Russia admitted that it suffered “significant troop losses” in Ukraine as the invasion enters its 44th day.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the British Sky News channel that the casualties were “a great tragedy” for Russia.
He also said he hoped Moscow would achieve its war goals “in the next few days”.
Peskov’s comments followed The expulsion of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council Thursday.
About 93 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the diplomatic reprimand, which followed allegations of mass human rights abuses by Russian troops in the northern Ukrainian city of Bucha.
Moscow has announced its resigns from the board in response.
The agency expressed “serious concern about the ongoing human rights and the humanitarian crisis”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of further atrocities Borodiankaa city near the capital kiev.
Peskov denied any suggestion that Russian troops were responsible for the executions in the city of Bucha, telling the British newspaper that “we live in days of falsification and lies.” He claimed that the images of murdered civilians were staged in the city.
However, his admission that Russia has suffered significant losses is surprising. This was stated on March 25 by the Russian Defense Ministry 1,351 of its soldiers had died in combat. Ukraine estimates the Russian deaths at nearly 19,000.
The remains of a Russian tank are removed near Kiev.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine’s estimates of Russian losses can be independently verified, and analysts have warned that Russia may underestimate its death rate, while Ukraine may inflate it to boost morale.
Western leaders believe between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed.
end the war
Peskov, who has been a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2000, also said Russia is looking for ways to end the war.
“Our military is doing everything possible to end that operation,” he said. “And we hope that in the next few days, in the near future, this operation will reach its objectives or end with the negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations”.
Russia withdrew troops from Kiev and he moved most of the focus of his war to eastern Ukrainebut the fight shows no sign of ending.
The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister has urged Ukrainians living in the east to flee as long as they can, but the intensity of the bombing is hindering the evacuations.
Ukraine aims to create up to 10 humanitarian corridors by Friday, but civilians trying to flee Mariupol will have to use private vehicles, Reuters reported.
Not in the cold war
Thursday, Western nations have imposed more sanctions on the Russian economy in retaliation for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The US Senate unanimously voted to remove the trade status of Russia’s “most favored nation”, opening the door to new harmful tariffs and controls on imports of products such as platinum, chemicals, iron and steel.
And the European Union has agreed to gradually impose a ban on imports of Russian coal, worth about $ 4 billion a year to the Russian economy, over the next 120 days.
Speaking before the Russian parliament, the State Duma, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin admitted that the cumulative impact of extended sanctions means that the country faces the worst economic prospects of recent decades.
“Without a doubt, the current situation could be called the most difficult of the last three decades for Russia,” he said. “Such sanctions were not used even in the darkest times of the Cold War.”
A man looks at the exchange rate in the center of St. Petersburg.
But he said the impact of Western sanctions was limited, telling lawmakers that “the financial system, the lifeblood of the entire economy, has been maintained.”
After plunging to an all-time low in late February, the Russian currency, the ruble, has returned to its pre-war level.
Zelensky renewed his call for new supplies of heavy weapons from the West, saying his forces need “weapons that will give them the means to win on the battlefield and will be the strongest possible sanction against Russia.”