Russia recorded on Saturday, April 16, 23,367 fatalities suffered by the Army and other militarized formations of Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, self-called “special military operation” in the neighboring country.
“Today the irrecoverable losses (Ukrainians) add up to 23,367 people,” said the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, General Igor Konashénkov, in a press appearance.
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He specified that this figure includes soldiers from the Ukrainian Army and National Guard, as well as foreign mercenaries.
Konashenkov announced that the Russian Defense Ministry plans to publish excerpts of documents from the Ukrainian side about its military casualties soon.
He dismissed the figures of between 2,500 and 3,000 own fatalities disclosed by the Ukrainian side.
“For this April 16 only in Mariúpol the losses of the Ukrainian group amount to more than 4,000 troops,” he added.
The Russian military officer pointed out that the Ukrainian forces have been expelled from the entire urban territory of Mariupol, a strategic port city on the shores of the Sea of Azov, in the south of the Donetsk region.
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“The remains of the Ukrainian grouping are completely fenced off on the territory of the Azovstal Metallurgical Plant. The only chance to save their lives is to lay down their arms and surrender,” he stressed.
In addition, the spokesman reported that in the course of today the Russian Armed Forces attacked 15 Ukrainian military installations with high-precision missiles fired from planes.
“As a result of the attacks, more than 320 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and wounded, 23 armored cars and seven cars were destroyed,” it added.
Later, the spokesman informed the press that Russia destroyed “317 installations with missiles, including 274 support points and military groups, 24 command posts and two fuel depots of the Ukrainian forces,” according to the Sputnik agency.
Russian aviation, he said, eliminated 67 areas of concentration of military, weapons and war equipment.
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In addition, Russian air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian Forces transport plane near Odessa, “which was delivering a large batch of weapons supplied to kyiv by Western countries,” the Russian military added.
In total, he summarized, since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, 134 aircraft, 460 drones, 2,269 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 987 field artillery units and mortars were destroyed.
