“Well over” 100,000 Russian soldiers and up to 40,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine, said US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley.
At a conference at The Economic Club in New York, Milley said the same number of victims had been recorded “probably on the Ukrainian side”. “There was a tremendous amount of suffering, human suffering,” he added.
The military said on Wednesday that “initial indicators” show that the Russian armed forces are indeed withdrawing the 20,000 to 30,000 troops they had in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, as they had announced.
“I believe they are doing this to preserve their forces to re-establish the defensive lines south of the river (Dnieper), but that remains to be seen,” said the US Army Chief of Staff.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the Russians may be faking a Kherson retreat to lure the Ukrainian army into a trench battle in the strategic industrial port city, a gateway to the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
Mark Milley said it was possible the Russians could use the withdrawal to reposition troops for a spring offensive, but stressed that “there is also an opportunity here, a window of opportunity for negotiations”.
Both Russia and Ukraine would have to achieve “mutual recognition” that a military victory “may not be achievable by military means, and therefore other means have to be resorted to,” Milley noted, citing the end of World War I as example.
Kherson, in southern Ukraine, is one of the regions annexed in September by Russia, as happened with Lugansk, Donetsk and Zaporijia, which was condemned by the international community.
In addition, Kherson is also one of the targets of a counter-offensive launched by Kiev forces about two months ago.
The city of Kherson was the only regional capital that Russian forces had occupied in more than eight months of war in Ukraine, which began on February 24 with an invasion of Ukrainian territory by Russia.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that he is open to peace talks with Russia to end the war, but only on the condition that Russia returns all occupied regions of Ukraine, pays compensation for war damages and accepts lawsuits for war crimes.
Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine has already caused more than 13 million people to flee – more than six million internally displaced people and more than 7.5 million to European countries – according to the latest UN data, which ranked this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion was condemned by the generality of the international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
*With Lusa
