1 UKRAINE
Zelenskiy gives battlefield death toll for the first time
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a figure for the number of Ukrainian battlefield deaths in the war with Russia for the first time, acknowledging that 31,000 soldiers have been killed.
Speaking in Kyiv a day after the two-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the Ukrainian president said he believed his country would win despite recent military setbacks. He conceded western weapons were in short supply. His troops were running low on ammunition and at one point late last year were firing one shell for every 12 unleashed by the Russians, he said. The ratio was now 1:7. “They have a great superiority,” he admitted.
He refused to say how many service personnel had been wounded, saying such details might help Moscow, but that western estimates of the number of Ukrainian dead were too high.
Zelenskiy put the number of Russian dead at 180,000 and said Russian casualties were 500,000 including the wounded. He described Putin and Russia as a “ring of inhumans”. The Kremlin had murdered the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he added.
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2 RUSSIA
Putin had Navalny killed to thwart freedom, allies claim
Alexei Navalny’s allies have alleged Vladimir Putin had the opposition leader killed in jail to sabotage a prisoner swap in which Navalny would have been exchanged for a convicted hitman jailed in Germany.
Maria Pevchikh, a close ally of
