Kyiv, Ukraine, May 11, 2022 (AFP) – The head of the corps, which includes the Azov battalion, said on Wednesday (11) that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the deaths of 561 Ukrainian National Guard soldiers so far. currently located in Mariupol steelworks complex.

Another 1,697 National Guard soldiers have been wounded since February 24, National Guard commander Oleksiy Nadtochy said in a statement.

Both Russia and Ukraine generally do not disclose casualty figures in the conflict.

In mid-April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another 10,000 wounded, admitting it was “hard to say how many of them would have survived”.

The National Guard of Ukraine under the Ministry of Internal Affairs was formed in March 2014 after Russia took control of the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea and concentrated its troops along Ukraine’s eastern borders.

By law, the company could have up to 60,000 soldiers and included several nationalist regiments, such as the Azov battalion, as well as various self-defense groups that were at the forefront of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution (Maidan).

Ukrainian authorities reported yesterday that more than 1,000 members of the Azov battalion are stationed at the Azovstal steelworks, with hundreds injured among them.