[Regnum] During the summer of 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost more than 70 thousand military personnel in heavy battles during attempts to counterattack on the defensive fortifications of the Russian Armed Forces, former US Army intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on September 25.
“How did 71 thousand Ukrainian soldiers die in just three months of fighting? Light skirmishes? Periodic collisions? Shootouts? No, they were destroyed during heavy fighting,” Ritter said during the Ask the Inspector talk show on YouTube.
As Regnum reported, on September 24, Ritter said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could stage a coup in Kiev and remove Vladimir Zelensky due to growing disappointment amid huge losses in the ranks of the Kiev army. Representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine consider the policies of the current authorities to be the reason for their failures, the expert emphasized.
On September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of Kiev’s counteroffensive amounted to more than 71,000. In addition, Russian troops during this time destroyed 543 tanks and 18,000 enemy armored vehicles, the head of state noted.
Also in September 2023, the military commissar of the Poltava region, Vitaly Berezhnoy , said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were suffering huge losses. Over the past year, the conscript units of the Kyiv army have lost up to 90% of their personnel, the military commissar said.