencies, the car driven by Daria Douguina was trapped by a woman of Ukrainian nationality born in 1979, who arrived in Russia in July with her minor daughter. This woman then fled to Estonia with her daughter.
Journalist and political scientist born in 1992, Daria Douguina was the daughter of Alexandre Douguine, an ultranationalist ideologist and writer promoting an expansionist doctrine and fierce supporter of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Questioned on Saturday by Russian media believing that the target of the attack was in fact Alexander Dougin, Ukraine had denied Sunday any involvement in the death of Dougina.
“Ukraine certainly had nothing to do with the explosion [de samedi]because we are not a criminal state”, declared an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak.