The confusion was initially caused in a video posted by the European Commission President on Nov. 30 regarding a future court for Russian war crimes, in which she mentioned that "100,000" Ukrainian military had been killed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Not only did this number seem much higher than existing estimates, but the figure is held in top secrecy by the Ukrainian military. The video was soon deleted and reposted with that sentence cut out.
Dana Spinant, deputy chief spokeswoman and Director for Political Communication for the European Commission, soon clarified on Twitter that the 100,000 figure was meant as a rough estimate of total Ukrainian military casualties, including both dead and wounded.
Responding to Ukrainian Pravda's requests to comment on the figure, Bohdan Senyk, head of the Press Service of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reiterated Ukraine's position of operational secrecy regarding casualty figures. "We cannot confirm this figure, we emphasize that the losses of the Ukrainian army are official information and are subject to restrictions on publication," he said.
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