Donbass, Three Years On: Ukraine Army Loses 3,000 Troops Since Start of Conflict

The Ukrainian Armed Forces' losses since the start of the operation in Donbas have exceeded 3,000, Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Viktor Muzhenko said.

KIEV (Sputnik) — Muzhenko made the figures public in an interview with the Ukrainian agency LIGA.net that was published Tuesday.

"Over the three years of the war, we have 2,307 irretrievable losses and 8,185 those wounded [as of July 27]. These are purely combat losses. Non-combat losses total 871 people," Muzhenko said.

Kiev launched a special military operation in Ukraine’s southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power as a result of a coup.

In February 2015, the two sides reached a peace agreement after talks brokered by the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine — the so-called Normandy Format — in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Kiev has been reluctant to implement a number of Minsk deal provisions.

The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. Both sides of the conflict, however, are constantly accusing each other of violations of the agreement.

According to the data, provided by the International Crisis Group in late June, approximately 10,000 people lost their lives in eastern Ukraine since the start of the conflict.