The body count of both Ukrainians and Russians continues to rise, according to Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S.
Russia’s total killed and wounded had already surpassed 100,000 and the civilian death count in Ukraine had surpassed the 40,000 mark, he said last week at The Economic Club of New York.
“There has been a tremendous amount of suffering, human suffering,” he said.
Milley said Russia’s decision to leave Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine that it took control of early in the war, and the fact that fighting might stop over the winter could give both sides a chance to talk about peace.
Milley added Russia would take “weeks” to evacuate Kherson.
Milley said the initial indicators show Russia is indeed retreating from that region and doing so, in his opinion, to “preserve their force, to reestablish defensive lines south of the (Dnieper) river, but that remains to be seen,” Newsweek reported.
Gen. Sergey Surovikin, Russia’s top commander of the “special military operation” in Ukraine which began on February 24, asserted the withdrawal was preserving civilian as well as Russian military lives and keeping their combat capability intact.
Russian military authorities have overseen the evacuation in recent weeks of tens of thousands of Kherson civilians, apparently expecting an impending Ukrainian offensive. More than 115,000 people were evacuated from the city to safer locations, Surovikin said.
Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Adviser, claimed the evacuation meant “in the battle of Kyiv, in the battle of Kherson, in the battle of Kharkiv, the Ukrainians will have prevailed against an invading, marauding force that conducted an illegal war in their country,” as reported by Newsweek.
“But of course, it’s not the end of the war,” he concluded.
Since the military operation started, Russia has not taken Kyiv, Lviv, or Odesa, but it has occupied much of the eastern territories of Ukraine. Most of the Donbas Oblast, which includes the cities of Luhansk, Severodonetsk, Donetsk, and Mariupol, is controlled by Russia. In 2014, Russia took over the Crimean peninsula.
Ukrainian officials allege 80,860 Russians have died in Ukraine, including 650 in the last few days, AP reported.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that even if many Russians die in the ongoing war, it would not change the Kremlin’s decision to keep fighting.
“So many Russians gave their lives so that a few people in the Kremlin could turn their backs on reality,” Zelenskyy said. “And if the Russian ‘burial’ keeps going on like this, we can say that even 100,000 dead Russians won’t make the Kremlin think about something.”
In light of Russia’s military losses, Vladimir Putin may not hold his annual big press conference this year, sources told the Russian news outlet RBC on Monday, New Voice of Ukraine reported.
On November 11, the Ukrainian army moved into Kherson. Flags of Ukraine fly in the town and near the building where the city government works, AP reported. The Russian flag had been taken down a few days before.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on November 11 evening that Kherson had been freed. He warned that not all invaders had left the city and that the Ukrainian army was still working on getting rid of them, according to AP.
If they do, it may not be for long, according to Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma’s international affairs committee.
“We will definitely come back to Kherson,” Slutsky promised on November 11, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
“Nobody is going to give up Kherson once and for all,” he said. “Russia does not leave anyone behind.”
