European Commission Scrubs Mention of ‘100,000 Ukrainian Troops’ Killed in War With Russia
Ukraine has been tight lipped about these numbers and so has Western news outlets.
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Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission's president raised eyebrows when she read a speech Tuesday and stated that 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion.
Ukraine has held those numbers tightly to the chest due to the risk that if these figures are released, it could hurt the Western propaganda that Kyiv is somehow winning this war.
But the commission’s attempt to clean up the mess made matter’s worse. Instead of owning it and coordinating with Kyiv on a response, it tried to scrub any mention of her comments from social media.
What Happened?
Von der Leyen, the top European official, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been brutal and over 20,000 civilians and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died since the first Russian tanks rolled in.
Russian media news outlets noted that any mention of von der Leyen’s comment have been expunged on social media and in the video clip itself. RT noted that the “reference was also removed from the transcript of the speech on the European Commission’s website, and edited out of the video the EC shared on social media again.”
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, said that it was “humiliating” that she deleted her tweet and said, “It is obvious that ‘Aunt Ursula’ was slapped upside the head by her bosses in Washington. Seemed to hurt, too. It looks extremely humiliating.”
The Trends Journal reached out to the State Department, the European Commission, and Urkaine’s Defense Ministry for comment.
Bohdan Senyk, the head of the Public Relations Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told Ukrainska Pravda he could not confirm her figures.
Dana Spinant, the deputy chief spokeswoman and director for political communication for the commission, tweeted, “Many thanks to those who pointed out the inaccuracy regarding the figures in a previous version of this video.”
“The estimation used, from external sources, should have referred to casualties, i.e. both killed and injured, and was meant to show Russia‘s brutality,” she said.
Last June, we reported how Kyiv has been tight-lipped on war realities on the ground and how it will achieve these objectives.
The New York Times, citing current and former U.S. officials, published a report at the time that said American intelligence agencies have “less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military.”
Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official, told the paper: “How much do we really know about how Ukraine is doing?”
“Can you find a person who will tell you with confidence how many troops has Ukraine lost, how many pieces of equipment has Ukraine lost?” she asked.
The Trends Journal has pointed out since the beginning of the conflict that it was nearly impossible to find the number of casualties suffered by Ukrainian troops in Google searches. But if you were interested in finding out Russia’s war dead, there were dozens of article links. Zelensky vowed to fight for every inch of his country, but how he plans on doing that — without NATO joining the war — is anybody’s guess.
Newsweek noted today that Sergey Nikiforov, the Ukrainian presidential spokesman, told Suspilne that "the information about the losses is 'sensitive,' so it can only be disclosed by the commander-in-chief, the minister of defense, or the president himself."
Zellenskyy, who will fight to the death of the last Ukrainian, needs the same treatment Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, got in 1963.