Ukraine: Russian invasion hits 1,000-day milestone – DW – 11/19/2024

Leaders of the G20 meeting in Brazil have issued a final statement that calls for peace in Ukraine but does not mention Russia as the aggressor.

In it, the leaders said they wanted to “highlight the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war with regard to global food and energy security, supply chains, macro-financial stability, inflation and growth.”

“We welcome all relevant and constructive initiatives that support a comprehensive, just, and durable peace, upholding all the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter for the promotion of peaceful, friendly, and good neighborly relations among nations,” the statement continued.

The statement reflects Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s intention to uphold Brazil’s decades-old principle of nonalignment.

Since taking office in January 2023, he has often made remarks suggesting that Russia, NATO and Ukraine share blame for the conflict. 

DW journalists Andreas Noll and Jan Walter have written a summary of events in Ukraine over the past years as it fights the Russian invasion for the 1,000th day.

They highlight the displacement and suffering caused in the Ukrainian population by Russia’s aggression, noting that the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine has worsened considerably as the war drags on.

You can read their account here.

Russia has said more than 900,000 members of Ukraine’s armed forces have been killed or injured since Russia’s full-scale invasion started in Ukraine 1,000 days ago.

The figure from the Ministry of Defense and state-run news agency TASS cannot be independently verified, and neither Moscow nor Kyiv has disclosed exact numbers for their own losses.

Western estimates of the death tolls on both sides generally suggest that Ukrainian casualties are much lower than Russian ones.

The New York Times recently reported that 57,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed so far, which is widely thought to be roughly half of the Russian casualties. 

NATO has estimated Russian losses at more than 600,000 dead and wounded, while the Ukrainian government says that more than 722,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of the war in February 2022.

Regional officials in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy say a Russian drone attack there has killed six people, including a child.

The attack, which hit a residential dormitory in the town of Hlukhiv, also injured 12, according to the military administration of the Sumy region.

The Sumy region borders Russia and is a supply route for Ukrainian forces that have seized territory during an incursion into the neigboring Russian region of Kursk.

Twelve people, including two children, were killed in Sumy over the weekend in a Russian missile attack.

tj/sms (AP, AFP, DPA, Reuters)