Russian Ambulances Head To Belarus With Injured Soldiers; Ukraine Says It Killed 7000 Invaders
A string of seven bus-size Russian military ambulances with their windows blocked using gray shades were reportedly seen at the entrance of the main hospital about 48 kilometers from Belarus's border with Ukraine, ferrying casualties from the war front.
According to the Associated Press, the convoy was part of what residents and doctors said has in recent days become a steady flow of Russian soldiers wounded in fierce fighting around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
A doctor at the hospital which is in southern Belarus's Gomel region, the main staging ground for Russia's offensive said injured Russian troops began arriving on Monday.?
According to Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, one of those injured is a senior Russian army commander.?
Belarus, ruled by dictator Alexander Lukashenko is the only Russian ally in the region and Moscow has used its soil to launch attacks on Ukraine.
Citing this, Ukraine had initially refused to hold talks in Belarus with Russia to end the ongoing war.
Ukraine has claimed that it has killed more than 7000 Russian invaders so far in the one week of the war.
This is a claim that has not been verified and the figures put out by Russia on the extent of the casualties it has suffered in the war is much less.
On Wednesday, in the first admission of fatalities, Russia¡¯s Defense Ministry said that 497 Russian troops had been killed and 1,597 injured since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine.
United Nations human rights office said Wednesday that 136 Ukrainian civilians, including 13 children, had been killed in the fighting, while another 400 had been injured.
¡°The real toll is likely to be much higher,¡± Liz Throssell, a UN spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, President Zelenskyy on Thursday addressed the people of Ukraine in another video and gave an upbeat assessment of the war and called on people to keep up the resistance.
"We are a people who in a week have destroyed the plans of the enemy,'' he said. "They will have no peace here. They will have no food. They will have here not one quiet moment.''
Zelenskyy didn't comment on whether the Russians have seized several cities, including Kherson.
"If they went somewhere, then only temporarily. We'll drive them out,'' he said.
He said the fighting is taking a toll on the morale of Russian soldiers, who "go into grocery stores and try to find something to eat.''
"These are not warriors of a superpower," he said. "These are confused children who have been used.''
He said the Russian death toll has reached about 9,000.
"Ukraine doesn't want to be covered in bodies of soldiers," he said. "Go home.''
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