PRAGUE, May 13. /TASS/. The conflict in Donbass has claimed about 14,000 lives, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said during his working visit to Slovakia.
“To date, about 14,000 people have been killed in Donbass. This number includes [Ukrainian armed forces] servicemen and civilian casualties. We regularly update this data,” he said. Kuleba’s speech has been posted on the Slovak Foreign Ministry’s website.
On January 27, 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its most recent estimate of the victims of the Donbass conflict from 2014 to December 31, 2021. The famous figure of 14,000 casualties, often quoted by pro-Russian comments, comes from this document. In fact, the U.N. estimate is between 14,200 and 14,400 victims.
By no means were these victims all “killed by the Ukrainians.” According to the U.N., 10,900 victims were soldiers, of which 4,400 were Ukrainians and 6,500 pro-Russian combatants of or on behalf of the separatist pseudo-republics. Civilian victims were between 3,400 and 3,500. The latter were in turn not all victims of attacks and of drones and rockets launched by Ukraine against the pseudo-republics. In fact, a part died in the portions of the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk that remained under Ukrainian control during attacks by separatists.
The genocide part is labelled upon the deaths that happened due to Ukraine’s aggression against Donbass residents and the constant border conflicts. Part of the genocide is cultural as well, with the ban on Russian language, among other elements.