The exact number of people killed in the battle for Mariupol is still unknown, but according to the latest data, this figure is about 20 thousand. This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with Italian journalist Cecilia Sali for Il Foglio newspaper, UNN reports.
I think it's impossible to really understand this without appropriate work on the ground. We had information that the Russians killed about 20,000 people, but I can't say for sure. There were different people there. There were thousands of people who were captured, and most of them were from this direction. We have returned 4 thousand prisoners, and there are thousands more
He also noted that Russia has taken 19,500 children from southern Ukraine.
We know that, in addition to the military, all the civilians who went on strike, they went to the squares in Mariupol. We know that they either killed them or took them to jail and tortured them there. These are hundreds of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands. In addition to the fact that there was fighting there and a lot of people were injured or killed in the rubble. A large number of buildings were simply smashed there, which is why they wanted to restore these buildings quite quickly. Everybody thinks that this is to show what is happening where Russia is coming back, but in fact it is what they did in Grozny. You know that Grozny is a completely built city, a built city. When the war was going on in Chechnya, when they were fighting for their independence, there was no Grozny, not a single building. They destroyed the entire city and then built a new one. It's not just to show off, it's not just marketing. It's primarily to bury all the people they killed. These are terrible people. That's why no one knows the real number
Recall
The President of Ukraine statedthat a large number of allies are needed to counter Russian aggression. Without US support, Ukraine will have to build up its army, as European assistance will not be enough.