Dmitry Peskov, Russia’s presidential spokesman, said this on Thursday in an interview with Sky News.
“We’ve had significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us,” he said.
His admission is significant because Russia’s ministry of defence had reportedly said 1,351 of its soldiers had been killed in the war while Ukraine had stated the number of Russian casualties as almost 19,000.
Peskov said the Russian military is doing its best to bring an end to war.
“And we do hope that in coming days, in the foreseeable future, this operation will reach its goals or will finish it by the negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegation,” he added.
Speaking further, the spokesman denied suggestions that Russian troops were responsible for killings in the town of Bucha and said “we’re living in days of fakes and lies”, adding that images of civilians murdered in the town were staged.
Last weekend, viral videos from Bucha, a suburb of the capital, Kyiv, showed the streets littered with corpses, with some having their hands tied behind their backs.
The bodies were found after Russian troops withdrew from the town.
The killings drew international outrage, with Western leaders calling for war crimes investigations against Russia.
Subsequently on Thursday, the United Nations (UN) general assembly, adopted a resolution calling for the suspension of Russia from the human rights council.
The resolution received a two-thirds majority in the 193-member assembly, with 93 nations voting in favour and 24 against, while 58 countries abstained from the process.
