Up to 21,000 Wagner mercenaries have been killed in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 1 July during an interview with Spanish journalists in Kyiv.
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In addition, 80,000 fighters of the "private military company" (PMC) led by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin have been injured.
"The elimination of such a powerful force and such a large number of mercenaries in the east is also a counteroffensive. It is a serious foothold for our forces to move forward. When someone says that the Ukrainian military started on the 1st, 4th, or 10th day - we started earlier and did lots of things," he stated.
According to Zelenskyy, Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed a "real fist" of mercenaries "who are the most motivated part of the Russian Army" in Ukraine's east.
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