Ukrainian forces neutralize about 100,000 Wagner mercenaries in eastern Ukraine – Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared the information in an interview with Spanish journalists.

According to him, the most powerful group of Wagner mercenaries was deployed to eastern Ukraine. 

"Russia used mercenaries, mobilized convicts who were in Russian prisons. They had a very powerful group in the east because all the Wagner mercenaries there had only one way out of the situation. They could not stay in prison. They had no choice later on the battlefield. They went forward as the first group and knew that they could not stop.

Even when they were marching forward, we attacked them and most of them were killed, those who survived did not go back. They kept going forward because they knew that if they were captured by us, they would have a chance to survive. There was no chance of going back without completing the tasks they were assigned. When returning back to their military, Wagner mercenaries were killed. That's why they were said to be very powerful, because these people, whoever they were in their past life, had no way out," Zelenskyy explained.

He called Wagner PMC mercenaries "a living fence of the Russian grouping." According to the president, all other mobilized Russian forces are unmotivated and weaker than Ukrainian forces. Instead, Wagner mercenaries simply have nothing to lose.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy named the number of manpower losses of Wagner PMC during the fighting in eastern Ukraine. According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces killed 21,000 and wounded 80,000 mercenaries.

"Wagner consists of two groups: professional Wagner mercenaries and mobilized people who are just ‘meat’ for Russia. I can tell you here, not for the sake of balance, but for the sake of real numbers, all these people, including professional mercenaries, were killed by our troops, 21,000 of them were killed and 80,000 were injured. That is, our troops in eastern Ukraine killed or wounded about 100,000 Wagner fighters. These were enormous losses for Wagner. And you can imagine how large their grouping was in the eastern part of our country," the president added.

Zelenskyy emphasized that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had destroyed the "real forces of Wagner" in eastern Ukraine, motivated by the desire to outlast the Russian army. He also commented on how this factor affects the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

"The counteroffensive is different. Killing such a powerful force of mercenaries and terrorists in eastern Ukraine is also a counteroffensive. This is a serious springboard for our troops to move forward and demotivate the enemy," Zelenskyy stated.

• On July 1, the Center for Countering Disinformation reported that on June 25, on the order of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, an operation was initiated in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine to neutralize Wagner PMC mercenaries.