A total of 561 soldiers from the National Guard from Ukraine have died since the beginning of the war with russiasaid Wednesday the head of that body that includes the battalion Azovcurrently entrenched in a steel mill in Mariupol (southeast).
Another 1,697 soldiers from the National Guard They have been injured since the Russian invasion began on February 24, the commander of the National Guard, Oleksiy Nadtochy, said in a statement.
Both Russia and Ukraine tend to be sparing in disclosing their casualties.
In mid-April, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyindicated that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had lost their lives and that another 10,000 had been wounded and admitted that it was “hard to say how many of these might survive”.
The Ukrainian National Guardwhich reports to the Ministry of the Interior, was created in March 2014 after Russia took control of the crimean peninsulaon the Black Sea, and concentrate troops along Ukraine’s eastern borders.
By law, it can have up to 60,000 troops and has absorbed several self-defense groups that were at the forefront of the Maidan revolution in 2014, as well as several nationalist regiments such as the Azov regiments.
Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday that more than 1,000 members of the Azov battalion remain entrenched in the Azovstal steel plant and that among them there are hundreds of wounded.